There comes a time in every young feminist's life when one must ask that difficult and complicated question: am I allowed to love Beyoncé?
Her sex-positive lyrics and videos cause problems for some, and blunders like letting her husband, Jay Z, casually rap about domestic abuse in her song 'Drunk in Love' forces us to question Beyoncé's sincerity in matters feminist.
Her most recent tour was titled 'The Mrs Carter Tour' – a total statement of 'I don't need my name no more yo, I'll just take Jay's' – but the subsequent album was called, simply and emphatically, Beyoncé.
Music and lady enthusiasts are, consequently, torn. We love her for her celebration of women's sexuality; we love her for her independence and refusal to take a back-seat in her career. But, it's hard to ignore Beyoncé's choice – if choice it is - to be a sexual object in her videos and performances. It's a feminist minefield. So, in order to solve this complicated mess of breasts, and objectification, we need to break it down.
It's perfectly fine for Beyoncé to sing about her love of the sex and whatnot, because reclaiming female pleasure and sexuality is a powerful step towards equality: female sexuality has historically been dismissed, co-opted or demonised. The problem arises when Beyoncé appears to objectify herself, apparently relinquishing her sexual autonomy for the pleasure of her partner.
Let's take the track Rocket. It all starts so well:
Let me sit this ass on you/ Show you how I feel/...Don't take your eyes, don't take your eyes off it/Watch it, babe
Beyoncé has the power. She dictates the actions of the voyeur. She wants to tell him/her how she feels. Later on, she references the female orgasm, showing her to be a figure striving for personal sexual enjoyment rather than an object for male gratification. It's a slow jam of vocal virtuosity and musical experimentation, and a powerful bid for ownership of female pleasure. So far, so good. But then the power balance changes.
Daddy, daddy…I've been a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad girl. Tell me what you're gonna do about that? Punish me please
Woah - what's this weird daddy stuff, Beyoncé? What happened to you owning this sexual experience? Where did this submissive woman come from? By this point in the song, she evokes the awful, archaic image of the woman begging to be punished and abused, welcoming male domination.
The track exemplifies the contradictions in both the album and Beyoncé's career as a whole: at times actively empowered, consciously aware of - and explicit about - female sexuality. Other times, submissive and self-objectifying:
Goddammit I'm comfortable in my skin [good; empowered]/ and you're comfortable in my skin [bad; objectifying]
But then we must ask ourselves, fellow feminists, so what?
Beyoncé doesn't have to solve feminism. Yes, some of us get our kicks analysing a 40-second section of one song and how it contributes to the feminist dialectic - but a distinction has to be made between academic feminism and real-life feminism. And let's get one thing straight - whatever the haters say, Beyoncé's most recent album is feminist.
She doesn't shy away from the term - she commits. She samples a TED talk on why we should all be feminists. She has a whole song about cunnilingus. She has a whole song on society's bullshit beauty standards. She published an essay challenging the idea of gender equality. She is a non-white voice contributing to the feminist discourse. She has spoken frequently about her ambitions to reconcile her sexuality and motherhood, and how the fact that she was breastfeeding didn't stop her taking an active creative role in the album. She transcended societal constraints of womanhood – she's a writer, a musician, a singer, a mother, and a sexual being all at once.
The 14-year-old girls who make up Beyoncé's core audience are unlikely, let's face it, to have read a lot of feminist criticism - yet for them, the implications of the album are monumental. For an insecure teen to hear a sample from that Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche - or to be told how Beyoncé can be a mother and an incredibly successful artist - is empowering and inspiring; and a message that should be celebrated.
Yes, there are contradictions within the message; but their importance is massively outweighed by the numbers of young people who might, through this album, hear the core messages of feminism for the first time, and start to think.
Feminism seeks to give women freedom and choice, and help them stop hating themselves. Beyoncé's album offers a vision of female identity that implies freedom – of choice, of sexuality – and liberates the listener. It may not be 'Flawless*' but boy, it does a mighty fine job.