When I grow up, I want to be a WAG

I remember vividly when the WAG phenomenon began. It was 2006 and my friends and I were indulging in complete idleness after the ‘hard work’ of AS-levels, spending our days debating the intricacies of Heat Magazine. Inspired by those radical trends coming out of Baden Baden, we decided to throw a ‘footballers and WAGs’ themed party, and began a vicious argument on who should get to be Victoria and Cheryl. I was hoping to be Cheryl but I lost.

This was, of course, all entirely ironic.

Fast-forward four years and the term has taken on a more sinister meaning. In the aftermath of the 2006 Fifa World Cup, the WAGs became materialistic airheads who had ruined the England team’s chances with their competitive preening for the cameras. For a while the WAG managed to regain some of her credibility, building up independent ‘careers’ such as Coleen’s fashion campaigns and Carly Zucker’s reality TV stint. Then the sordid stories emerged, tales of desperate women struggling to control their partners’ wandering eyes, lonely lives filled with obsessive beauty and fitness regimes, and footballers’ orgies in nightclubs with hoards of barely post-pubescent girls desperate to be the next WAG.

Superficial as the WAG obsession may seem, it is symptomatic of a genuinely important cultural moment in the history of feminism. For some, these women represent the decline of feminism, a rejection of female self-sufficiency and a kick in the teeth to second-wave feminists like Germaine Greer, a generation driven by the desire for meaningful social change with the central belief that a woman’s identity should not be defined in relation to a man.

For others, they represent a new brand of female empowerment which declares that women can be empowered by utilising all aspects of their femininity. The traditional trappings of femininity are no longer viewed as detrimental to the fight for female liberation; ‘post-feminist’ feminism repackages itself as a fashionable form of empowerment that is entirely fitting with mainstream popular culture and consumerism. This brand of empowerment says that women are at liberty to embrace their femininity by ‘mocking’ conventional gender stereotypes, by embracing traditional feminine accessories such as stilettos and make-up. This type of girl-power declares that beauty pageants can be viewed as a celebration of women, that women can have high-powered professional careers and still take unashamed pleasure in stereotypically feminine pursuits, such as shopping, cooking, and raising children. The poster girls for this revolution include scientist Brooke Magnanti, the scientist better known as ‘Belle de Jour’, who declares that she has no regrets about her forays into prostitution and views herself as an independent and empowered woman with an unconventional career.

I’m not entirely convinced by either of these claims. The relationship between a WAG and her partner seems to often comprise of a mutual exploitation, where the woman capitalises on her partner’s successes and pays the price by turning a blind eye to his indiscretions, by long periods of loneliness and constant pressure to remain a certain shape. Some, such as the ubiquitous Cheryl Cole, had their own careers before they met their partners and may go on to outshine their footballers in the public eye.

Yet there is something distinctly unsatisfactory about this particular brand of female empowerment. Cheryl is the ultimate WAG success story, and seems set to cement her position as the nation’s sweetheart after dumping her unfaithful husband. Many are less fortunate; Toni Poole-Terry, with no international career beckoning, has decided to stick by her husband, in spite of the numerous claims of his affairs and generally unsavoury behaviour. Elen Rivas, ex-partner of Frank Lampard recently commented to a tabloid that she couldn’t envisage a career post-Lampard, ‘It’s too late for me; I’m old. The papers say I’m 29 but I’m 34. I don’t know what I want to do now.’

Secondly, this type of female power is too easily tied to and realised through the means of excessive consumption. Luxury items such as designer handbags, expensive beauty treatments and cosmetic surgery now represent the ability to lead a certain type of lifestyle, which is all but unattainable for the vast majority of people, male and female. Yet this is the dream that has been sold to a generation of teenage girls, with studies showing that more girls aspire to be footballers’ wives than doctors or politicians, and with disturbing stories of teenage girls hanging around outside clubs that footballers are known to frequent, ‘investing’ in cosmetic surgery to bring them closer to their ultimate ambition of snagging a footballer.

Cheryl Cole is currently on every magazine and tabloid cover, and public opinion is overwhelmingly sympathetic towards her. I find it hard to feel much sympathy. The disturbing thing about the WAG phenomenon is that Cheryl Cole is the lucky one, with security behind her and opportunity ahead of her. We praise her for her courage in leaving her husband and the WAG lifestyle behind her, forgetting about all those other girls who watch her avidly and have been sold on this dream of new wave female empowerment, the generation of aspiring Wags who put all their hopes on becoming Cheryl but lose.