But yes, Beyonce is a feminist for the message she’s sending

Oct 22, 2014 19:55 GMT  ·  By
Annie Lennox says twerking is not empowering and not feminist: just degrading and inappropriate
   Annie Lennox says twerking is not empowering and not feminist: just degrading and inappropriate

Before today’s wave of female artists who embrace feminism and don’t fail to proclaim themselves feminists on whichever channel made available to them, there was Annie Lennox and there was Tori Amos, feminists who were proud to say they were that before it was the “trendy” thing to do.

Lennox has recently criticized Beyonce for taking the word “feminist” hostage and using it in her own interest: she was just going along with the trend because she was selling her music, and feminism just so happened to strike a chord with audiences.

At the end of the day, the singer said, Beyonce was still selling an over-sexualized image of herself, a male fantasy that had nothing in common with real women, so she wasn’t really a feminist. She was just posing as one.

I twerk, therefore I’m a feminist

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Lennox addresses yet another, very hot fad with many female artists right now: twerking. Singers like Miley Cyrus, even Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj, strip down to very short and revealing hotpants, grind on poles, twerk in a very suggestive manner, and call it empowerment.

Then they call themselves feminists, on the following reasoning: they have the right to decide what to do with their bodies and they must not be judged for it. Yes, they’re recreating males’ fantasies and playing into old gender tropes when they do that, but because they do it out of choice, they’re empowered.  

Not so fast, says Lennox.

It is all about context

“There’s a mixed message,” she explains. “If you twerk, if you stick out your whatever, if you do that, you’re empowered. That’s where we’re at right now: twerking is synonymous with feminism. I do not agree. It’s not empowerment from my perspective. It’s demeaning. There’s nothing wrong with sexuality. [It] is a fantastic thing, but in performance when people have a very young audience, it’s totally inappropriate.”

So yes, women are free to dress and act whichever way they want, and yes, they shouldn’t be labeled the S-word for it, but it’s not empowerment if they do it in front of teenage girls. That’s telling them that this is what they should aspire to in life: twerking and scanty clothes.

Arguably, Beyonce’s audience is more mature, but not the same can be said about Miley Cyrus, who still performs her racy routines in barely-there outfits for 11 and 12-year-olds.

Lennox backtracks on Beyonce feminist comments

Speaking of Beyonce, Lennox says in the same interview that her words were a bit taken out of context. She thought she was being asked in general terms if she thought certain female stars were “feminists” just because it suited them to say they were, so she answered honestly.

But Beyonce is a feminist in her own way, even if she previously said she was just a poser, Lennox backtracks.  

“They’re all about making it into some sort a battle… I’m thrilled to see the word ‘feminist’ behind Beyonce, are you kidding me? I think it’s fantastic,” she explains.