Janak

Noelle Janak

Ms. Aretha Butler

AAM 3930-01

5 May 2016

Lets Get in Formation: A Hip Hop Feminist Critical Analysis of Beyonc

In her monumental text, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, Joan Morgan

emphatically states the need for hip hop feminism when she writes, I need a feminism

brave enough to fuck with the grays. And this [is] not my foremothers feminism (Morgan

59). This text emerged in the late 1990s when the 1960s White Feminist 1 model was

becoming increasingly irrelevant to the lives of black women, who face the tension

between feminist ideologies and misogynistic hip hop culture. As black women struggled to

accept the white model implicit in the term feminism, Morgan saw a need for a feminism

that allows black women to enjoy hip hop culture while also critiquing its misogynistic,

homophobic, and transphobic undertones. A hip hop feminist, then, is someone who

understands the line between problematic and feminist is not clear cut; rather, the two

contradictory elements meet at a juncture, where truth is no longer black and white, but

subtle, intriguing forms of gray (Morgan 62). Beyonc Knowles, arguably the most

controversial star in hip hop culture right now, has been critically examined using many

lenses one of which is a feminist lens. Although the career and music of Beyonc has been

analyzed ad nauseam for its feminist content, the career and music of Beyonc is decidedly

1 Blogger Batty Mamzelle defines White Feminist as someone who maintains a specific set of single-issue,
non-intersectional, superficial feminist practices that do not account for the complexity of lived experience
and multiple oppressions. White Feminists do not necessarily have to be white, nor are all white people who
identify as feminists, White Feminists.

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hip hop feminist as it maintains both intersectional2 feminist elements and problematic

undertones.

Before moving to argue the inextricable connection between Beyonc and hip hop

feminism, one must first look to When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, where the origins

of hip hop feminism are discussed at length. The failure of feminism to be relevant in the

lives of everyday black women gave rise to this new framework of hip hop feminism.

Morgan confirms this when she states:

When I thought about feminismwomen who were living and breathing it

dailyI thought of white women or black female intellectuals. Academics.

Historians. Authors. Women who had nothing to do with my everyday life.

(Morgan 37)

Feminism failed to account for the misogyny black women face from black men, who

assume any woman who is willing to call [them] out on [their] shit must be eating pussy

[or be] a brainwashed Sappho, waving the American flag in one hand and a castrated black

male penis in the other (Morgan 43). This constricting double bind of wanting to protect

black men from unnecessary scrutiny and also wanting to affirm the existence and value of

black women force black women into an uncomfortable choice: self-protection or solidarity

with the black community. For Morgan, the pressure to fit inside the narrow definition of

feminism presented by her foremothers caused her to vehemently resist the label until

realizing her acceptance of the word on her own account does not matter. That is, If [she]

2 Intersectionality is a framework first introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw, a lawyer and feminist activist.
While the framework was originally developed as a way of understanding the complexities women of color
face in courtroom situations due to the intersection of race and gender issues, the framework is now
considered its own form of feminism. That is, intersectional feminism looks at the complex ways our salient
social identities come together to form our experience of the world.
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truly believed that the empowerment of the black community had to include its women, or

that sexism stood stubbornly in the way of black men and women loving each other and

sistas loving themselvesthen in any sexists eyes [she] was a feminist (Morgan 44). While

Morgan ultimately claims the f-word, she still felt the word did not adequately address

the complexity of black womens precarious navigation through a misogynistic and white

supremacist world.

Continuing her critique of White Feminism, Morgan posits hip hop feminism as a

potential answer to the conflict between black women and feminism. Describing the real

fear associated with speaking black womens truth to power, Morgan writes,

Acknowledging the rampant sexism in our community, for example, means

relinquishing the comforting illusion that black men and women are a united

front. Accepting that black men do not always reciprocate our need to love

and protect is terrifying thing, because it means that we are truly out there,

assed out in a world rife with sexism and racism. And who the hell wants to

deal with that? (Morgan 55).

A hip hop feminist, then, is someone brave (or nave enough) to address questions of both

racism and sexism, even if misogynistic or internalized inferiority complexes originate

within black communities. Inherent in hip hop feminism is a willingness to ask potentially

problematic questions that speak to the complexities of black women living in a post-Civil

Rights, hip hop generation context (Morgan 57). These questions buck against the feminism

of previous generations, which rely on a victim-oppressor dichotomy that denies black

womens existence (59). Ultimately, Morgan argues hip hop feminism is one of the answers

to the problem of black womens existence. According to Morgan, hip hop feminism is:
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A voice like our musicone that samples and layers many voices, injects it

sensibilities into the old and flips it into something new, provocative and

powerful. [Its]occasional hypocrisy, contradictions, and trifeness

guarantee us at least a few tips to the terror-dome, forcing us to finally

confront what wed all rather hide from. (Morgan 62).

Rather than ignore the problematic elements in any given situation, hip hop feminism

requires investigation into and dialogue about these elements, in an effort to make

feminism not some abstract notion of equality like our foremothers feminism, but a life

style of equity that reflects the everyday hardship of black women.

