Angelina Jolie: The Example or Exception of "Having It All"?

Naomi Wolf publishes a piece in Harper's Bazaar magazine this week titled, The Power of Angelina Jolie, in which she declares that the actress has allowed women, for the first time in a long time, to visualize the idea of "having it all."

Women admire Angelina Jolie, but that would hardly stop the presses. Polls also show that if women — not just lesbian and bisexual women but straight women — had to choose a female lover, they would want to sleep with Angelina Jolie. In other words, women both identify with her and desire her.

There's something more than a simply physical response. Her persona hits an unprecedented level of global resonance — and makes women want to be with her and be her at the same time — because she has created a life narrative that is not just personal. Rather, it is archetypal. And the archetype is one that really, for the first time in modern culture, brings together almost every aspect of female empowerment and liberation...

So she becomes what psychoanalysts call an "ego ideal" for women — a kind of dream figure that allows women to access, through fantasies of their own, possibilities for their own heightened empowerment and liberation.

Jolie is a mother, a sex symbol, a successful business woman, a wife, actress and known for her global conscious and international humanitarian efforts. She's grown beyond her wild ways and can often be the example for women when it comes to being bold, beautiful and bright. Tracy Clark-Flory over at Salon's Broadsheet, however, questions Wolf's enthusiasm and challenges the idea that Jolie could be the ideal icon for feminists:

The truth is that the Jolie archetype taps into the psyche of many women who want sexual and real-world power. As Wolf knows better than anyone, the desire to be desired raises all sorts of conflicts for women, especially those of us who don't want to be merely sex objects. Putting a gun in a sex object's hand might satisfy certain private feminist fantasies, but I'm afraid it comes up far short in reality.

Personally, I welcome Jolie's face in the feminist movement and her dynamic approach to the world. I think that all too often we try to fit into boxes prescribed by society and never take a chance to blur the lines or relish in contradiction - even as feminists. I'd like to see more women who try to be everything and anything they want to be. Only then can we crush the gender stereotypes that keep us from evolving into the best women, men and human beings we can be.