so julia
It’s a warm August day and I'm driving down the highway, reflecting on the monumental summer I have just experienced. It has been the most influential summer of my life, and the perfect song to encapsulate it switches on. As I listen to Charli XCX’s 360 from her brat album, I cannot help but focus on her chorus line, “I’m everywhere, I'm so Julia”. So Julia, as in Julia Fox. This makes me smile for two reasons. The first being Julia Fox is everywhere, she has the online community in a chokehold with her smart and bold ideas. However, the second reason hints at a significant shift that has been unfolding this year—a shift that, as a fan of Julia Fox, I wholeheartedly recognize.
This year, there is something in the air. Something big, something new. There is a new feminine phenomenon occurring–a femininomenon if you will–a shift that can only be taken as a product of years of pushback and silent movement. Women are no longer sacrificing identity for peace and stability. We are slowly embracing our differences, and loving who we are even with our flaws. With all of that said, there is one woman in particular who greatly represents and speaks on this effect occurring. Julia Fox, is the face of this new frontier for women.
The JFox Effect
There isn't a big enough word to corral the idea of feminism into one space. Women are always growing in power and diction but it is spectacular to see something truly evolve into an endless conversation. This year, in particular, women have changed in an ultra-positive way, and Julia Fox perfectly embodies this change. Fox is powerful, candid, jubilant, and electric. Fox has openly shared with her audience the journey she has endured to get to a comfortable place with herself. She’s battled stereotypes and barriers all across her different stages of life, even struggling motherhood. But this past year specifically, she has opened up about taking back her power, no longer minimizing herself.
Women historically do not like to take up space. Both physically and metaphorically. After hearing this, I truly felt shocked and sympathetic for the women who spent their entire lives thinking they needed to cross their legs and keep their mouths closed. But the days of this are over. Women need to take up space. Fox and her platform urge women to never apologize for being who they are.
In a 2022 interview with E! News, Fox opened up about her feelings towards motherhood. She shared candidly how minimized she felt after giving birth. She implored women to recognize this too, and understand that the role of ‘mother’ is spectacular and minimizing all at once. She feels that being a mother is truly an exceptional privilege, but she doesn't believe that this is her entire identity, nor should it be anybody’s. For years, women have been faced with the decision of sacrificing their identities to become ‘somebody’s mom’. Women have careers, they have dreams and goals that all get tucked away in a back pocket when they have children, or even when they get married. There is so much importance and weight placed on being a mother or wife today, to the point where women lose their identities and dreams. But Fox makes it clear that she is no longer holding onto that sacrifice, and that she no longer feels an obligation to minimize herself at the expense of somebody else. She is a mother, but she is a woman too. Fox’s statements and candid videos emphasize a bigger picture of what is being pushed back on— the idea that women always have to stay. For the entirety of our evolution and history, women have been expected to sacrifice their individuality and stay. Whether it be stay home, stay put or stay stable as the rest of the family comes to bear their problems. But we are slowly moving away from that sacrifice.
A New Frontier
Julia Fox symbolizes the significant shift happening among women today. As someone who feels this change, I no longer feel the impounding pressure to get married. I know I am only nineteen, and I have so long left to go… but something about never fully accomplishing everything that I want to do absolutely terrifies me. It’s not that I don’t want to get married— going on dates and having someone to love is absolutely magical. Maybe someday I will get married, but there is so much I want to accomplish in this life that I am not even sure if one hundred years could be enough for me. I do not feel the need to be quiet anymore. I can be as loud as I need to be. I feel the need to take up space, to make every room my own. This is the new shift, this is what’s on the horizon. The new frontier is female, and I would proudly label Julia Fox as its face—the author, the artist, the embodiment of unapologetic individuality.
Brat generator. Brat Generator. (n.d.). https://www.bratgenerator.com/
Julia Fox’s advice for New Moms is just as bold as you’d expect. E! Online. (2024, January 31). https://www.eonline.com/news/1348536/julia-foxs-advice-for-new-moms-is-just-as-bold-as-youd-expect