Hello readers! I always hoped that Girls Are Made From Pepsi would continue to grow, and indeed it has. With now almost 500+ unique readers a week, I’m constantly throwing a little rave inside my brain every time I log on and see a new subscriber. I started this blog when I first moved to Perth to get into the flow of writing again, and I always intended to continue updating with the gusto of a baby administered Red Bull via IV drip. I got a lot to say, you know! I have major issues speaking in public, and I’m not the most articulate person when using the spoken word, so writing let’s me sound more coherent.

Unfortunately, university life and the sea of assignments I get EACH AND EVERY DAY is preventing me from dancing on my keyboard as often as I’d like to. I’m also working 3 jobs at the moment – 3 days a week I’m a smooth talking sun glass guru, I also freelance for Everguide.com.au and You and Me Psychology, and I’m currently working on another project to be revealed early September (so excited!). So whilst I will still be updating every week, I might not be able to find a Lady of the Week each and every week, and Sunday Hustle might be a teensy bit smaller.

Source: staralicious.com

But anyhoot, today I want to talk about Sasha Fierce. In a previous Sunday Hustle I included a post featured on Jezebel that talked about Beyonce. Queen of Ferociousness and all things Bootylicious, Beyonce is one of the highest paid women in her industry. But that’s not why she was featured on one of the web’s leading feminist blogs. But hold up for a sec there, cowgirl! Why is it that the words ‘Beyonce’ and ‘prominent’ and ‘feminist’ even coexist in the same sentence, except to ask why they are in the same sentence? Beyonce, one of the music industry’s most popular artists, is currently a source of feminist tension.

As a pop singer who wears revealing outfits, dances provocatively on stage, and whose face graces many a magazine cover, Bey-Bey is often-times cast as an equality villainess. There are those who feel her lighter, straighter locks are a knife in the back of anti-racism, a political movement which often goes hand-in-hand with feminism (see Crunk Feminist Collective if you’re interested). And what about her marriage to Jay-Z? Notorious for his uh, questionable lyrics, he’s not exactly the poster boy for equality between the sexes. Case in point:

I pimp hard on a trick, look, Fuck if your leg broke bitch. Hope up on your good foot. -Black Girl Pain

If you’re having girl problems, I feel bad for you son. 99 Problems but a bitch ‘aint one. -99 Problems

Most recently though, Beyonce’s interview with Harper’s Bazaar has seen her crowned public enemy number one in the eyes of many women who identify as feminists. Her crimes?

• She’s friends with Gwyneth Paltrow, the unintentional poster girl for white-girl privilege.
• She sings about her bottom.
• She sings about hetero sex
• And rings! And fingers! And putting aforementioned rings on said fingers!
• She generalises gender and reinforces stereotypes, e.g: If I were a boy/I would turn off my phone/Tell everyone its broken So they think that I was sleeping alone/I’d put myself first/And make the rules as I go/Cause I know that she’d be faithful/Waiting for me to come home. – If I Were A Boy

The nerve, right?

But I degress. As a woman who identifies as a feminist, I acknowledge that there are many, many different types of feminism. There’s 1st wave feminism, exemplified by the women’s suffrage (right to vote), 2nd wave feminism, which describes activity in the 60s and 70s, 3rd wave feminism which includes the 80s till the present, lipstick feminism (think Helen Gurley-Brown and sexual equality), and post-feminism (which assumes there is no longer a need for feminism, but a generalised equal-rights movement).

I see Beyonce negotiating between the last two.

So whilst she sings about gender inequality, I don’t see her lyrics as particularly counteractive towards feminist activity. When I hear If I Were A Boy, I don’t hear ‘Gosh darnit! I wish I were a dude so I could sit at home on my Xbox because being a girl is all forms of suckery etc etc ad nauseum!’. I don’t hear a woman perpetuating and promoting gender roles from decades since past. Instead, I hear a woman singing about and acknowledging gender inequality when it comes to hetero courtship and normative relationship behaviour. Here’s my own little deconstruction of her lyrics (my interpretation is italicised for extra fun! Wee!)

Now put your hands up
Up in the club, we just broke up
I’m doing my own little thing (I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend and goshdarnit, I need a drink)
you Decided to dip but now you wanna trip
Cuz another brother noticed me (You are a jealous fiend, sir! You only want me because you can’t have me!)
I’m up on him, he up on me
dont pay him any attention (my word, this is quite fun and I’ve completely forgotten about my dingus of an ex-boyfriend!)
cuz I cried my tears, GAVE three good years
Ya can’t be mad at me (what I waste of my precious time. Good riddance!)

[Chorus]
Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don’t be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it (If you had of respected me for the bootyliciousness I posses, you would have commit. You are not ready for this jelly, obviously!)

Tell me I’m taking the top 40 lyrics way too l seriously, but I also see a woman mocking the dating game and this idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. How many times do we have to read about guys and their allergies to returning text messages? I grind my teeth every time I hear a girl talking about her boyfriend’s inability to return phone calls. It’s incredibly generalist, and I really feel the cold shoulder is played by both sexes. I hate to ask, but what about the menz? It certainly seems to be a question Beyonce is asking herself.

“I don’t really feel that it’s necessary to define it. It’s just something that’s kind of natural for me, and I feel like… you know… it’s, like, what I live for.
I need to find a catchy new word for feminism, right? Like Bootylicious.”

Is Beyonce discrediting and refusing to value the rights that 1st feminists fought for by choosing not to identify as a feminist? Not so, IMHO! More and more women these days aren’t seeing the worth in identifying as being part of a group, but rather prefer to be a seen as individuals. Where is the harm in that? Each and every person’s experience of inequality is drastically different from the person next to them. So whilst I identify strongly with the term feminist, I won’t begrudge a woman who sees herself more along the lines as an “equalist“.

What about you? Can you think of another word for feminism? Do you think Beyonce is tainting feminist activity?