MA Thesis European Studies: Identity & Integration Graduate School for Humanities
Student: Maxime ten Brinke
Female blackness through
the sounds of music
What sort of female, black identities are articulated in present-day music in Europe and the United States and how do African American women negotiate the emotions related to blackness through music?
Table of Contents Introduction p.0 Preface p.2 Introduction p.4 Theoretical framework p.5 Methodology p.6 Chapter 1
RACE - A History of Afro-American sounds p.10
1.0. Introduction p.10
1.1. The Jazz Age p.11
1.1.1. The black activists who built the Jazz Age p.11
1.1.2. The white musical takeover p.12
1.1.3. Modern-day jazz: a hybrid genre p.13
1.2. The role of (black) women in it p.14
1.3. Black musical legacy in Europe: “Rhythm & Roots” p.16 Chapter 2
GENDER – Musical Feminism, Empowerment and Gender p.18
2.0. Introduction p.18
2.1. Black womanhood and musical representations p.19
2.2. Black female identities p.22
2.2.1. The submissive attitude: adoption of the (fe)male gaze? p.22 2.2.2. The revolutionary attitude: from anger to empowerment p.25 2.2.3. The sexual attitude: submissive or revolutionary? p.27 2.3. Conclusions: various types of identities p.29 Chapter 3
REPRESENTATION - Case studies p.31
3.0. Introduction p.31
3.1. Case study 1: European singer/songwriter Giovanca Ostiana p.31 3.1.1. Musical oeuvre and black female identities p.33 3.2. Case study 2: American singer/songwriter Solange Knowles p.36
3.2.1. “I Am a Proud Black Feminist and Womanist” p.37
Conclusions p.42
Bibliography p.45
Abstract p.48
Time Schedule p.49
Appendix 1: Playlist of the discussed music p.51
Preface
Throughout my whole study curriculum – that started at the University of Groningen at the Faculty of Arts and now will end at the University of Amsterdam at the Faculty of Humanities – I have been very fascinated by the concepts of gender, race and performing arts and – most of all – by how these three platforms always seem to interconnect in our modern-day society, one way or another. Looking back at all of the final essays, group projects and presentations I have been assigned to do throughout my studies, the red thread that I discovered was this interest I developed for the aforementioned themes.
I can recall a group project in the first year of my bachelor program that was a part of the course “Politics & Society”, where I somehow ended up naming Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe and Beyoncé Knowles’ empowering song Run the World (Girls) in the presentation thereof. To make a long story short, it was not a tough decision what topics my master thesis would have to cover; I felt compelled to write about the themes that caught my eye during every single course of my studies.
While brainstorming about the exact topic for my thesis with different professors and co-students, I came across the exhibition in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, called “Rhythm & Roots” (2017). Once I visited the exhibition all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together. It had to be a research that would analyze the contemporary issues the double marginalized group of black women experienced in today’s society, by means of analyzing an accesible platform: modern-day pop music. The topic is close to my heart, since I grew up having a beautiful black mother and a loving white father and grew up listening to black soul and jazz music and that is why I am so passionate about the topic I choose for my final thesis.
The most fundamental issues I faced while doing the research, was getting in touch with the selected black female artists for the case study. Solange Knowles, of course, would be impossible to reach given her stardom status and given the distance. Giovanca Ostiana, however, I assumed would be a possible case study that I could make an appointment with or at least have some sort of contact with. Unfortunately, her management team declined any contact due to the “many requests for thesis matters” they received. Nevertheless, there has been published a lot of interviews and public appearances of singer/songwriter Giovanca which could be used as the fundament for her case study. In addition to this, I thoroughly analyzed a TED talk (2013) of the influential Nigerian author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I was able to get in touch with academic Gloria Wekker, who is
the beginning of the this year, related to her most recent book “White Innocence” (2016). On a final note, I would like to thank my loving parents, Vendella and Wim, for always supporting me and giving me the opportunities that made me into the person I am today, the best grandmother in the world, Muriël, for always loving me and my work and last but not least, my supportive supervisor, professor Krisztina Lajosi, for always giving me the right feedback and support and getting me through the bumpy road that led to my final thesis.
Introduction
More than any other form of cultural expression, music has the ability to move people and triggers them to evoke emotion. Music has always been and will always be a way to touch on taboos, to overcome policital struggle and to express buried feelings. Consequently, it is not a surprise that music has been a transmitter of all sorts of cultural and political messages since the day humankind encountered the form of art. Musical styles are constantly evolving and changing; the exhibition “Rhythm & Roots” in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, gives us a clear impression of how that process is represented and framed in Europe regarding the Afro-American sounds. During the time of slavery, African musical rhythms and sounds travelled in particular to North and South America, where new musical styles, including blues and jazz, evolved. With the arrival of vinyl these genres returned to Africa and were the inspiration for developments such as juju and highlife. Moreover, the exhibition gives the visitor a clear idea of the way new media are still most likely to show images of black people that reinforce and reinscribe white supremacy, a statement Gloria Watkins agrees with in her work “Black Looks: Race and Media Representation” (1992).
Similarly to these issues related to race and music, gender has been and still is a complex phenomenon when it comes to music. In the work “Revolution in Girl Style Now: Popular Music, Feminism and Revolution” (1996), author Vera C. Gamboa claims that music is a medium that has the capacity to reach an enormous audience: popular music is located as “a site of revolutionary possibilities” (1996, iii). Furthermore, Gamboa states, “the use of popular music by musicians to articulate revolutionary desire and promote revolutionary endeavours is examined as conducive to transfomative struggles within society”(1996, iii). In her research, the author mentions the riot grrrl movement that took place in the early 1990s as an example of this phenomenon of revolutionary processes in music. This case study of the performance, lyrics and activist tactics of the female musicians that were part of the
movement, shows how a community of young women engaged with the feminist issues that were articulated through the popular genre of punk music. While deconstructing and resisting the existing gender roles and relations, the riot grrrl movement was seen as the first musical convocation for a feminist revolution.
Music, as one of the most important transmitters of all sorts of these political
messages, is and has been a crucial platform where race and gender related issues are being brought up. An impressive body of literature has already been written about either gender and music as a theme as race and music. This research project aims to look at the convergence of
both of these themes, which points out its added value to the field. This MA thesis will look into the topic by investigating the following research question:
“What sort of female, black identities are articulated in present-day music in Europe and the United States and how do African American women negotiate the emotions related to blackness through music?”
