Full Article - http://www.thefader.com/2014/09/12/p...ce-alt-r-and-b


This is an outlook that’s been especially frustrating in the wake of Beyoncé's world-slaying VMAs performance, as the same old “Is Beyoncé Really a Feminist?” slander has been doing the rounds. Even at the peak of her (and everyone’s) game, Beyoncé unbelievably still catches critique for standing in front of a huge neon sign that declares her a “FEMINIST” when many of her contemporaries are uncomfortable about even saying the word (here’s looking at you Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and very recent convert Taylor Swift). To my ears, this is proof that even when she’s one of the richest and most successful performers in the world, Beyoncé's genre is one that is inherently seen as being of less worth to cultural commentators. Her feminist message has been deemed disingenuous because she looks hot while preaching it: last week Milo Yiannopoulos wrote a blog post for UK newspaper The Independent that claimed, “sexual titillation for men and ego boosts for the sisterhood are perhaps the least effective route to female empowerment imaginable. In Beyoncé, it is the male idea of female beauty that finds its highest and most perfect expression. She is what men demand of her, less than the sum of her body parts.”


This kind of outlook is a trumped-up version of a base form of misogyny—the kind that assumes that if a woman looks good, she can’t be smart too. A misogynist watches Beyoncé holding an incredibly difficult pose on a chaise lounge for “Partition,” or Beyoncé wearing her trademark stage costume that shows her flexing quads as she beasts her way through her dance routines, or Beyoncé surrounding herself by athletic backing dancers who part their legs agonizingly slowly in a feat of grace, and thinks: if a woman does this, then she can’t also be a feminist. Surely, if a woman does something that’s sexually attractive, so thinks a misogynist, she must be doing it for me(n).

The best rebuttal of this kind of Bey-bashing came from writer Tamara Winfrey Harris in Bitch magazine last year: “Through a career that has included crotch-grabbing, nudity, BDSM, Marilyn Monroe fetishizing, and a 1992 book devoted to sex, Madonna has been viewed as a feminist provocateur, pushing the boundaries of acceptable femininity. But Beyoncé's use of her body is criticized as thoughtless and without value beyond male titillation, providing a modern example of the age-old racist juxtaposition of animalistic black sexuality vs. controlled, intentional, and civilized white sexuality.” You don’t even have to look so far back in pop history to find equivalent white popstars who get away with as much: how many times does Gaga have to get nude before anyone accuses her of hindering the feminist cause?

Originally posted by stronger23

Ppl who support music do not care about beyonce stance for feminism. Beyonce fan and or hater... No one is mentioning feminism because ....WE DONT CARE!

Originally posted by Melquiades

A woman who has a full song dedicated to **** shaming cannot be a feminist, I am sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dos5pf5OMNM