Shift happens when a group leads
by Miki SaxonI read a fascinating article on the globalization of Sex and the City (oops, never watched it), i.e., single young females, better known as SYFs, who’ve become a powerful, global demographic in their own right.
…Carrie may still see New York as a spiritual home. But today you can find her in cities across Europe, Asia, and North America. Seek out the trendy shoe stores in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore, Seoul, and Dublin, and you’ll see crowds of single young females (SYFs) in their twenties and thirties, who spend their hours working their abs and their careers, sipping cocktails, dancing at clubs, and (yawn) talking about relationships.
As a friend of mine would say, “Who would have thunk it?”
Ignoring the many issues raised in the article, what fascinates me is Carrie Bradshaw as a leader, not of a new trend, but of a full-scale, global cultural revolution—and doing it in four inch Manolo Blahniks.
Three underlying factors came together to make it happen and in a peanut shell they are increased education/compensation, preferred urbanization and postponed fertilization. In other words, SYFs are better educated and earn more, choose to live in cities, and are having children later if at all.
By the late 1990s, the SYF lifestyle was fully globalized. Indeed, you might think of SYFs as a sociological Starbucks: no matter how exotic the location, there they are, looking and behaving just like the American prototype.
SYFs have ignited what The Economist calls the “Bridget Jones economy”—named, of course, after the book and movie heroine who is perhaps the most famous SYF of all.
The New Girl Order means…means the possibility of more varied lives, of more expansively nourished aspirations. It also means a richer world. SYFs bring ambition, energy, and innovation to the economy, both local and global; they simultaneously promote and enjoy what author Brink Lindsey calls “the age of abundance.” The SYF, in sum, represents a dramatic advance in personal freedom and wealth.
So if SYFs are a sociological Starbucks, does that mean we’ll be seeing books replicating SYF leadership moves?
Happy Halloween, party hardy, and enjoy the SYFers—whether as a participant or as spectator sport—it’s always interesting to have a truly visible cultural phenomenon to wallow or follow.