In other words this thesis will unravel the issues of “female blackness through the sounds of music” as the title says. The research is divided into three main themes: firstly, the concept of race to provide a steady framework of the analyzed musical genre and to show the starting point for of the social and political struggle within the genre. Secondly, the concept of gender in order to provide a framework of the established theories regarding feminism in music. And thirdly, the representation of all of the discussed theories and findings in the prior two
chapters in the specified platform: music, by means of two case studies. The accompanying sub-questions that will appear while investigating the main question, will be the following: a) How and where is race articulated through music?
b) How and where is gender articulated though music?
c) Can we discover a “feminist” genre within music and how is that feminist tone articulated? d) Is there such a thing as black musical feminism and how does it differ from white musical feminism?
e) What case studies of female, black artists show this point where race, gender and music come together?
Theoretical framework
In order to underpin the aforementioned research question and accompanied sub-questions, it is very important to define and explain the broad and controversial concepts that are
mentioned. Firstly, we have to dive into the concept of race, especially its relation to musical representation, and thus the roots of the musical genre we will analyze: jazz. We need to take a closer look at the history of black music to put this research in a broader framework and emphasize the additional value of this research comparing to previous work regarding the same topic. Secondly, it needs to be looked into the fundamental concepts of gender and feminism – and, again, especially in relation to the musical representation of the concepts.
Thirdly, the investigated concepts and theories will be analyzed by means of two case studies, where the concept of representation will be central and where the two main themes – race and gender – will meet one another.
One of the most important and current concepts that needs to be discussed and defined in relation to race, is the concept of cultural appropriation. I certainly expect that the debates around cultural appropriation will be a significant theme in my thesis, since music is one of the fundamental platforms where this phenomenon of “cultural appropriation” takes place. Therefore it is important to define what cultural appropriation entails, by looking at different theories. Moreover, we have to research the history of black music to get an idea of where the current political ideas in black music come from and put the research in a larger framework. Another – aforementioned – fundamental concept that needs to be explained in order to find answers to the main question is the concept of feminism. In relation to feminism, Laura Mulvey did an interesting research project in 1973, in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema” she investigated the “female gaze” in contrast with the male gaze. The key question she tried to answer in her investigation was “what does it mean to look at the “other” woman from a woman’s point of view?” which is inevitably related to the main question of this research project. In her findings, Mulvey comes up with two possible viewpoints for the sexualized and fetishized female star in the film industry she analyzed: a) the viewpoint of a vicarious identification with a male perspective, or b) that of a narcissistic identification with the female character in the film, related to the desire to be as sexually desirable as the
protagonist. I.e.: the female spectator is constantly switching between these two viewing points: on the one hand they can objectify the female character in an adoption of the male gaze, on the other hand they can identify with the female protagonist in her role as desirable object of the male gaze (Mulvey 1975). For my thesis, I would like to look into this theory and see if this framework is applicable to my own research.
Methodology
For this thesis, a qualitative literary and musical analysis is used, by means of analyzing and comparing two case studies. Besides that, the exhibition “Rhythm & Roots” will form a great fundament of this research project since this will function as the fundamental source, or case study, to analyze the contemporary representation of black music in Europe. The approach that will be used is the comparison between two case studies: a European case study and a more internationally orientated case study. The comparative case study will be build upon the
selected literature which can be found in the bibliography in this proposal. Looking at the case studies that will be compared, we can keep the focus of the research project European, which will place the research project in the context in which it will be written: as a MA thesis for the programme European Studies: identity and integration. The final aim of this study will be to connect the concepts of race, gender and music so that the project will be of additional value to the existing research field. The gap this project hopes to fill in is that of the combination between these three concepts; there are numerous studies either about race and (musical) representations (Watkins 1992) or gender and musical genres (Caisip Gamboa 1996), but there are none that link the issue of gender and race through the medium of music.
The first case study we will dive into will be that of the black, female, soul singer, Giovanca Ostiana. Giovanca was born in the Netherlands in 1977 and is currently living in Alkmaar, a town in the Noord-Holland province; the roots of the singer lie in Curaçao. Giovanca’s family decided to move to the Netherlands for career opportunities and a brighter future for their two daughters. While Giovanca eventually found her passion in the study of Orthopedagogy at the university, it was difficult to combine her great love, music, with her parent’s dream; obtaining a degree. During the first two years of her studies, she had a part-time job as background vocalist but more and more musical challenges came up. While working on her bachelor thesis in the third and last year of her studies, Giovanca was working on her first solo album “Subway Silence” at the same time. Driven by two passions,
Giovanca’s first (unsigned) album “The Mighty 8” was being released in 2007 and in the same year she graduated at the University of Amsterdam. In March 2008, her debut album appeared and not long after she was a frequent guest at the television show “De Wereld Draait Door”. Giovanca is explicit about her political standpoints in the projects she is involved with, in the interviews she gives and the other public appearances she makes. From 2010 and onwards, the singer has been one of the most dedicated ambassadors of the organisation Plan Nederland in which she’s commited to the programme “Loud about Girls”. Recently, in January 2017, Giovanca started to present the VPRO tv programme “Vrije Geluiden” and currently, she is working together with the Tropenmuseum and exhibition maker Richard Kofi to coordinate the exhibition “Rhythm & Roots” – at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. The exhibition takes the visitor on a musical journey: during the entire tour, visitors can plug in their headphones and listen to all kinds of music clips. Besides that, iconic objects such as James Brown’s cape , Elvis Presley’s leather biker jacket and Jimi Hendrix’s guitars are on display. Musical objects from the Tropenmuseum’s own collection are interspersed with the personal objects and stories of contemporary singers and songwriters. The life story of
singer/songwriter Giovanca Desire Ostiana, then, will be the first case study that will be discussed and compared to the second case study.
The second case that will be scrutinized in this thesis, will be that of singer/songwriter Solange Knowles. The American actress, singer, songwriter, producer, dancer and younger sister of international superstar Beyonce Knowles was born in Texas, on June 24, 1986. While she put herself on the map in the United States as a solo artist in 2003 with her first album “Solo Star” and repeated this with her second album “Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams” in 2008, her worldwide breakthrough did not happen until her third album “A Seat at the Table” was released worldwide in September 2016. As soon as it was released, the album was called out to be “one of the most impressive albums of 2016” by all sorts of media platforms. The 21-track record is partly a memoir of Knowles’ personal life story, partly a cultural analysis and thoroughly “a remedy for the intergenerational traumas of her own past and of America’s”. All of the songs featured on the album, express the pain, anger, sadness and cynicism regarding this traumatical past. By means of collaborations with various artists Solange aimed to play with tenderness, too, which aims to help others heal too. In an interview with online magazine The Fader (2016) Knowles explains:
“I wanted the album to have those moments of grief, and being able to be angry and express rage, and trying to figure out how to cope in those moments. I also wanted it to make people feel empowered and [that] in the midst of all of this we can still dream, and uplift, and laugh like we always have […] we, as black people, have historically not been presented as regal beings in society”.
