Legally Blonde depicts female solidarity, and even female friendships, in a way that matures as the film continues. At the beginning, the women are depicted as 'sorority types', with an emphasis on the vapid nature of it all. Despite the plastic nature, it doesn't feel fake. The friendships Elle experiences in her sorority are genuine, from how everyone treats her. The Delta Nu family is a tight-knit one.

Warner's treatment of Elle when Vivian enters the picture is a kick in the teeth to her idea of female friendship and solidarity. The few women in Harvard are all at one another's throats, and Vivian in particular jumps to conclusions regarding Elle's sexual harassment. This was twenty years ago, and the Me Too movement wouldn't get started for another decade. Women getting assaulted in the workplace was expected and shameful on the part of the woman, not the man. This expands throughout the trial, where Elle's unwillingness to bend to Warner and Callahan's influence and insistence on female solidarity wins her trial. She knows things that are vapid to a wide audience, but prove useful in court, such as the knowledge of not washing a perm for forty-eight hours.

Throughout Legally Blonde, Elle is confronted with the idea that her femininity is a liability and a disgrace, with the exception of Emmett. Her unwillingness to back down from the fact that she is a pink-loving, manicure-getting, Chihuahua-toting 'girly girl' is a major strength of her character. This 'girl who knows how to use feminine things for problem solving' can also be seen in Daphne of Scooby-Doo, who uses her makeup and accessories to release herself and others from traps in the live-action Scooby-Doo films.

As time has passed, Legally Blonde has become the archetype for a situation that no longer exists. There's no real way to get into Harvard anymore without being a legacy, as Harvard and similar institutions have a reputation to uphold (aside from the slavery). Women today are divided more by class than by presentation. This film also does not bring into question the racial reality of the United States, and that Elle would have dealt with far harsher treatment from the beginning if she were not the white blond woman she is.

Let us not forget: this film is from 2001. At this time, there was still hope for people our age to buy homes. Now, in 2024, after a major financial crisis, a pandemic, and the rise of fascism, Legally Blonde's story of 'anyone can make it' doesn't ring the same to a generation disillusioned by 2008 and its fallout. We cannot dream of Harvard because the student loans alone would damn us for life. Legally Blonde, through no fault of its own, has become a period piece; a depiction of a world that no longer exists.