Reading a book this week of a collection of articles from Bitch magazine . . . the last bastion of a feminist reaction to popular culture . . . had me storming around my apartment, lighter aloft looking for bras to burn, a one-woman mob reflecting angrily on the legacy of girl power. In the '90s, young women were taught that girl power was the be all and end all. Girl power meant being "sassy" and "empowered" and was intrinsically entwined with the parallel growth of the "ladette", which meant being able to drink pints of bitter and know who Karol Poborsky was.

Girl power was a marketing blurb and not a principle with any substance. It was something to be plastered on t-shirts and pencil cases and yelled during five second links on Top of the Pops. The Spice Girls substituted feminism with something that was more digestible to marketers and consumers alike, with revolutionary statements that included wearing leather catsuits, pinching Prince Charles on the arse and emblazoning everything from Chupa Chup lollipops and Vespas with a sellable logo.

Somewhere along the way actual feminism became a deserted laneway overshadowed by the masterful construction of marketable girl power. It was the first step in exclusively female marketing pitches dressed up as ideals. In the '90s, feminism in popular culture had its End Of History moment. The idea was suddenly scrapped almost as if a cabal of Bilderberg birds trotted over to Versailles to sign a uniquely unfair agreement with the male species: 'Listen, let's just forget about the whole thing, pretend it never happened. We won't mention Betty Friedan if you allow us to pretend necking Bacardi Breezers and running out to buy platform runners and boob tubes is the way forward.'

Like most popstars on sabbatical (hello Britney), it's always difficult to remember how big the Spice Girls were at their peak and the cultural impact that they had. They sold over 50 million records. They had nine number ones, including three consecutive Christmas number ones, Geri Halliwell's Union Jack dress (the tongue in cheek response to the po-faced Brit Pop Union Jack guitar of Noel Gallagher) became the most expensive item of pop star clothing, selling for around 60,000 at auction. But their real legacy is that the Spice Girls encapsulated the weirdness and contradictory nature of '90s feminism.

Girl power was a diversion. It assumed power: a power that didn't . . . and doesn't . . . exist.

Women were encouraged to blinker the reality of global gender inequality and swap interests in this for a V sign, a short skirt and a boob job, a legacy that permeates today's popular female culture.

Now we're back with them:

Victoria Beckham, a cartoon Peperami with Maltesers for tits;

Geri Halliwell, who is on my fantasy celebrity prison island along with James Blunt and that bloke from the 'carbon monoxide will kill you in your sleep' ad; Mel B, who has spent the last decade marrying ugly people and having babies with stupid names; Emma Bunton, who wears flowery dresses and does that weird rabbit twitch thing with her nose; and Sporty Spice, well, I always liked Sporty Spice . . . she always seemed like the normal matesy one, didn't she?

And that song with Bryan Adams wasn't all bad.

Since the reign of the Spice Girls, the legacy of girl power has triggered a devastating spiral into distorted sexualized culture driven by women. Where the Spice Girls naughtily hinted and titillated, our popular culture is now overtly pornographic. In 2007, girl power looks a bit twee.

Contemporary pseudofeminism is laced with doublespeak. The Spice Girls constantly droned that they were "empowering" women;

"empowerment" in their terms meaning the right to be loud and annoying, boisterous and slutty, seen and heard . . . all the superficial elements of womanhood without darting into that oh-so-boring territory of actual gender equality or women's rights (not to mention to go that bit further, as Timothy Leary did when he said, "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition").

On reflection, girl power seems so homely in comparison to what it has actually become. The 21stcentury Spice Girls, the Pussycat Dolls, illustrate this most accurately. "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends, " has been replaced by "dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me" (which, unfortunately, only works when said by certain people).

The Pussycat Dolls are a sexedup, sluttified, surgically enhanced version of "girl power", symbolising the '00s equivalent of the phrase, which surely has to be "whore power". That a woman has a "right" to dress like a prostitute, to act like a prostitute and live like a pimp. Maybe the Spice Girls weren't so bad after all.