Who Runs The World, GIRLS?
By: Constance Short
Tags: Feminism, Feminist, Music, Relationships, Beyonce

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.

From an outsider’s perspective she appears the ultimate “Independent Woman.” Source

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.

“I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I did not go home to that man,” Beyoncé on her identity. Source.

“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?” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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.”