Knowles presents herself as the advocate for black, female equality and does not only use her explanation of the recent album to show this, but also uses her lyrics to do so. In “Don’t Touch My Hair” (2016) she touches upon the controversial theme of cultural appropriation which has been a returning topic in the media recently. Looking at the political and social uproar Knowles has created when releasing her album “A Seat at the Table”, the
singer/songwriter seems to be an adequate second case study to research.
By means of researching and answering the aforementioned research questions, the aim of this research project is to show that black musical feminism in Europe is an important social and artistic factor. The aim is, then, to empower revolution and feminism and to use music as a platform to spread political standpoints. On the other hand the representation of women by themselves can show an adaption of the male gaze, as Laura Mulvey talks about in
her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1998). In this way, women’s music represents the sexualized and objectified image of (black) women and empowers this image. This research project will present to the reader what sort of black, female identities are articulated in present-day music and whether we can speak of such a thing as black musical feminism. On a final note, all of the discussed music and quoted lyrics throughout this research project will be both listed in appendix 1 (a playlist of the discussed music and web links to the songs) and in appendix 2 (a CD containing all of the discussed music) to provide a complete experience of the researched matter.
Chapter 1
The History of Afro-American Sounds
1.0. Introduction
The roots of the Afro-American rhythms and sounds can be traced back to the times of slavery: the African musical sounds travelled in particular to the United States which eventually evolved to the emergence of the jazz movement in America. The jazz movement refers to the act of movement of African Americans that followed the mass exodus from the rural South to the urban North of the United States during the First World War. Jazz music evolved to an expression of a new-found liberation due to unshackled sentiments that were triggered by the oppression and poverty of the South (Vincent 1995). It is fundamental to discuss the roots of the Afro-American sounds to come to an answer to the main question, because the history of the genre, jazz, gives us a clear idea of where the struggles between the concepts of race and music emerged.
The exhibition “Rhythm & Roots” in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, follows this aforementioned route that started in Africa, moved to the United States, where it started to emerge in the south and eventually ended up in the north. The exhibition space in the impressive museum is constructed as a musical timeline that guides the visitor through the stages of the emergence of the contemporary Afro-American music as we know it today. The analysis of the exhibition is a fundamental contribution to the analysis of the history of Afro-American sounds, since the exhibition puts the history in a European framework. How are we, Europeans, perceiving and framing the jazz movement? Besides that, singer/songwriter and subject of the case study, Giovanca Ostiana, is the co-initiator of the exhibition and therefore the exposition is even more interesting to look at.
The musical journey “Rhythm & Roots” consists of music clips, iconic objects, musical instruments and the personal stories of various artists. Soul singer/songwriter and co-initiator of the exhibition Giovanca Ostiana, rock and roller Danny Vera, rapper Akwasi and many other artists talk about their sources of inspiration. From hip hop to rock and roll, from jazz to salsa: musical movement is the golden wire of the exhibition. Nowadays new media platforms, social media platforms amongst others, enable music to travel across the globe and return to their origins: Africa, in this case. The return to the homeland of Afro-American sounds leads to the creation of new musical styles such as highlife and juju. In this way, the musical journey has come full circle.
phenomenon “cultural appropriation“ show this tension of the blurry boundaries between the appreciation and the appropriation of international musical styles. Music and social struggle are and have always been interrelated. Looking at the roots of the Afro-American sounds that lie in the time of slavery and the fact that the sounds were characterized by their empowering and liberational character, one could state that nothing has changed in modern-day music (Vincent 1995). Music functions as one of the most important platforms to express feelings of dissatisfaction and protest against the current state of affairs: music is accessible, is
everywhere in daily life and is the purest transmitter of emotions.
This chapter will present a musical timeline, inspired on the timeline that is presented in the exhibition “Rhythm & Roots”, of the way black activists built up the Jazz Age and what political developments came along with that. From its roots in the 19th century to its
discovery and “take-over” by the white music industry in the 1920s. Furthermore, this chapter will zoom in on the role of women in the movement and on the legacy it left behind in
Europe.
The Jazz Age
1.1.1. The black activists who built the Jazz Age
The Jazz Age started in 1912, when musicians first referred to ‘jazzing’ music, but was recognized by the world around 1918 or 1920, depending upon which historian one reads. The Jazz Age as a musical term, however, one would have to date much earlier than 1918 or 1920, but the term “Jazz Age” does not designate the era when jazz and blues styles replaced ragtime, nor when the jazz and blues business developed. Instead, in both general histories and Hollywood movies, the term Jazz Age is used with little regard to music, and even less regard to when black Americans started the music. The Jazz Age is often referred to as the lifestyle of the roaring twenties’, a period characterized by fedora hats, ‘flappers’,
‘bohemians’ and the jazz band.
Although the birth of the jazz genre is credited to African Americans, it expanded during this period and became “discovered” by middle-class, white Americans. Among them, a lot of critics were still present – they saw the (black) jazz as music of the people with no training or skill. Even though the white musical industry got ahead of the popularity of the black music and took over, it still tried to facilitate the mesh of African american traditions and ideals with the white middle-class society. Cities like Chicago and New York became the cultural capitals for jazz. According to Vincent (1995), the white music industry left out the
soul of the jazz music when it was taken over by their music industry. “The what’s in it for me? – generation seemed interested only in money, that is in Wall Street and the high-tech stock of that time” (Vincent 1995, 3).
The American Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and the Afrofuturisms of the late 1960s became a potent tool of emancipation for not only black artists, but for the black community in general. The emergence and evolution of black jazz music was seen as a “Black Revolution” during these two periods placed in American history. Baraka, writer of the controversial story “Answers in Progress” treating this topic, stakes a claim for jazz as a universal mode in which people could express their sentiments and their hopes for the future in a literal way. Dongala, author of the just as controversial story “Jazz and Palm Wine” states that jazz does not fulfill the explanatory function as Baraka states, and reclassifies jazz music as an affective tool that can encapsulate shared feelings, “but can’t translate them into action in any predetermined way” (Willey 2013, 3).
1.1.2. The white musical takeover
The Afro-American musical civilisation, as one might call it, was less than a decade old when it was “discovered” by the white music industry. The black jazz civilisation – by that time already consisting of specialized training schools, booking agencies, theatre managers, and so on – emerged during “one of those rare windows of opportunitiy for African-Americans that open up when rapid social change creates new situations which the White power structure is slow to control”, Vincent states (1995, 1). The context in which the jazz movement in the early 1920s is placed, is that of the First World War, which created the so called “window of opportunity” for the black jazz scene. In spite of the fortunate historical timing, the
establishment of the black jazz scene was not easy. The black musical civilisation had to “fight the right to party” and “party for the right to fight” - terms used in the modern-day rap scene to describe the struggle at the time. Even with the “window of opportunity” that opened up, the black music scene had a long way to go when it came to fighting segregation within the musical sector and critics of the genre that used the terms music “uncivilized” and “low-class” to describe the music.
