Women earn significantly less compared to men in the workforce, usually around 23% less. Although this is a publicized statistic and is blatantly unfair, little action is taken to ameliorate the disparity. It is time to step aside, the Beyslayers are coming through, we run the world, now countdown and let us upgrade you. Power is in the voice, and, the power of the voice can energize a nation. Fortunately, Beyoncé is that voice. Taylor Swift is a prime example of someone who uses her voice to deliver a message to society; however, her message is one that weakens the female character and undermines the capabilities and strength of women. This behavior is unacceptable and we the Beyslayers say, “Renounce Taylor, reinstate feminism.” Celebrities, especially musicians, have a substantial impact on the lives of their audiences. Artists use lyrics as a way to speak about meaningful topics or events, and these words can also serve as a source of identification between the singer and listener. Focusing specifically on the relationship between the artists Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and their typically female followers, an obvious difference can be found between their respective attitudes towards the role of women. Taylor Swift uses her virginal, good, pure, patriarchy-friendly lyrics to disempower women. Swift, in the majority of her songs serves as nothing more than a beautiful, blameless victim. Within the few songs where other women are mentioned, they are generally slut-shamed or viewed as mere obstacles standing in between Swift and her soulmate. One of Swift’s only songs in which she mentions a female friend is titled “Fifteen.” In it, there is obviously a sense of thematic continuity from the rest of her pieces: boys... ... middle of paper ... ...nce, the song speaks about how women should see themselves, in the end, as more than merely a wife. Her entire album speaks about the liberation of women. By communicating with such powerful lyrics, Beyoncé is forcing people to take ownership of who they are. Taylor Swift’s influence over young girls ultimately leaves her in a position of power and responsibility. Swift is a role model, and as such, she is expected to empower her listeners with messages of independence, strength, and equality. Until Swift is able to utilize these tactics in her music, it is imperative that people do not buy her music, listen to her music, tweet about her, go to her concerts, write about her, or watch videos of/about her. As an alternative we highly recommend listening to Beyoncé’s works in order to incite discussion and eventually bring forth positive change in regards to feminism.
On the night of December 13, 2013 Beyoncé, released her fifth self-titled album on ITunes. The album caught many people by surprise because Beyoncé did not set a date for the album, nor did she use any promotion; she did release a video on her Instagram asking her followers if they “were ready”. The buzz spread through social media like a wild fire. With no promotion or no warning, Beyoncé album took the world by storm and made it for her audience and critics to take in the album and it contents. Many people loved the album for not only its catchy songs, but also the growth and “looser” conservative Beyoncé. On the other hand many people did not feel that her album was growth, but a way to catch up to the overly sexual generation. Beyoncé has always been aware of her sexual side, pop side, and feminist side; this has been documented through her four previous albums. Yet, a lot of people have questioned if Beyoncé a feminist because of the content of her newest album. In order to answer that a person must ask him or her self; what is a feminist, why some people believe she is feminist, why others do not believe she feminist, and whether or not Beyoncé think she is a feminist.
