"Bridget Jones" is the buzz among Brits

"Bridget Jones's Diary" strikes chord with many 30-something women, hits sour note with some feminists

From CNN Correspondent Siobhan Darrow

LONDON (CNN) -- She's in her 30s, independent, a bit neurotic, obsessed with her weight. Her body clock isn't ticking -- it's gonging -- and she's worried she'll never find a man.

She's the woman of the 1990s, at least according to the post-feminist icon portrayed in Helen Fielding's novel, "Bridget Jones's Diary" (Pan Macmillan, 1997).

Just about every woman in London has read the book that has been number one on Britain's bestseller list for more than four months. The book's many fans say it's easy to identify with its protagonist -- an insecure woman who resorts to playing down her own intelligence in her desperation to attract a man.

Fans of "Bridget Jones's Diary" say it's easy to identify with the book's protagonist -- an insecure woman who resorts to playing down her own intelligence so that she can attract a man.

"We are going to go through a rocky stage because we are possibly the first generation that has had this kind of freedom, the first generation that has had the power to say 'No, I don't want that. Yes, I do want all this career aspirations,'" says reader Angela Barrett.

Barrett and many other successful businesswomen frequenting the Tao Bar in London's financial district say that independence threatens men.

While many British women see themselves in Bridget Jones, this late 20th century symbol -- representing a state of gender relations that would make feminists of the 1970s shudder -- is a troubling role model for some. Some fear women are losing ground in their battle to be taken seriously by men.

"No one is saying we shouldn't think about makeup or boyfriends, but the balance has gone completely the other way now, and we are presenting ourselves as the airheads they always thought we were," says Charlotte Raven, editor of The Modern Review.

There's even a magazine aimed at the "Bridget Jones" age group

Life as a balancing act

But Kathryn Brown, the editor of Red, a new woman's glossy aimed at the "Bridget Jones" age group, says the '90s woman is more balanced, that an interest in lipstick doesn't clash with her emancipation.

"We do want some of the traditional things that women have always wanted," Brown says. "A family, a nice home. You know, we want to cook great dinner parties but at the same time we want to be at work achieving all the things we know we can achieve."

Brown says her magazine speaks to that new woman.

"She's a very complex woman, the woman of the '90s, I think. She's not focusing on the feminism," she says. "She is focusing on being a woman and making the best of her life."

If feminist struggles have been truly relegated to the past, it could be a hollow victory if men have been alienated in the process. Another literary icon of the '90s -- John Gray's "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" (HarperCollins, 1992) -- seems to sum up the present state of relations between the sexes.

Related sites:

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• Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
• HarperCollins Publishers
• Mars and Venus Homepage

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