In spite of the strong criticism, the white middle class noticed the fast growing
popularity of the genre that happened in a blink. As soon as the white music industry captured the success of the black jazz music, they could foresee the social impact the genre and
corresponding civilisation could have. Since the white musical scene was far more established and could reach a far broader audience than the black musicians that were performing jazz
music in small settings at the time, the white musicians started to make money with the jazzy sounds, taken over from the black jazz scene. A “new” genre was born and the white music industry was calling it jazz (Vincent 1995, 15). The jazz music, was not longer seen as the Afro-American tradition, but as the cultural heritage of America in general. This shift, was characterized by new influences in the jazz genre, the lyrics were less political and socially tinted, as the original roots of black jazz - spirituals and work songs – were very much, and so were the rhythms. The modern-day jazz consisted of fresh sounds which almost entirely wiped out the black roots of the genres. Vincent argues in his work, that many black
musicians would argue that the new sounds would not even sound like their original jazz any longer (1995).
1.1.3. Modern-day jazz: a hybrid genre
In 1987, the Afro-American musicians officially lashed back and took back what was initially theirs. Jazz music and culture experienced a surge in popularity after the resolution called the Jazz Preservation Act (JPA) that was signed in 1987. The resolution resulted in the
acknowledgement of jazz as a black American art form, thus using race, national identity and cultural value as fundamental aspects in lifting jazz to one of the nation’s most subsidized arts. Before 1987, the preservation of jazz music and its history was not an easy task,
especially in identifying jazz with black culture and with America as a whole, looking at the history of slavery and the apartheid. To come to this resolution, the rethinking of the balance between social and musical aspects of jazz was needed, Farley (2011) states in his work Jazz as a Black American Art Form: Definitions of the Jazz Preservation Act. He states that, for example, many consider the aspects of jazz blues aesthetic and the democratic ethic, which both inevitably express racist oppression in the United States. Another fundamental point in the resolution is the definition of jazz as a “high” art, which resulted in a more open
interpretation of “what it means to be America’s music” (Farley 2011, 1), of which the results will be discussed in the next paragraph. The Jazz Preservation Act was a political resolution that was supposed to end the long way of the establishment of the black musical civilisation. The history of African-American music has comprised most of America’s creative output since colonial times. Despite the fact that the slaves may only had their hand-made
instruments to create their music, their musical was rich enough for the white middle class to make “profitable racist copies” of the black art form, as Vincent (1995, 4) states. “True jazz has been a statement as well as a form” (Vincent 1995, 5).
Burke’s words (2009, 5), which suits perfectly to the content of the JPA signed in 1987. Modern-day jazz is characterized by the variety of styles that come together as one. This “hybridity” of styles is a concept that constantly reappears in the “Rhythm & Roots”
exhibition, too. “The cross-over, the hybrid, the pot-pourri” are terms Burke uses to describe the variety of styles that come together as one: hybridity. Furthermore, Burke describes this hybridity in our modern age as “maddeningly elastic”. Nations, social classes, tribes and castes have all been deconstructed in the sense of being rethought and being described as false entities. The same process we see with the cross-over over jazz music that took place in the late 90s, which is exactly how the Jazz Age and the takeover by the white music industry during this musical period are represented in the Rhythm & Roots exhibition (2017), which will be discussed more thoroughly in paragraph 1.3.
1.2. The role of (black) women in it
In the beginning of the Jazz Age, black women were mostly seen as the passive “watchers” of the musical genres, whereas men were the active participators. In this regard, the white music industry and the black musical civilisation were quite similar at the time. In the white music industry, female “fans” were and are usually given the role of “watcher”, assuming that their only role in the music industry was visiting and cheering for “the boys in the band” (Trier-Bieniek 2016, 13). During the late 1920s, however, this segregation of women within the music industry changed. Wealthy black women started to engage more in the political struggle for equality and illustrated the interlocking of the ‘New Negro’ calls for progress on the social front and the musical progress. An example of this new engagement of black women in political and social issues, is the work of Madame Ledia Walker-Robinson’s – who was the wealthiest black entrepeneur at the time due to the invention of the hair-straightening process by her mother. Walker-Robinson was involved in many political activities as well as in arts, the W.C. Handy’s blues, for example.
This new engagement of black women in politics and arts resulted in the elevated esteem and fame gained for the black female vocalists of the Jazz Age. Female artists were offered a new “window of opportunity” which resulted in the fact that the top female jazz & blues singers of the 1920s were the highest-paid black artists of the decade. What
characterized the female jazz and blues singers and gained them popularity was the addressing of issues “their” people experienced in their daily lives. The songs created and sang by female black vocalists had a revolutionary character which only became stronger over the years and is more present than every in today’s music, of whatever genre. Vincent addresses it as
“music that makes an oppressed people (feel) real”, which, naturally, had an empowering effect even when the details of that reality were unbecoming (1995, 14). Besides the
revolutionary tone of the songs by black female vocalists in terms of inequality based on race, the music also addressed issues regarding the inequality based on gender, which was a new phenomenon at the time. Vocalist Bessie Smith recorded a controversal song called “T’Aint Nobody Business If I Do” in 1929, that told a story of restricted opportunity and exploitation of black women, in which the main character saw no way out besides accepting her destiny. A verse of the song goes as following:
If I choose he’d up and hit me Rather than he go an’quit me
T’aint nobody’s business if I do (T’Ain’t Nobody Business If I Do – Bessie Smith, 1929). The craze for black women jazz and blues singers resulted in a very popular ‘sub’genre of the genres jazz and blues and peaked in 1923 when within half a year fortythree female black vocalists published solo songs on new blues records. These recording opportunities were a reaction by the music industry to the popularity the “new style” gained overtime; in this way they could profit from it, just as the music industry could when taking over the black jazz scene.
In Women and Music (2014), a journal that contains a variety of case studies of the way women are represented in different musical genres, well-known jazz musician Billy Strayhorn is a central topic in essay and chapter three, written by Lisa Barg. The black composer and pianist was a fundamental contribution to the Jazz Age in the 1950s. In January 1956, Strayhorn flew across America to arrive in Los Angeles to start a collaboration
recording project with white, female pop singer Rosemary Clooney. While the female singer, Clooney, was pregnant at the time of recording, Strayhorn immediately started to take care of her and started to play the role of “trusted domestic caregiver” as is stated in the following quote by Clooney:
“I’d say, ‘Oh God, I’m going to throw up again,’ and he would say, ‘Okay, now. It’s okay,’ and he would take care of me. He said ‘Don’t get up, honey,’ and he’d make me crackers and milk” (Barg 2014, 26).
