The Feminist Brand of Sabrina Carpenter: Empowerment or Exploitation?

 

Anyone in this world must know the name Sabrina Carpenter. Okay okay maybe I’m making it a bit dramatic but for Gen Z predominantly, especially the ones who live in western world have definitely at least heard of those names. Yes SABRINA CARPENTER. The girl with the fur singing her popular songs like please please please, feather, busy woman, and the last released song called manchild trending single? 

Yes, that's the girl I’m talking about, that Sabrina. Sabrina Carpenter has become one of the most popular pop singers in Hollywood right now. All thanks to her iconic music, lyrics, and performance. The rise of her popularity makes her known as both pop star and cultural figure. Songs like please please please and manchild have taken over the chart, not only for the musicality but also as a symbol of modern femininity. The bold lyrics, sultry performances she put, cheeky confidence in herself, celebrated as an act to reclaim female power in male dominated industry as you know where she’s in, yes, Hollywood. But have you ever realized behind all the catchy looks and her glittering costumes and personality can lead her to a complicated question by netizen is “Is Sabrina genuinely using her platform to push feminist principles or is she just selling the fake aesthetic empowerment to gain more attention to herself by objectifying herself every time she performs. 

For all who don’t know, Sabrina's first encounter with the public was through the Disney series. She began her career as a child actress for her role as Maya Hart in Girl Meets World around 2014-2017. During that time, Sabrina initiated her music career by launching albums like Eyes Wide Open and Evolution. As she gets older, Sabrina starts to realize how she is not a kid anymore, she wouldn’t stay as a child actress for the rest of her life. That realization got her to transition herself away from the Disney image. Taking a lot of bold, gritty, and evolving music styles projects, mature acting roles proves how rapidly she changes herself. By 2024-2025, she became more bold, mature, and seductive.  The rebranding she did somehow worked and got wildly popular. She became known not only for her sweet voice but also for her provocative performances, confident sexuality, and feminist leaning lyrics, making her figure shaped into a female singer who is associated with the full spirit of female or women empowerment. This transition sparked both positive and negative emotions towards her, praise and debate were being thrown at her. The problem? easy, a different type of vantage point. Half of them see Sabrina as a modern feminist icon and the other half questioning whether she objectified herself too much and too heavily leaning into commodified sexuality.

As I mentioned before, the song lyrics she got in her song mostly contain feminist themes. The feminist tones were shown by independence, confidence, and also rejection of toxic relationships occurs in her work. Throughout those songs what she wanted is crystal clear to me which is to empower her audience, especially young women to not be afraid to be alone, confident, to leave when a relationship feels too controlling. These lyrics are aligned with Gen Z feminism and anti patriarchal narratives. But on the other hand, Sabrina performs empowerment song lyrics with provocativeness. The flirtatious performance, the not so appropriate lingerie outfit sets she wears, can make a big gap between what she wanted to convey at the first place with the way she brings herself to the table. It can be interpreted as a form of female liberation. She depicts how a young woman can control her own narrative, embracing her body, and be confident about who you truly are. It is good to see a woman as bold as she is right now in this industry to take such moves. Opposing the outdated femininity norms that women aren’t allowed to do what they like, to wear what they want to wear. Particularly, in the era where body positivity and individual freedom were pervasively voiced by the young community.

Despite the positivity she offered within her works, in my opinion they are still the opposite with how she carries herself in every concert and performance. Like I pertain before, she is bold, sexy, flirty, sultry, and the list goes on. It is not that she is not allowed to do that, she is an adult. Feminism supports women's freedom in education, economy, and the list goes on. But not objectification am I right? Objectification is the act of degrading someone, especially women, seeing them as just an object to entertain and satisfy their lust. This can happen to anyone. Objectification should not be normalized. Not by anyone in this world. This act can be done by other people towards someone or by themselves. The concept of self objectification in this case suits what’s happening with the Sabrina case.

She objectified herself. Showbiz often sells empowerment but still operates within an exploitative system. This can be proven from the Sabrina concert concept, where she overtly does mature themes. With lingerie, king size bed on the sets, two men on the same bed, she dances, even falls on the men’s knees for the sake of entertaining people. This concept got me thinking that if she is indeed genuinely a feminist by heart or is feminism nowadays can be taken as a profitable brand? She is clever, Carpenter understands how today’s pop culture works, she combines feminism and marketing intelligence. She touches Gen Z hearts through her lyrics. The heartfelt, confidence, and female rage all in one attracts not only women but also men. However some of the people on the internet still take her whole figure as something that panders to the male gaze. Regardless of any endeavor she puts to empower women, the debates between her being a true feminist or just a fake branding continues.  The never ending question of how she uses her sexuality as a personal choice for the freedom of expression, or is it part of the falsity of the industry still heating in social media. 

Sabrina Carpenter is clearly winning the pop game right now with catchy songs, iconic dances, and a confidence that screams empowerment. She’s bold, unfiltered, and unapologetically herself, which is something many young women admire. Through her lyrics, she talks back to the haters, owns her desires, and makes space for women to feel in control. That’s empowering, right?

But at the same time, the way she presents herself with hypersexualized outfits and provocative performances makes us pause. Is this really empowerment? Or is it just another way the industry sells us the idea of feminism while still playing by the same old rules? Sabrina might be all about girl power, but it's fair to ask: is she redefining feminism, or just branding it? Maybe it’s a bit of both. What’s important is that we keep questioning what empowerment really looks like and who gets to define it. What about you? What’s your take on these footers?