Who Runs The World, GIRLS?
Asking for a friend, but does Beyoncé actually know what a feminist is…
Before you, and all the BeyHive, get your knickers in a knot, it is important to understand there are as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists.
My personal understanding of the F-Word aligns with Nigerian women’s writer and TED Talk extraordinaire, Chimamanda Adichie’s,
FEMINIST: “A person who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes.”
Pop-superstar, Beyoncé Knowles promotes this definition of feminism too. Of late, it seems everyone wants to claim the feminist label — myself included. And no, this is not because I’m single. And no, I’m no man-hater. The fabled f-word is in-fact making a celebrity comeback with an unprecedented number of high-profile women both single and married declaring themselves members of the girl-power train, Queen Bey prominently included.
Indeed, labelling yourself a feminist is not only a proud proclamation for supporting equality of the sexes, but also serves as cultural capital for celebrities and corporate-women in joining the emerging neoliberal movement for gender equality.
Growing up, I’ve always been told that men and women are equal across all aspects. And I felt that. So equal, in fact, that feminism never crossed my mind as a topic of discussion or discourse. Please forgive my white, upper middle-class, non-minority status, but I never identified with feminism. Until recently.
Myself, and many young Western women, have been convinced that we had already ‘won the war’ and are distanced from the battles fought, from the power struggles embarked upon, or from the enduring inequities that still mark out the relations between men and women. In this “post-feminist” era, there is simply a focus on championing a pro-women dynamic. The concept of post-feminism distances itself from the embittered women of the past in favour of a “Run the world” revolutionary pathway of ambitious female individualisation rather than a challenge to the status-quo.
Undoubtedly championing this challenge on the celebrity front is Beyoncé: a universally loved, unquestioned and “***flawless” icon to say the least. Known as the global go-getter for girl-power and female sexual agency, Time has described feminism having been “reclaimed by the most powerful celebrity in the world,” with Beyoncé’s epic declarations of pro-female empowerment projected throughout her music videos and performances.
This celebrity proliferation of feminist branding has “normalised a feminist gaze on the world”, modelling a Western feminism — or Bey Feminism — excessively focussing upon challenging the male patriarchy within Western culture. Beyoncé has situated her feminist politics within the context of a Western, supremacist neoliberal landscape — explicitly intersecting her sexual identity and independence against the axes of male patriarchy and female oppression. One that is imbued with class privilege and Western values.
Beyoncé promotes a global feminist movement against patriarchal oppression and all its manifestations. Her music has been described as mini-lectures in feminist theory, fighting for the social, political and economic equality of women in a male-dominant society.
Outrightly claiming this new wave of feminism, a distinctive feminist discourse permeates her song texts, performances and marketing strategies. This neoliberal feminist approach by the biggest female pop star in the world sells feminism to the masses. Once reluctant to claim the word as my own, this new feminist angle represents the hard-working, assertive individual who has her own female American Dream, engaging with me and a young female, heterosexual audience.
However; the mediums surrounding the construct that is Beyoncé rely on her play of female sexuality and femininity in relation to a man. Or in her case, her husband Jay-Z. Her Bey-Feminism can be read as a paradox of feminist messaging and anti-feminist action.
Within the music industry, men dominate the positions of record executive, music journalist and fan, and therefore as an industry its product is distinctively gendered.
While Bey writes, produces and releases her own music from her (and her husband’s) label, it is seen as an anomaly and adds to her feminist badge, yet her efforts fault her. Since her solo career launch in 2003, she has sung almost exclusively about men with musical scholars evaluating that 72 of her 89 solo songs are related to the topic of men and the ‘necessity of them’ to her life and success.
Although feminism has always been partly about men and our social, political and economical relation to them, it does not endorse the need for or necessity of men to our lives. Why? Because a need for men promotes the traditional expectations that a woman’s aspirations are to be of marriage and becoming a wife, not running the world.
I’m not saying that as a feminist she cannot have a partner in her life. But defining her success to one of the most powerful men in the music industry contradicts her. Such an incessant reliance on men to a woman’s success encourages the traditional underlying social pressure for women’s identities to be subsumed by our romantic relationships or interests with men.