(Barg 2014, 27), it is difficult to ignore the troubling histories of race, gender, sexuality, and powerrelations within the music industry. In this context, the “whiteness” of the singer, is a very important notion: the white female musician, was taken seriously enough to begin a more or less “equal” collaboration with a male vocalist, while black women were not even ought to possess the capacity to do so. Furthermore, Barg concludes that the way Clooney describes and remembers Strayhorn – as domestic caregiver – coupled with her characterization of Strayhorn’s non-normative masculinity “hails strayhorns’s black queer body according to the scripts of historical white affection for gendered asexualized black service” (2014, 27). The collaboration, thus, reminds Barg of the relationship between white females and black men during the times of slavery.
At this point we can conclude, that the musical relationships between female and male black musicians was far from equal due to issues regarding gender. On the other hand, the musical relationships between white female musicians and black male musicians reinscibed white supremacy in a way that the black musician was providing an “asexualized black service” to the white female artist, due to the problematic regarding race. A conclusion that will be relevant when analyzing the modern-day black, female artist in chapter two.
1.3. Black musical legacy in Europe: “Rhythm & Roots”
“Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music” (Nina Simone in “Rhythm & Roots” 2017).
When the visitor enters the exhibition in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, and passes the instruments and short videos that represent the migration flows of African people to the United Stated throughout the centuries, this strong quotation by Afro-American
singer/songrwiter Nina Simone, instantly catches the eye. In this quotation, the singer suggests, that the modern-day genre called “jazz” is an invented term by the white music industry, after they took over the black jazz scene. Simone suggests in this quote, that calling the music “jazz” is a way for white people to define black people and put them back in the “cage”. Continuously, a panel in the – black painted – first room of the exhibition explains that between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries 11 to 14 million enslaved Africans were transported to America. In North America they were not allowed to make their own music, as slave owners knew that the enslaved could communicate over large distances by drum. They therefore had to come up with new kinds of music, without instruments. Consequently they
began singing work songs – rhythmic singing to keep up their spirits and lighten the burden of the hard labour they performed in the fields and on the roads and railways. These “work songs” and “field hollers” were often in the form of questions and answers. When not
working, they sang spirituals – Christian hymns. All these forms of music eventually gave rise to genres like the blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues and many more. Enslaved people in Central and South America used to have more musical freedom and were allowed to keep their musical instruments. There, the African tradition melded with European and other music to create dance music with extraordinary rhythms. This panel tries to show the “exiled” creation of music the Afro-Americans experienced in North America, in contrast to the more free musical environment in Central and South America. Besides that, the panel emphasizes on the “melding” component of the musical genres created by enslaved people in South America, where the music – as aforementioned – “melded” with European and other music to create dance music with Afro-American rhythms. This exact term, forms the red thread throughout the whole exhibition.
The white musical takeover by the black jazz music that derived from the spirituals and work songs made by Afro-Americans, is represented by means of the “melting” and “mixture” of the Afro-American rhythms with European tones. “Rhythm & Roots” is framed in a way the white music industry is represented as the “helping hand” to help the black jazz to the next level, which was, described in Vincent’s work, not the case at all when the white music industry took over the musical genre invented by Afro-Americans. The exhibition is an exact representation of the theories presented by Gloria Watkins in her work “Black looks: Race and Representation” (1992). The origins of the original jazz music are presented in a way that it reinforces and reinscribes white supremacy. Watkins concludes the following, which is very applicable to the representations in the “Rhythm & Roots” exhibition and therefore to the representations of Afro-American music in Europe:
“Those of us commited to black liberation struggle, to the freedom and self-determination of all black people, must face daily the tragic reality that we have collectively made few, if any, revolutionary interventions in the area of race and representation” (1992, 1).
“White America had lost its soul”, after the white music industry let the interest in money become bigger than the essence of the music itself, Vincent (1995, 6) concludes the
introduction of the work “Keep Cool” with and one could argue to say the same about Europe looking at the exhibition: the soul is lost under all of the “pot-pourri” that replaced the
Chapter 2
Musical Feminism, Empowerment and Gender
2.0. Introduction
The question whether music has cultural impact when it comes to race, has now been elaborately discussed and answered. In what ways gender has influenced music overtime, nevertheless, is yet to be argued. The core of the issues around gender in music – as well as gender issues on any other platform - is derived from the longstanding theory of the “One” versus the “Other”, described in “The Second Sex” (de Beauvoir 2009) originally published as “Le Deuxième Sexe” in 1949. The fundamental and groundbreaking work in the field of feminism is often regarded as the starting point of second-wave feminism. One of the most fundamental issues de Beauvoir touches on, is the way how the male sex is and has always been seen as the “norm” whereas the female sex has always been portrayed as the “privileged other”. Eventually, she states, the woman always functions as the female counterpart for the “male hero”. One of the most striking quotations from the book and a good starting point for this chapter goes as following: “But the only earthly destiny reserved to the women equal, child-woman, soul sister, woman-sex, and female animal is always man” (De Beauvoir 2009, 264). This constant struggle of fighting these longstanding presumptions and proving the world wrong is represented in the popular contemporary music which will be the focus of this research project.
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than
recognizing how we are”, Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi states in “Feminist Theory and Pop Culture” (Trier-Bieniek 2015). The juxtaposition of popular music and feminist theory has a clear impact on the reception of culture. The empowering lyrics of popular contemporary singers such as Beyoncé Knowles appear to be “mini-lectures” in feminist theory and methodology and the singer did not let her audience down with the release of her latest album “Lemonade” (2016). The singer’s desire to challenge the existing norms and to introduce feminism to new generations of young women is her way of having cultural impact on her audience, if not the world. Not only Knowles’ lyrics have been a platform for spreading feminist messages, her performances and world tours reinforce this notion. The singer often tours with an all-female band, has been mixing songs with pro-feminist speeches from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – the song “Flawless” of one of her most recent albums “Beyoncé” that appeared in December 2013 (Trier-Bieniek 2016, 11). With the release of the album, Knowles started what would be considered a feminist campaign to raise
awareness about gender inequality. In a piece the artist wrote for The Shriver Report on women’s pay equality the artist discusses her motivations for her campaign: “Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally imprtant and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal?”, she states (Trier-Bieniek 2016, 12). “We should all be
feminists”, Adichie’s voice tells the listener in the second verse of the aforementioned song “Flawless”.
