Lessons from Beyoncé to Women: The Gender and Feminism Debate
It happened to Madonna, too.
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than recognizing how we are.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This month, Friday the 13th was dubbed “Beyoncé the 13th,” when the award-winning pop artist released her self-titled 5th album of her solo-career without warning, through iTunes; while simultaneously breaking records and sparking conversations.
Beyoncé is forging a path back to the days of Thriller, Michael Jackson’s most celebrated and best-selling album worldwide, estimating between 51-65 million copies sold. She often described watching the Thriller music video as a child, a type of grandiose event. In her stealth-like release of Beyoncé, she has created an event of her own, which has left many adoring fans awestruck. The Knowles-Carter family has definitely written new rules on how to survive in today’s music industry. Earlier this year, her husband Jay Z, released Magna Carta Holy Grail, through Samsung. He gave nearly a month’s notice of its debut through his Samsung commercial, which aired during the NBA finals in June earlier this year.
So, it was a major coup for Beyoncé to release her visual album to the masses, which contained 14 tracks and 17 music videos that Friday. The writing may have always been on the walls way before Jay Z said, “We don’t have any rules, everybody is trying to figure it out. That’s why the internet is like the Wild West. The Wild Wild West. We need to write the new rules,” when speaking about the new digital age of music and distribution, in his Samsung commercial. Beyoncé’s latest project was nearly a 2 year production in itself, which took everyone by surprise when it unexpectedly released.
Yet, it was Beyoncé’s album that recently shattered new records and has been named the fastest-selling album on iTunes. In just 3 days, she has sold over 800k copies of Beyoncé and in less than a week, over 1 million.
Today as academics, consumers, fans, artists and PR mavens scour the internet to learn how she did it, a deeper conversation is ensuing about the “new rules,” she may be offering young women and men about feminism, gender and sexuality.
Photo: Madonna on the set of her music video for her song, “Justify My Love.” In Beyoncé’s latest project, she seemingly gives homage to Madonna through her own music video, Haunted.
23 years ago NY-Times writer Camille Pagilla proclaimed Madonna as being the future of feminism, after reviewing her video for her song Justify My Love. Although, Madonna has gone on record saying, “I am not a feminist. I am a humanist.” Pagilla wrote in Madonna—Finally, a Real Feminist, “ Madonna is the true feminist. She exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism, which is stuck in an adolescent whining mode. Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives. She shows girls how to be attractive, sensual, energetic, ambitious, aggressive and funny — all at the same time.”
Pagilla continued, “American feminism has a man problem. The beaming Betty Crockers, hangdog dowdies and parochial prudes who call themselves feminists want men to be like women. They fear and despise the masculine. The academic feminists think their nerdy bookworm husbands are the ideal model of human manhood.”
Unlike Madonna, Beyoncé publicly claims herself as being a Modern-Day Feminist.
She challenges some misconceptions about feminists head on in her sensual song Partition, which denounces the claim that feminists hate sex and are anti-men. She, in a similar way as Madonna, liberates women to explore their own bodies and sexuality for their own gratification, even if it just so happens that some men may enjoy it.
In part of the bridge of Partition, a woman says in French,
Les hommes pensent que les féministes détestent le sexe mais c’est une activité très stimulante et naturelle que les femmes adorent
In English it translates as,
“Men think that feminists hate sex but it’s an exciting and natural activity that women love ”
While in Beyoncé’s track ***Flawless, she samples a TEDxEuston talk given by Nigerian author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which had us all questioning the role of gender and its oppressive nature on women when we she says, “We teach girls that cannot be sexual beings, in the way boys are.”
In her original TEDxEuston talk “We Should All Be Feminists,” she delved further by saying the following about gender:
“Gender as it functions today, is a grave injustice. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.”
“To have a more equal world, a happier one, we must raise our sons and daughters differently, to start. We are raising boys to see into a window of narrow masculinity, one in which, they’ll foster fragile egos. In doing so, having our daughters catering to those egos.”
And, the most relevant to this album the problem:
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than recognizing how we are.”
Clearly, embracing one’s sexuality isn't the hallmark message of this LP. The central message is about coming to terms with who we are as women, as people, and being unashamed of it.
Forget how we should be. Recognize us for who we are. We are women. We are strong. We have insecurities. And, most importantly, we’re just as much sexual beings as men.
Mainstream feminism is challenged. The real rift behind feminism today is some of its archaic ideas, misconceptions and lack of inclusiveness, which has a tendency of excluding women of color.
So, when Beyoncé made the decision to have only black models featured in the video of her track Yoncé, it was monumental. For feminism. For women. Especially black women. In the high-fashion world where only few black women walk the runways, she called on some of the most successful: Jourdan Dunn, Chanel Iman and Joan Smalls.
At its most basic tenant feminism is about the equality of the sexes. From this, a myriad of perspectives are formed that are influenced on class, race and socioeconomic status. A more inclusive feminism would take into account all forms of oppression of the sexes.
Many have deemed Beyoncé as Beyoncé’s Feminist Manifesto. In Beyoncé’s HBO documentary film, Life is But a Dream, Bey says, “It really pisses me off that women do not get the same opportunities that men do— or money for that matter… because let’s face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define our values and define what’s sexy and what’s feminine.”
If the message is about owning who we are in our own terms, we may have to just create new rules, our own.
The execution of Beyoncé’s self-titled LP is a testament to that, right down to the way it was released.
Let’s welcome new rules.
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