Bow Down, Bitches.
A love letter to the lyrics of ***Flawless, by Beyoncé (featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing women that men are their biggest enemy. In fact, the terrifying truth is that mosquitos are their biggest enemy, killing 725,000 humans every year, with women 50% more likely than men to catch malaria. Only joking! A woman’s biggest enemy is wrinkles. Only joking! A woman’s biggest enemy is a slow metabolism. Only joking! The biggest enemy of women is, of course, women*.
*Caveat: not all women, obviously. Women are fantastic and I’m proud to be one. Just some women. Beyoncé knows.
I love Beyoncé. I’ve loved her since Destiny’s Child’s vocal acrobatics, their manic kerb-kicking trills acting as support group for those — including me — who needed permission to feel empowered. Destiny’s Child promoted empowerment before empowerment became a cliché. Young girls will forever seek out an over-produced rousing declaration of independence in B Major, imploring them to quit that regrettable bugaboo holding them back. I included Beyoncé in the acknowledgements of my book (out now!) because even as the most famous performer in the world, she remains an underestimated feminist force. She makes women — especially black women — feel stronger.
In March 2013 Beyoncé dropped a surprise new track: Bow Down/I Been On produced by Hit Boy, otherwise famous for Hip Hop favourites such as Jay Z and Kanye West’s Ni****s in Paris. It was a departure. Pitchfork said it felt “less like a single than an omen.” Crazy in Love and Single Ladies had positioned Beyoncé as orchestrator of anthems; their slick, quasi-bubblegum beats dominating cheesy clubs and hen do dancefloors. But this was different. Bow Down/I Been On was confrontational. It was slower, moodier, insistent and growled. The internet took a step back and rubbed its eyes… was Beyoncé… angry?
Yeah. She was. Whilst the contribution she makes to her song lyrics is sometimes contested, this was an unusually unapologetic bundle of personal words. Really, my essay is an ode to the phrase ‘bow down, bitches’ sung repeatedly on the track, like a misogynist’s manifesto. But coming from a woman? It was revolutionary. An order. A mantra. A palatable lifestyle serving suggestion, to be consumed with a side of zero fucks. There was outrage. Beyoncé was letting the side — women — down. How dare she do anything other than call men losers? We loved it when she called men losers. Bow Down/I Been On never made it to a record in its original form, but eventually became ***Flawless on her 2013 visual album, Beyoncé. And perhaps due to external pressures, the lyrics evolved to incorporate the word ‘feminist’; a term the star had, in previous years, shied away from.
I know when you were little girls
You dreamt of being in my world
Don’t forget it, don’t forget it
I’m writing a love letter to Beyoncé’s love letter to the haters. The women who called Beyoncé fake, overhyped, dumb andslutty. Female conflict has been omnipresent in rap for decades (see Cardi B and Nicki Minaj for the most recent, overhyped feud) but until then the closest Beyoncé came to addressing female animosity was on Destiny’s Child’s Survivor, which is likely about her former bandmates, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson. In fact, Luckett and Roberson sued the group for ‘defamation and libel’ based on the song’s lyrics. There’s something painful — spiteful, even — about Beyoncé taking us back to being girls: for many a period of innocence and aspiration. A time before life left us jaded, bitter and jealous. Before we fought over boys, fuelled each other’s insecurities and developed eating disorders. You know, the glory days that Fantine cries about in Les Mis. As little girls we dream of fame and adoration, but as women resent the few who achieve it: over-analyse their looks and behaviours to find reassuring flaws.
Respect that, bow down bitches.
Beyoncé is impolitely requesting she be allowed to shine. Sometimes impolitely is the only way. Bow down, STFU. It was one of the most explicit acknowledgements she’d made of her power and status. Her later track with Nicki Minaj — Feelin’ Myself — took it further, referring to the unexpected ‘digital drop’ of the album on which ***Flawless appeared. Everyone lost their shit: “I stopped the world. Male or female it make no difference I’ll stop the world. World stop: carry on.”
As a she, I am familiar with society’s rules surrounding ‘showing off’. We are not supposed to brag or love ourselves. “Bow down bitches” is the antithesis of all we’ve been taught. Like a disappointed matriarch, she’s reminding women — as her most significant detractors — they should bloody well know better.
I took some time to live my life
But don’t think I’m just his little wife
Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down bitches
Beyoncé and Jay Z married in 2008. To some fans, this was the ultimate betrayal. It suddenly felt inauthentic for her to shout about singledom — relying on ‘Me, Myself and I’. She’d been the face of modern, liberated ladies but the mask slipped as she followed the same path prescribed to us for millennia. Marriage. Kids. Servitude. You’re supposed to be dealing with our shit, Beyoncé! You serve us, not him! But this isn’t unique: Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Amal Clooney and Debbie McGee have all had to deal with the world defining them via the man they’re married to. Although only a small percentage have been sawn in half by their husbands.