In this chapter we will look at the ways black women are represented in music created by themselves. Is this representation solely containing elements of female empowerment or is there more to the story and is it representing a less empowering image of black women too? By looking into the recent debates on body poltics, black female pleasure and the question whether we can speak of such a thing as a male, or perhaps, female gaze.
2.1. Black womanhood and musical representations
Gender representation has a long an varied history in (pop) music; performance and gender display are concepts that are reocurring in music since forever. One of the most fundamental concepts in researching this phenomenon is the theory of “doing gender”, discussed by West and Zimmerman (1987). In their work they conclude that gender is not just taught to and by us; it is performed and acted in our everyday life. Gender is suggested to be an identity, created by the way we dress and the way we want to present ourselves. In this way, the concept of gender in pop music is an audiovisual representation of the expectations of what men and women have to be of our society; gender stereotypes are, in this way, reproduced in music.
The problematic relationship between gender in music already started to develop in the 1930s and 1940s during the Jazz Age with the aforementioned songs of female artist Bessie Smith, one of the most controversial albums she released was the risqué “Empress of the Blues” where the singer explicitly played with her feminity and sexuality. In one of the songs of the album called “Do your Duty” Smith sings the following in the last verse:
If my radiator gets too hot Cool it off you know the spots
Give me all the service you got (Do Your Duty – Bessie Smith, 1929).
The rebellious and feisty undertone was a recurring topic in all of the songs of the album and was very controversial at the time. The role assignment in the music industry was clear:
women were given the role of “watchers” and “fans” and men were given the role of “perfomers”. This unequal relationship was first addressed in the study of the so called musical genres “cock rock” and “teeny bop” in which male musicians perform masculinity for female fans by Frith and McRobbie (1979). The male musicians are in this case presented as the dominate and aggressive performers that claim attention from the subordinate female fans. “Their stance is obvious in live shows; male bodies on display, plunging shirts and tight trousers, a visual emphasis on chest hair and genitals” (Frith and McRobbie 1979, 65). The masculinity of the musicians was being magnified and was assumed to be glorified by the female “watchers”, this, instead of the actual music the male artist was performing. This phenomenon of “hyper-masculinity” – as the authors call the exaggeration of masculinity on stage – that appeared in the suggested genre “cock rock” is still very present in contemporary (pop) music industry when we look at modernday male pop artists such as Justin Bieber, Usher and Chris Brown. The term “teeny bop” is then used to describe the other side of how the music industry used to be; the female audience and fans who were always the consumers of music and rarely the performers of it (Trier-Bieniek 2013, 19).
Nowadays the chore of the gender issues in the music sector has changed, but are still very visbile. The contemporary music industry might not hold on to the stereotypical role structure of male performers and female fans, but it does show gender inequality still. The music industry, today, is mainly constructed by men who dominate the positions of record executive, academic listener, fan and music journalist, and therefore the musical product is still biased, or “gendered”, as Marion Leonard suggests in her work “Gender in the Music Industry” (2009). This gendered product is represented in for example, interviews taken by male music journalists that present phrases like “the year of the woman in music” or “women in rock”. What makes these statements so problematic is that they peculiarise the presence of women in music. When female artists are discussed, they are often held up as remarkable for existing in a man’s world. Female artists might no longer be perceived as “female fans”, in today’s music industry they are very often portrayed as nothing more than pretty performers (Leonard 2009, 32). When female artists do take matters in their own hands by means of writing, producing and distributing their own songs it is an exception of the rule and is seen as some sort of a brave breakthrough. Female singers/songwriters and topics of the case study of this research, Solange Knowles and Giovanca Ostiana, are present-day examples of this.
Women of color have had a long contentious history with being excluded from feminist movements. Feminism has very often been viewed as a “white woman thing” (Hobson 2013, 22). Whereas black women find themselves marginalized on the edge of
society, feminism lies in the “white” center of society, Hobson suggests. At a certain point, black females started to reposition themselves from this margin to the center: Afro-American feminist Audre Lorde was an example of this. Lorde states that when white feminists would dismiss women of color, the aim to strive for gender equality could not be taken seriously and that it would encourage their own demise (2009). “If Black women were free, then everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression”, the author states (2009, 11). Black women have to face multiple oppressions, that of being marginalized regarding their race and that of the marginalization regarding their gender, which made it harder to fit in the all white feminism club. Their insistence on creating the analysis of intersectionality led to feminism 2.0, as one might call it, and the creation of platforms like the “Kitchen Table Women of Color Press” that opened the field for feminists of color (Hobson 2013, 22). Some would even argue that women of color invented the feminist movement, even though “the white middle-class part of the movement got reported more”, as well-known (white) feminist Gloria Steinem stated in an interview with Stacey Tisdale (2015). Looking at these considerations one could state that, due the white part of the women’s movement were always far more in the picture than the black part of the movement, it gets often overlooked that women of color were foundational to the modern women’s movement instead of marginal within it. This priviliging of whiteness have, according to Hobson (2013, 23) led to a “whitewashing” of the feminist brand; consequently, the feminist of color is rarely acknowledged. The term “womanist” is often used to refer to black feminists, by women of color themselves to distinguish themselves from white feminists who strive for other (gender) equality than “womanists” do. Where white feminists tried to enhance the opportunities for women in a “man’s world” solely, black “womanists” strived for equality for all marginalized groups; they strived against gender inequality but equally as much against racism, which was the distinguishing element that made them womanists instead of feminists.
Rhyming, cutting, and not forgetting. We are the ones that give birth.
To the new generation of prophets because it’s ladies first (Ladies First – Queen Latifah, 1989).
In the early nineties, artists like Queen Latifah created space for black feminist voices through her empowering lyrics. The songs “Ladies First” (1989) and “U.N.I.T.Y.” (1993) of the
hip-hop singer meant the beginning of reshaping the public “gaze” (Pough 2004, 17). The hip-hip-hop singer was one of the first artists to address controversial themes such as street harassament black women would often face in urban communities and the celebration of black female leadership. Nevertheless, this musical “breakthrough” did not come out of the blue, it was a part of a long trajectory of the growing political consciousness of black women (paragraph 1.2.) and their musicality. An interesting notion is that these artists that spread these
empowering messages refused to be identified as “feminists”, as was the case when the term “womanists” came up, a few years before. Even today, artists with strong female
empowerment messages like Beyoncé Knowles, are often hesitant to call themselves feminists. This rejection, Hobson argues, “stems from the historical exclusion of women of color from dominant images of feminism” (2013, 26). The next paragraph will discuss what it is exactly that black women aim to transfer to their audience via their music and lyrics and which types of identities they engage with.
Black female identities
2.2.1. The submissive attitude: adaption of the (fe)male gaze?
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise you will threaten the man’” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013).