“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?”
In Western society, heterosexual relationships are no longer inherently identified to be social institutions promoting a male-dominated patriarchy, however; the promotion of the necessity of such relationships does.
Feminist scholar Adrienne Rich, describes this heterosexuality as a system of unequal social relations, a social institution whose male gender domination is so nearly total that it can be described as compulsory. This theory arises from the power of male patriarchal dominance and the subsequent role of women being defined by marriage and maternity.
Beyoncé challenges us to “don’t think I’m just his mere wife,” yet publicly pronounces that “I would not be the woman I am if I did not go home to that man.” That man being her husband, Jay-Z, one of the most powerful people in the music industry.
I, amongst many others would like to think she’d be the global superpower she is regardless of whether she went her to her music executive husband or to any man in her life. Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart wrote, “It’s a much better message when she talks about how powerful she is as a woman and what a woman can do — without mentioning Mr. Carter.”
Yet she named her most recent solo tour, “The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour,” in honour of her husband, Sean Carter. Surely this cannot promote the independently-minded, socially liberal equality of the sexes.
At the peak of her career, she chose to rebrand her famous mononym in favour of her husband’s surname, a surname her own husband doesn’t even use. Her and Jay-Z’s married name is not Carter, it’s Knowles-Carter.
She tells us to “Depend on no-one else to give you what you want” yet encourages the idea that to be the biggest pop star in the world you have to be what Gender Studies Professor, Brittney Cooper describes as “The pretty girl who then gets the guy so she can have all that.”
Far from being progressive, she’s sacrificed the most distinctive parts of her Independent Woman brand to her husband’s, which is regressive, not progressive, or at least if viewed through contemporary gender and equality lens. Her messages of female empowerment through songs such as “Run The World (Girls)” have been lost within the overarching brand theme of the subservient wife and partner.
Whilst this could be read by some as symbolic of her family first, Christian identity, marking an ignorance to the notion of patriarchy, the fact is that she actively pursues the breakdown of men running the world.
By championing the traditional gendered expectations of women, she is contradicting her own modern feminist discourse and promoting the traditional patriarchy of a male dominated society. Her Mrs Carter branding promotes what de Beauvoir describes as a woman’s traditional “passage from girlhood to womanhood conventionally defined by marriage and maternity,” where once married, a woman finds herself defined by the conventions of male superiority.
If anything, what makes this particular antifeminist saga worse are the themes championed in her most recent album, Lemonade. An album less about politics and female empowerment but rather the state of her marriage, overshadowed by her husband’s cheating.
Documenting deception, disbelief, vengeance and forgiveness over twelve tracks, the romantic melodramatic visual album details the humiliation and forgiveness of public infidelity, projecting a message neither modern nor feminist.
As a subservient wife, accepting of her husband’s infidelity, compromising to save her marriage, this album is the latest to demonstrate the patriarchal structure of her beliefs in action. This commercialised marital saga does not stand champion equality of the sexes, but rather a throne of male privilege.
Let’s be real here: a feminist message would not encourage women to stay with a man who lies and cheats. It would champion the woman to walk away, or choose a better partner in the first place who treats them with respect. I’m not saying that staying with Jay-Z no longer makes her feminist — and who knows if the album’s content reads any truths. But Beyoncé’s public declarations of feminist ideals are countered by the commodification and commercialisation of her partner’s infidelity and their subsequent marital saga.
Perhaps the album is a misconstrued commercialised attempt to capitalise on the traditional gender roles in relationships? I don’t know.
But her feminist narrative just does not add up. Her music ultimately comprises the elemental basis of conditioning women to the “necessity of men” in our lives, and leads myself and others to question, aren’t you a Queen regardless of whether or not you go home to a man? (You are).
How can she claim to be the leader of modern feminism when her own model its conflicting with its own projected manifestations? Why should my generation adopt the traditional “a woman needs a man to succeed” version of feminism? I am and we are not having our identities and successes defined by the necessity of men or our relationships with men anymore.
Yes, men can be great and relationships can be great but what is wrong with just being a Single Lady? Huh?