I’m so crown crown, bow down bitches
This iconic line is emblazoned upon numerous Etsy t-shirts, tote bags and cushions adorning the sofas of fucked-off females everywhere. It was a landmark moment, because Beyoncé was announcing herself Queen; the title of Queen Bey being adopted by her fans — aka the Beyhive — ever since. Beyoncé has a knack of taking ‘cult’ turns of phrase and popularising them. Bootylicous, slay and ‘cake by the pound’ being further examples. You can imagine Elizabeth I belting out “I’m so crown” during those big speeches she did, like the man one. Somehow Beyoncé’s managed to both scold and inspire women in the same sentence. I guess that’s why she’s the fucking queen.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller
We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much
You should aim to be successful, but not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man.
Because I am female I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing but for the attention of men.
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are
Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
I’m prone to hyperbole when it comes to Beyoncé but her inclusion of snippets from novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk moved the needle, and only an unnecessary snob would disagree. Go on. I dare you. Disagree. Millions of men and women have heard this song. Many on repeat. Listened to her demystify the often-contentious term ‘feminism’. Call out double standards. Unpack the female obsession with marriage. Highlight our irrational (taught) competitiveness. ***Flawless did more for inclusion than many of the predominantly white, messianic, middle class and inaccessible feminist texts in Waterstones today.
Beyoncé doesn’t do interviews anymore. She speaks through her lyrics, art and essays. She also celebrates other women this way, like the poet Warson Shire, whose words were melancholically littered throughout Beyoncé’s most recent visual album, 2016’s Lemonade.
You wake up, flawless
Post up, flawless
Ride round in it, flawless
Flossin on that, flawless
I woke up like this
I woke up like this
We flawless, ladies tell ‘em
This is where the song transitions from ‘fuck you’ to ‘fuck me!’ An old boss used to tell me never to moan about a problem unless you have a solution, and this is it. Our solution. It’s entirely rational: if women feel better about themselves they shouldn’t feel the need to bring others down . A theme of the Beyoncé album was imperfection, her message: filtered is boring, complexity is beautiful and pursuit of perfection is dangerous, as the Sia-penned song on the same album goes: “pretty hurts.” The song’s memorable chant — I woke up like this — screams in the face of both the beauty and the media industries, who prey on insecurity.
Momma taught me good home training
My Daddy taught me how to love my haters
My sister taught me I should speak my mind
My man made me feel so God damn fine
My only reservation here is: what’s ‘home training’? Beyoncé nearly undid all the good work. I don’t want to be home trained, like a puppy. Maybe Beyoncé is saying that women make for better dog owners? She’s also saying that a separatist attitude is counter-productive, and I agree. Men need women and women need men and men need men and women need women if we ever wish to achieve an enriched and equal existence.
Say I, look so good tonight
God damn, God damn
Say I, look so good tonight
God damn, God damn
In many of her bangers, Beyoncé asks women to sing along. She tells ladies to get in formation. Join in. The defiant chorus is consistent in her lyrics. Who run the world? Girls! If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it. TO THE LEFT TO THE LEFT. (Which I firmly believe is as much a rallying cry for socialism as it is an order for an unfaithful guy to collect his things and piss off.) She’s issuing a reminder: we don’t need consent to feel confident. We cannot wait for validation from our girlfriends, or boyfriends, to thrive.
But we also cannot move forwards if we don’t address Dumbo’s mum sitting in the corner of the room, slapping our faces with that big old trunk of truth. Women: we don’t help each other. We make each other worse. We judge, we dwell, we bitch, we scratch, we’re groomed to fight not with our hands, but our words. And we all know how much it hurts, too. In comedian Bridget Christie’s hilarious book ‘A Book for Her’ she talks about her own bow-down-bitch experiences:
“Even women don’t think women are funny. My harshest critics, from professional reviewers to the public and internet trolls, have all been women…. Germaine Greer, the female feminist, said in a national paper than women weren’t as funny as men because they couldn’t remember punchlines.”
We all know that old, famous saying: “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women”, but it’s not that simple. From childhood, girls are given a list. A list of what’s wrong with us, and the things we need to improve. A list of ways to behave. A list of things to be: beautiful, well-mannered, elegant, popular, and so on. So, in order to survive, psychologically, we turn on each other. We become bitches. The bad kind.
Will there be a new wave, a 5th, of feminism? I hope so, soon. One in which we ditch the bitch, and understand that we can all be successfully imperfect, without tearing each other down. There’s space! Space for all of us! Honestly! The utopia of accepting we are all flawless, in any way we choose.
If you liked this, maybe you’d like this love letter to We Are The Champions by Queen.