A verse of the speech of well-known Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the Beyoncé song Flawless sets the tone regarding the traditional and clear role division between the sexes: the dominant male versus the submussive female. Adichie states in her speech that women are being kept small, by the way gender and gender roles are constantly prescribed and reinscribed by our society. Female composer Pauline Oliveros agrees with this statement in the work “A Conversation About Feminism and Music” (Olviveros & Maus 1994). A point she makes, is that because women have traditionally been channeled into domestic roles that don not encourage them to involve in the public life, which makes it hard for women to even form the ambition to become a composer or any other type of artist. “Most people, and many women, are very surpressed” (Oliveros & Maus 1994, 178). The social pressure to be and act a particular way as a woman and a man, was and is still very present. Of course, there have been some changes in a positive way, but looking at Adichie’s speech (2013), there is still a
long way to go. In this paragraph this submissive identity female black artists take in or criticize in their music will be analyzed.
In 2012, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian author and feminist that is quoted in the aforementioned Beyoncé songs, gave a very fundamental speech on the topic of
feminism in the 20th century at the TED conference – TEDxEuston – which took place in the United Kingdom. The TED speech later resulted in the written essay “We should all be feminists” which was published in the same year. In the essay Adichie offers an updated definition of feminism for the twenty-first century that is rooted in inclusion and awareness. “We have evolved” Adichie stated in her TED talk (2012) “but it seems to me that our ideas of gender had not evolved”. As an example the modern feminist recalls on an incident that happened weeks before the speech. Adichie walked into a lobby of one of the best Nigerian hotels, where a guard at the entrance stopped her and “greeted” her with a very odd question, automatically assuming she - as a Nigerian female in a hotel alone - was a sex worker. If she would be accompanied by a man, this would not have been the case, Adichie states. “Each time I walk into a Nigerian restaurant with a man, the waiter greets the man and ignores me”, is another example she gives in the TED talk (2012) in addition to the aforementioned
statement on how the ideas of gender still remain unchanged. These waiters, she explains, can not be blamed for this behaviour for it is, in their minds, the socially correct thing to do. What has to be changed, even in this twentieth century we are living in, is our mindset and
education when raising our kids, the next generations. “We must raise our girls differently. But we must also raise our sons differently”, the last part is often forgotten in other feminist theories. We have to change our perceptions of gender, that is, not only our ideas of
femininity, but certainly also our ideas of masculinity and how we will pass this on to next generations. In our modern society, masculinity becomes a hard small cage; it is defined in a very narrow way. Most (African) boys are being taught that they can not show their
vulnerability nor their fear, “we teach them to mask their true selves”, Adichie states in the same speech.
The fragment of Adichie’s speech that is used in the aforementioned Knowles’ song, “ Flawless”, mentioned in the start of this paragraph, is explicitly mentioning everything
Adichie wants to fight for and, argueably, everything Beyoncé wants to fight for. A very striking notion is the article the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published on October 7, 2016 called “Ngozi Adichie: Beyoncé’s feminism isn’t my feminism”. The explanation Adichie gives for distancing herself from the feminism Beyoncé stands for, is that the type of
and that is exactly the type of feminism Adichie does not completely agree with. The
connection between the world-famous singer Beyoncé and the feminist statements of Adichie was marked as “remarkable” and “unexpected” in recent pop culture. In “Flawless” a couple of fragments of Adichie’s speech are used to make the same statement Adichie makes in her TED talk. However; Adichie does not agree with this completely. In De Volkskrant she opens up on the collaboration with Beyoncé for the first time, stating:
“Her [Beyoncé’s] style is not my style, but I do find it interesting that she takes a stand in political and social issues, since a few years. She portrays a woman who is in charge of her own destiny, who does her own thing, and she has girl power. I am very taken with that. Still, her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men. I think men are lovely, but I don’t think that women should relate everything they do to men” (De Volkskrant 2016).
Beyoncé’s feminism then, is contradictory, as she quotes Adichie’s feminist statements in one song but then focuses on the necessity of men in other songs. Which is exactly the issue of the “submissive attitude” that is taken in in popular music.
In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1998) researcher Mulvey investigates the roots of female oppression and submission by means of analyzing the film industry. Mulvey states that, in a world that is known for its sexual imbalance, “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (1998, 4). In other words, Mulvey describes the active dominant male versus the passive submissive female; this phenomenon is also known as the “male gaze”. Women in movies are in this way displayed as sexual objects and are the main characters of erotic spectacle, whereas men are the audience of this spectacle. Thus, female characters were solely present in movies to fulfill the expectations of the male gaze and enjoyment of men, Mulvey states. “The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man” (1998, 7).
The "male gaze" is a term understood - mostly in feminist criticism - as "the subjugation of the anti-male (the woman) and her as a recasting as an object for male dominance" (1998, 7). In other words, the male gaze in music needs to be understood as the idea that music is created to please a male audience, as Laura Mulvey stated in her essay on cinematography. Its counterpart and subject of recent discussions, the "female gaze" is mostly coined as the answer to the question: "what does it mean to look at the other woman from a woman's point of view?" (Ghose 1998, 3). Mulvey’s analysis of the standpoint of female
viewers of Hollywood films is key to these recent discussions of the existence of a female gaze. In her work, Mulvey looks at the female spectator too, and identifies two possible viewpoints for the sexualized and fetished female star in the film industry she analyzed before regarding the male gaze: a) the viewpoint of a vicarious identification with a male
perspective, or b) that of a narcissistic identification with the female character in the film, related to the desire to be as sexually desirable as the protagonist (Ghose 1998, 3). Mulvey states that the female spectator is constantly switching between these two viewing points. Female spectators have two choices: on the one hand they can objectify the female character in an adoption of the male gaze, on the other hand they can identify with the female
protagonist in her role as desirable object of the male gaze (Mulvey 1975). In this way, one could state that the submissive attitude that is taken in by modern-day colored female artists could be seen as the adoption of the male gaze and therefore, an adoption of the female gaze as well – in the case of identifying with the female protagonist in the role of desirable object of the male gaze.
2.2.2. The revolutionary attitude: from anger to empowerment
“…why does that anger unleash itself most tellingly against another Black woman at the least excuse? Why do I judge her in a more critical light than any other, becoming enraged when she does not measure up? And if behind the object of my attack should lie the face of my own self, unaccepted, then what could possibly quench a fire fueled by such reciprocating
passions?” (Watkins 1992, 42).
This black female anger discussed by Watkins, using a quote from the essay “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” by Lorde, leads to awareness and this eventually leads to empowerment. The movement that is described here is that of the deeply rooted frustrations of women of color that moves them from rage to care and recognition, from anger to
empowerment. What eventually emerges, according to Watkins, is the “revolutionary attitude” black females take in. In today’s society this attitude is represented in all forms of social platforms, but most of all: in music.
