Sarah Jessica Parker: Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word

Sarah Jessica Parker at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21. Photo: Getty Images

Speaking at a Tribeca Film Festival event this week, Sarah Jessica Parker got to talking about what the word ambition means to women these days.

SJP, an actress, producer, designer, and female-empowerment advocate was there to moderate a discussion around the #ActuallySheCan screenings, three short films which focus on women who kick butt in their chosen fields.

Sarah Jessica Parker moderating a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21. Photo: Getty Images

"It's almost a generational thing at this point: the word 'ambition', and what it means, and how careful you are about saying, 'I'm ambitious or not ambitious,'" the 51-year-old explained to The Cut. "Driven is a word, conviction, passion, energy, direction: Those are all words that you hear more and ambition gets swallowed up, it's the word that houses all the other ones."

The Sex and the City star, who in her role as Carrie Bradshaw, became the voice of a new generation of women, explained that she thinks that women these days avoid the word because of the negative connotations that have come to surround it.

"I think for so long the word ambition had this blindness connected to it," Parker added. "It meant that you weren't aware of anything on either side of this drive. It was this one-lane road and you had to be unpleasant and it didn't involve a conversation and it wasn't collaborative when it was applied to a woman. And I just think it's kind of an old-fashioned, negative connotation."