Objectification of women and misogyny is a common trend in song lyrics, but it is often socially accepted and further perpetuated. Finding a song in which the roles are reversed and a woman depicts a man as a sex object is incredibly difficult because when women try to break norms in the music industry, they are often criticized. In “Blah Blah Blah” by Kesha, she reverses the typical gender roles in song lyrics by objectifying men. Kesha has her own struggles within the male-dominated music industry because her producer sexually abused her and trapped her into a record deal. However, Kesha lost her court case, which illuminates gender issues within the music industry and the larger society. In 2010 when Kesha’s songs were popular, people weren’t aware of her battle with her producer. Instead, her lyrics classified her as more of a party figure and people even saw her as “trashy.” This song
In the lyrics of male R&B/Hip-Hop artists in the early 1980’s, there is a noticeable shift in the language used to portray women and then themselves. The language shift is in choosing words that are filled with love and emotion to overbearing words that aim to separate men and women by social status. During the 1980’s, many of the popular songs by male hip-hop artist tend to focus on the relationship aspect of male and female interactions. This observation is similar to Frith’s (1986) finding, where most successful pop songs centers around being “happy in love”, “frustrated in love” as well as having sex interests. The “happy in love” factor that Frith notices in pop songs is seen in early R&B/Hip-Hop music. Instead of using derogatory terms
The video promotes a realistic portrayal of women while undermining negative societal expectations put to those women. Furthermore, the message behind it, one calling people to accept themselves and to not feel the need to strive towards unreachable goals set by the media, can be applied to the lives of not only women but men as well. While the song was obviously meant for women, it is still holds the important message for people of any gender, age, or race to understand that being true to and learning to accept one’s self can only lead to positive
On December 13, 2013 Beyoncé - who was named by the Time magazine as the most influential person of the year 2014 - unexpectedly released a self-titled visual album that went viral on the Internet, that is, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and sold 828,773 electronic copies in three days becoming the fastest-selling album in iTunes Store history. After the release of the album the artist posted coupe of videos where she was walking her fans through her songs and music videos in the album explaining what was intention and the idea behind each song. In one of those videos she speaks about how she was looking for some videos on feminism on YouTube, and when she saw a TEDx video from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about feminism, Beyoncé decided to use it for her new single – Flawless - as in her opinion the music and the Adichie’s video suited very well with each other. By the end of the explanatory video she talks about ‘imperfection’ and embracing one’s imperfections, which she links to her another single Pretty Hurts. This song features the issues of sexual objectification of female bodies and the culture of perfection where women are valued only for their beauty. In another explanatory video she talks about owning her sexuality and body, especially after her pregnancy. As she explains it was her joy and her confidence that allowed her to show her body to the public. In the video she mentions that she is very well aware of the fact that she is showing her body, and that she is doing this partly for other women as well to empower them, and give them an example that you can own your body and your sexuality, even after body goes into a lot of transformations during pregnancy.
As an ever growing topic of debate in modern society, understanding feminism is critical to modern social and political stances. Beyoncé Knowles, a celebrity pop star has been a figure surrounded by debate for those seeking to define modern feminism. By examining her feminism, a great deal can be learned about different stance on modern feminism. As bell hooks defines it in her book, Feminism is for Everybody, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (viii). Through this definition, hooks is clear that feminism can be embraced by anyone, male or female, black or white, rich or poor so long as they oppose sexism and its ramifications since opposing sexism does not mean being against men but rather supporting
“Feminist” has a negative connotation nowadays; we often times here people call feminists “feminazis,” “man haters,” or even just a “bitch.” Many people think that “feminism is anti- male” (Hooks). Many female celebrities stay hush about the issues surrounding females every day, but Lena Dunham is not one of them. Stemming from a family of artists, Lena became a writer, actress, producer, and director and was put in the spotlight. Instead of keeping hush about the world and Hollywood’s issues pertaining to the mistreatment of not only women, but those of different genders and other oppressed people as well. Lena Dunham shows her bold character and feminist visions by using her pedestal to speak out on social and political issues.
Throughout time, there have been certain influential individuals that have dominated their age and have forever marked that era with their name. Among them are Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, and Nefertiti, with many others. One thing these leaders have in common is their gender: they are all females. In this day and age, it’s a rarity to come across strong, powerful women who have been allowed the opportunity to be powerful. It begs the question, if these women were alive today, would they have the same chance to change the world as they did? However, it’s not only the powerful who feel the sting of sexism, because the misogyny in today’s society affects each and every woman, of every color, age, and shape. The most important lesson to learn for the cultural and societal growth of people is to understand the causes and affects behind anti-feminism. Sexism takes many forms, yet it can be broken down into three main parts: the portrayal of women in media, the oppression of women in society, and the boundaries of women through laws.