Black female musicians are part of minority groups in twofold: looking at their gender and looking at their race. Author Adrienne Trier-Bieniek mentions in his work “Feminst Theory and op Culture” (2015) that black feminism is often seen as a methaphorical margin; “a place where black women could see the world they are supposed to exist in but could not
quite participate” (2015, 19). Often women of color are seen as “the outsiders looking in”. Trier-Bieniek explains however, that the underestimated value of these marginalized
experiences of women of color that it produces its own category of knowledge within feminist theory and tells the story of a marginalized group within an already marginalized group. One could state that the revolutionary attitude that female musicians of color often present in their music is, thus, two times as strong and comes from the anger that derives from the inequality that is present in their identity in a twofold way. Their revolutionary attitude comes from a feminist point of view and from a racist point of view – which is analyzed in detail in the prior two chapters.
One can describe the revolutionary attitude of black women in music as musical activism. The revolutionary attitude focuses on the combat of the submissive attitude, discussed in the prior paragraph. “Women would tap into their voices when they once again formed strong relationships with other women – our most powerful weapon against sexism” April Kalogeropoulos Householder states in her essay “Girls, GRRRLS, GIRLS” in Trier-Bieniek’s work (2015, 47). What is assumed here, is that this “black female rage” would take place when women, as a group, feel marginalized and threatened. That is the moment women would stand up as a group and protest for their rights; “a preface to activism” Householder calls this phenomenon (2015, 47). The concept of solidarity, or in Householder’s terms “sisterhood”, is the key concept that emerged during the last wave of feminism within this preface to activism. In addition, the phenomenon “girl power” emerged during the third wave of feminism. In the early 1990s the underground feminist punk rock movement known as Riot Grrrl emerged which resulted in the new “girl power” term and corresponding movement. The movement is often associated with the third-wave feminism and was often seen as a musical genre constisting of activist lyrics that addressed and fought issues women had to face, such as: racism, domestic abuse, sexuality and rape. Women that were a part of the movement are known for the organisation of meetings, protests on the streets and to organize women in music. The movement was specificly characterized by the female anger that was a fundamental part of it.
The same anger is represented thoroughly in the TED talk given by the well-known Dutch academic and author Gloria Wekker (2016). Wekker has been involved in a project called “Doing Gender” in the beginning of this year and has been working on the celebrated book: “White Innocence”, published in 2016. “Whites are smarter, more beautiful, they have the more valued qualities in life” Wekker stated in her TED talk (2016), summarizing her work “White Innocence”. Continuously she adds: “Well maybe except for sexuality, which is
something that is often ascribed to black people”. An interesting notion, because what Wekker states here, is that the black female anger functions as the fuel for the sexual attitude black women take in, which will be thoroughly discussed in the next paragraph.
2.2.3. The sexual attitude: submissive or revolutionary?
“We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013).
In 2014, during the MTV Video Music Awards, Beyoncé Knowles made one of her biggest media appearances regarding her feminist campaign. During her showcase, a medley of almost all of the songs from the album “Beyoncé”, the quote “We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are”, a phrase from Adichie’s speech in the song “Flawless”, appeared on the massive screen behind her after a series of explicitly sexual fragments of the singer’s career. At the same moment, the group of dancers who had been pole-dancing on stage during the appearance of the videoclips was moved across the stage. Knowles and her team were making a statement; the singer had been accused to give performances that would be “too sexual” before and this was their way to disprove that critique. The appearance ended with the word “Feminist” on the enormous screen and
Beyoncé standing fiercely in front of it. “The VMAs statement was next level – an unusually mainstream flaunting of feminist pride in our image-driven culture. And man did it feel good”, Slate journalist Amanda Marcotte wrote in an article (Trier-Bieniek 2016, 12). The appearance was received as the turningpoint in the first feminist campaign of a pop icon, and was a true achievement for many feminist pop culture scholars.
Although the word “feminist” appeared in capital letters on the screen in the
concerthall and Knowles confirms her status as feminist in articles such as “Gender Equality Is A Myth!”, there has been lots of critique regarding this status; critique that very often has to do with the way the sexual appearances of the artist. The American liberal feminist magazine Ms., founded by sociopolitical feminists Gloria Steinmen and Doroty Pitman Hughes in 1971, decided to include Beyoncé on the cover of the spring edition of the magazine in 2013 and, in addition, published an interview called “Beyoncé’s Fierce Feminism”. The cover was
received predominantly negative by the audience of the magazine. The Ms. Facebook wall became engulfed with harsh comments on the cover of the singer, Beyoncé would be “a
fur-wearing stripper” and would be a shame for the modern feminist movement “calling women bitches” – referencing to her released song “Bow Down, Bitches” (2013) shortly before the interview. On this critique, Hobson (2013) states the following: “When women like Beyoncé proudly proclaim feminism, they tend to invite more debates than affirmation” (2013, 25). The reason behind this, is that the celebrity status of the artist gets in the way of the serious political messages the artist tries to preach. Also, the fact that Beyoncé had not directly started proclaiming these messages when her career started, reinforces the idea that the preached feminism is solely a part of the marketing of the artist’s brand.
Is the “sex-positive feminism” Beyoncé preaches a “wrong” kind of feminism or is the traditional and conventional feminism outdated in our modern society and music industry? Aforementioned Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues it is just a different type of feminism than the traditional type that most people still hold on to. In the beginning of the TED talk she gave in 2012, the author stated that until the day of today, she still has to defend that she is a feminist. The general ideas about feminists are still very traditional, feminists are often seen as angry man-haters and feminism itself as a very Western phenomenon. In order to defend herself being a modern-day African feminist, Adichie - ironically - calls herself “a happy African feminist, who does not hate men, who likes lipgloss, and who wears high heels for herself but not for men”. Looking at Knowles’ and Adichie’s types of feminism, we can then conclude that the traditional asexual feminism was seen as a negative movement, but the modern sexual feminism is critized even more. In another Knowles’ song called “If I Were a Boy” (2008), Beyoncé plays with the other side of her sexuality: masculinity. In the song the singer fantasizes about how it must be to be a man and experience all kinds of freedom she, as a woman, does not get to experience.
If I were a boy
I think I could understand How it feels to love a girl
I swear I’d be a better man (If I Were A Boy – Beyoncé Knowles, 2008).
Essentially, feminist theory is associated with women’s subordination and gender inequality (Trier-Bieniek 2015, 15). The struggle within this last type of feminism that focuses on the sexuality of women, is whether it is an adoption of the male gaze and therefore in
contradiction to the fight against women’s subordination, or whether it is a rebellious uprising against this, by defending women’s rights to wear and behave whatever and however they
