Just ‘4’ Men?

**Beyoncé’s latest stage persona, ‘Mrs. Carter’ – an allusive nod to hip hop husband Jay-Z / Shawn Carter – has had feminists in the blogosphere up in arms, sparking a revival of a controversy as old as her lucrative career: is Beyoncé’s project un-feminist?**

From the days of **Destiny’s Child** and ‘Independent Women’ to most recent platinum selling solo instalment _4_, gender issues have consistently been at the foreground of **Beyoncé**’s music. The RnB superstar’s discography boasts an impressive arsenal of girl-power anthems that seemingly strive to embrace and harness the power of female sexuality and womanhood.

So, to address the question that has dumbfounded the fans and haters alike: why has **Beyoncé**’s most recent stunt been to apparently subjugate this powerful femininity to a source of male authority? Especially considering that **Jay-Z** himself has not always been impervious to accusations of deploying misogynistic tropes in his music.

A common criticism railed against Mrs. Carter from feminist bloggers is that, for all the girl-power bravado of hits such as ‘Run The World (Girls)’ and ‘Single Ladies’, the highly sexualised content of her lyrics, videos and promos (see the O2 Priority ad for the Mrs. Carter show) compromises her apparent feminism by indulging the fantasies of the male voyeur. Some would argue that the Mrs. Carter persona only reinforces an oppressive understanding of women as sexually available and inherently disposed to wifehood that has always lurked beneath the pseudo-feminist surface of **Beyoncé**’s music, inviting men to “put a ring on it”.

True, it’s virtually impossible to read a piece on **Beyoncé** that doesn’t reference her marriage to **Jay-Z** and recent motherhood to baby Blue Ivy, and there’s no doubt that the public is positively infatuated with the Carter-Knowles family – sales of _4_ surged by the thousand in the aftermath of Bey’s dramatic pregnancy revelation at the 2011 VMAs.

But surely **Beyoncé**’s success is so much more than the popular obsession with her family life. She is indisputably a mind-blowing vocal talent as well as a savvy businesswoman and producer. And I would be willing to hazard that the frenzy of the online box offices on Saturday for tickets to the Mrs. Carter Show was very much for Queen B herself and not for her association with Hov.

What if we actually opened our minds (God forbid!) to see that wearing revealing outfits doesn’t automatically turn women into objects, but actually offers an empowering model of body confidence. The Mrs. Carter O2 promo might feature **Beyoncé** wearing a miniature of **Jay-Z**’s round her neck, but she is nonetheless immersed in the paraphernalia of royalty and power, which makes me wonder if the Mrs. Carter persona is actually an attempt to turn our expectations of ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ radically upside down. This is hardly the meek and mild archetype of the 1950s housewife, but instead presents an exciting realm of potential, contrary to the conventions that taking her husband’s name might otherwise suggest.

Wherever you stand on the matter, anyone who was lucky enough to score tickets to any of **Beyoncé**’s UK dates is surely in store for a spectacular show when Mrs. Carter finally takes the stage in April. And for us poor souls who sacrificed our Saturday morning lie-ins only to queue in the online waiting rooms to no avail (not that I’m remotely bitter), at least we do have the forthcoming album to look forward to!

**O2 Priority ad:** _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqk6gZ5K4As&feature=youtu.be_

**2011 VMAs:** _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCaHLr0pOZU_