“He don't smack that ass and pull your hair like that” is a rather vulgar and demeaning statement, yet it is freely sung in Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, a song that was in the top ten on the Billboard list of the most popular R&B/Hip-Hop songs in 2013. Because hip-hop is a very large part of the African American culture, and many speakers of African American English (AAE) are portrayed through these songs, women are often highly influenced by the objectification of their bodies in hip-hop songs. Since the emergence of the hip-hop genre in popular culture in the 1960s and 70s, women’s bodies have been sexually objectified through this music. Although the impact of the sexualization of women’s bodies in hip-hop songs is still very prevalent, the effect of this in recent years has decreased because of a learned linguistic way to navigate the misogynistic words that diminish the humanity of women.
Throughout history, women have had to fight for equality with men in the world. Today sexism continues to be a problem and women are still not completely treated the same way men are. Sexism is defined as discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex (“Sexism-Dictionary.com”). Recently, the music industry shows sexism towards female artists. This not only allows male artists to have a more likely chance of being respected, but also affects the views audiences have on female artists. Sexism is shown in the music industry towards female artists.
Many people believe that Swift, as early feminist wanted to remove the high standards expected from women at that time and still today, to consider them equal. Though he is describing women in the poem, the quotes he has written are applicable to men as well, “ But oh! It turned poor Strephon’s bowels, when he beheld and smelled the towels. Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed with dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed” (43-46).
While Beyoncé must be untraditional in her display of feminism as a result of her unique position of celebrity and atypical job, this does not necessarily eliminate her from promoting equality for women despite being in a non-academic or business setting. In order to understand where Beyoncé fits into this explanation, there are a variety of possible angles to take. In particular, Beyoncé’s feminism can be examined through the primary lens of her music video “Who Run the World (Girls)” complemented by various secondary articles which take different stances on Beyoncé’s feminism. While Beyoncé is perhaps untraditional in her display of feminism, her confident embrace of her celebrity position, traditional marriage, and feminine identity allow her to create her own brand of modern feminism.
The way Taylor Swift is promoting the prevention of bullying, and protesting for social change is very effective, because through her usage of similes in her song’s lyrics, and how she gives a more detail picture with her video where she connects with does who are victims of bullies. “You, with your words like knives/ And swords and weapons that you use against me/ You have knocked me off my feet again/ Got me feeling like a nothing…” This is a way of connecting with her viewers because its a clear picture of how bullies continue with the same routine being judgmental, and making their “prey” sad, disappointed of themselves, and fell like a nothing. “Physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, remains constant.” This quote helps to understand the idea that swift is trying to give to society and to convince that we need to change and help decrease bullying and decrease the drop out rate. Taylor Swift also makes the statement of “Someday I’ll be living in a big ole city/ and all you’re ever gonna be is mean…” in her song because she wants to emphasize that bullies wont make it to be anything else than bullies and that the weaker man is going to have a great life and become a stronger man. This is another way that Swift indirectly connects with her viewers by encouraging them to never give up on life and go pass what bullies will never
The Pop music is also one of the most famous genres among the young generation. Sexism in this field is subtler than Hip -Hop and expressed differently. The common theme of most Pop songs is about love. In these songs the mention of sex is less indirect as more euphemism are utilized. Many of the love songs sung by men use possessives nouns when referring to women. Furthermore, many songs use the allure of sex in women. They showcase women being the gatekeeper of sex, for which the men are seeking the key for. Do female song writers also indulge in this sexism? if so then how? Yet, many of the female song writers unknowingly abet sexism in this genre by showing their desperate yearning for men’s attention. They portray themselves helpless for the man’s love and victimize themselves to be dependent on the man with a certain
It has been played in many other countries and is listed in many major hit charts in those countries. It became one of her best-selling singles. Beyoncé has been singing about women’s independence since she was in the hit group “Destiny’s Child”. Many of her songs support women’s lifestyle and keep cheering up girls with her powerful and expressive vocals (Armstrong). In addition to her songs and lyrics, her beautiful appearance fascinates many female audiences and influences from teenagers to grown-ups as if she was a role model. A negative side of the video is that the video gives the impression that men are always to be blamed and women are always “victims” of the relationships, which is not