Editors’ Letters: Beyoncé and feminism

The dark, eponymously-titled sexually-charged album is dripping with innuendo and thinly veiled metaphors: “Rock right up to the side of my mountain/climb until you reach my peak babe” Beyoncé purrs in ‘Rocket’. And then there’s ‘Blow’: “I can’t wait for you to turn that cherry out/can you eat my skittles.” Whoah.

The accompanying music videos have done little to dispel criticism. 17 X-rated films in which Yonce (fiercer than Sasha by far) is seen writhing around half naked or gyrating in gem encrusted G-strings. She can’t possibly be a feminist, can she?

In the past, Beyoncé has been praised for supporting the emancipation of women in songs like ‘Irreplaceable’, but critiqued for taking Jay-Z’s name for her last tour ‘The Mrs Carter Show’.

If Beyoncé wants to strip off, then power to her.

However I simply view this as a great way of expressing her pro-woman AND pro-man stance, which continues on this album. For too long, feminism has been tainted by anti-men ideas, and this causes prominent female figures to shy away from the label. Indeed in 2010, Beyoncé told the Daily Mail that she was just “feminist in a way.” But now look how far she’s come!

Her track ‘Flawless’ samples Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx talk “We should all be feminists” with Beyoncé declaring “We flawless ladies.” If you thought ‘Bow Down’ sabotaged her female empowerment efforts (it didn’t) then she’s made up for it by actually using the F word! In a song! What other global superstar is drawing attention to the endless quest for social, political and economic equality?

And if Beyoncé wants to strip off, then power to her. She is married with a child and employs more women than any other artist in the music industry; she’s earned the right to celebrate her sexuality in whichever way she wants. This album is an expression of what it means for ONE woman to be female, but not everyone subscribes to the same definition of feminism and that should be fine. She underlines that feminism is not about pleasing everyone; Yonce sits on the threshold between virgin and whore, wife and vixen and she won’t be pigeon-holed.

If you critique a woman’s choices because they aren’t your choices, then you’re making feminism even more exclusive than it needs to be and if that’s the case we’ll never get everyone using the F-word.

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Header Image Courtesy of Flickr.com/ Mr Azed