Sure, She Can Sing, But Is She Hot?
Why female singers aren’t allowed to look like Ed Sheeran or Post Malone.
In order to be a musician, you need to be good at music. You also need to have a rockin’ bod, a sellable face, and sensual modeling potential. At least with female musicians, that is.
It feels that almost all female stars have to sell their bodies in order to sell their music. It doesn’t matter how talented they are, the music industry will be a lot less likely to give them a chance if they don’t agree to being sexualized.
What troubles me is that this is flaunted as a new age of feminism, because these women are supposedly free to be outwardly sexual. Still, feminism is about women having a choice about what they do with their bodies, and it doesn’t feel like female pop/rap/r’n’b stars have a choice, if they want to make it big.
I’m certain most men won’t have a problem with this type of feminism. “Oh no, a hot, conventionally attractive young woman being sexual in a music video, whatever shall I do?” said no man ever. And if this so-called new feminism so easily caters to what men like to see, then how effective is it, really? Since when is giving men what they want feminist?
This also cuts women’s careers short, since in our ageist beauty standards, women age out by their 30s. Women are expected to build their musical careers on a sexualized persona, but that persona has an expiration date, and the music industry won’t accept them past their “best by date”.
Less than a handful of female vocalists — such as Dolly Parton, Madonna, and Beyoncè — perform past their 40s, and even so, they receive a hefty share of criticism for doing what they have always been doing, only while older.
Look at the album covers and music videos of female vs male artists. It’s not even creative, it’s just nudity. Selena Gomez. Janelle Monae. Doja Cat. Even Lorde!
But that’s nothing new. Scantly clad women have helped sell many an album for decades, especially albums from all-male bands. One could argue it is a step forward, for women to be the naked stars of their own albums as opposed to nameless, voiceless advertising for a man’s music.
There are exceptions, of course, but even the female artists who aren’t overly sexualized are still expected to be conventionally attractive. Your lyrics, music, and voice mean nothing if your looks aren’t pleasing for a male audience, and the same does not hold true for male artists.
I can see how a sexualized artist could be feminist, though. If we saw more bodies that don’t fit the restrictive beauty standards of the male gaze, that could feel more empowering. If we saw trans bodies, fat bodies, hairy bodies, wrinkled, asymmetrical, aged, scarred, differently abled bodies.
If this new age of feminism finds it important for women to be free to be nude and sexy, why does this only apply to conventionally attractive women who fit the patriarchal mold?