While hip hop feminism was first articulated in 1999, this life posture is still

relevant to members of the hip hop generation, who glorify and scrutinize Beyoncs career

and music for its feminist content. For hip hop generationers3 living in 2016, the function of

the original theoretical framework of hip hop feminism is still the same: hip hop feminists

insist on living with contradictions, because failure to do so relegates feminism to an

academic project that is not politically sustainable beyond the ivory tower (Durham,

Cooper, and Morris 723). Undeniable is the hip hop generations fascination with the

persona of Beyonc. In reference to Queen Beys newly released visual album, Lemonade,

hip hop generationer, Azealia Banks tweeted, This heartbroken black female narrative you

keep trying to push is the Antithesis of what feminism is (Katz). Less recently in 2014,

famed black feminist writer and activist bell hooks spoke on a panel about women of color

3 According to Bakari Kitwanas 2002 text The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African
American Culture, the Hip hop generation are young people born in the 1980s and 1990s, whose worldview
was shaped by six sociopolitical forces: Black youths visibility within popular culture, globalization of
economies, persisting segregation, criminal injustice policies, media representation of black bodies and
people, and lastly, the shift of quality of life during the 1980s and 1990s.
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in the media, saying, I see a part of Beyonc that is, in fact anti-feminist, that is assaulting,

that is a terrorist (Sieczkowski). Others like Omiseeke Natasha Tinsley, associate

professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin,

proclaim the absurdity of white womens critique of Beyoncs unconventional brand of

feminism. Tinsley states, I applaud how [Beyonc} creates visions of black womens

freedom, especially in a world where that freedom doesnt exist. Black feminism, light:

thank you, Ms. Knowles, for that small gift (Tinsley). With so many varying critiques from

members of the hip hop generation, critics of the hip hop generation, and feminist

foremothers, there stands a need to examine Beyonc not from a lens of irrational

condemnation nor a lens of absent-minded acceptance, but from a lens of humanity, one

that recognizes truth not as an either-or but as a both-and. Beyonc needs to be viewed

using the lens of hip hop feminists, who refuse to conform to a feminism that draws lines

in the sand, which would arbitrarily label an artist, feminist or problematic (Durham, et al.

723). In utilizing such a lens, hip hop generationers would maintain the ability to enjoy the

music and career of Beyonc without losing the ability to critically analyze her feminism, in

this way, hip hop feminism offers hip hop generationers a chance to operate in the gray of

life.

To begin a thoughtful examination of Beyonc using the hip hop feminist

framework, one must return to her beginnings as a member of the hip-hop, r and b quartet

turned trio, Destinys Child. On the heels of their smash hit Say My Name, Destinys Child

released Independent Woman Part I as part of the soundtrack to the 2000 film adaptation

of Charlies Angels. In the video for the song, Beyonc and her fellow group members are

dressed in micro-mini skirts with relaxed hair and heavy make-up. In this way, the groups
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scantily-clad appearance and adherence to white-washed beauty norms throughout the

semi-Afro-futuristic4 video contradicts the overtly feminist messages in the songs lyrics.

While the groups appearance is problematic, the group stakes a claim for female

independence when they sing, I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own ring/Only ring

your celly when I'm feelin' lonely/When it's all over please get up and leave (Independent

Woman Part I). This proclamation for economic and emotional independence from sexual

partners both adheres to and resists the StrongBlackWoman trope Morgan presents in her

text. Implicit in the groups emphatic proclamation of female independence is a distain for

black men, who are lazy, stupid, unreliable, or criminally devoid of values (Morgan 120).

The need to depend on ones self for shoes, clothes, and rocks, is therefore not only a

feminist claim for womens independence, but also a complex condemnation of the

infidelity practicing, overbearingly misogynistic, and lazy men, who create the need for

StrongBlackWomen in the first place (Independent Woman Part I Lyrics). By modeling

female independence, the group also confronts the StrongBlackWoman trope, which

necessitates a neglect of analysis about the men black women date. Morgan argues, The

men we attract/allow in our lives are reflections of not only who but where we are.

Spiritually and emotionally (Morgan 119). In recounting how black women ought not

depend on no one else to give [them] what [they] want, the women of Destinys Child

expose practices of patriarchal culture, which place women in the place of subservience

(Independent Woman Part I Lyrics). In this way, Beyoncs early career with Destinys

4 According to Steven W. Thrasher, a journalist with The Guardian, Afrofuturism is the highly intersectional
way of looking at possible futures or alternate realities through a black cultural lens. It is non-linear, fluid and
feminist; it uses the black imagination to consider mysticism, metaphysics, identity and liberation; and,
despite offering black folks a way to see ourselves in a better future, Afrofuturism blends the future, the past
and the present (Thrasher).
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Child should not be seen as either feminist or problematic, but rather, as a healthy mix of

both, in that her messages of feminism are sometimes rooted in philosophies, like the

StrongBlackWoman, which uphold problematic, unnecessarily dichotomous views of the

black community.

Three years later, Beyoncs hit single Me, Myself, and I on her debut solo album,

Dangerously in Love, continues this trend of operating in the gray space between feminist

and problematic. In the beginning of the video, Beyonc is pictured on the ground

vulnerably facing the camera when she sings, Love is so blind/It feels right when it's

wrong (Me, Myself, and I). Throughout the video for the song, Beyonc moves backwards

as to suggest she wishes to undo her relationship with the man, who cheated on her. In her

analysis about StrongBlackWomen Morgan suggests, Kicking it with a man who has a ton

of problems your love cant possibly solve is a great way NOT to deal with your own

(Morgan 147). Beyoncs exclamation about the power of love that sometimes leads black

women to be part of harmful relationships works to undermine the trope of the

StrongBlackWoman, who stands by her man, regardless of how he treats her. While she

pushes against stand by your man mentality, she also recognizes the plight of many hip

hop generationers, who act against their intuition and stand with their no-good men. She

sings, Your family told me one day/I would see it on my own/Next thing I know I'm

dealing/With your three kids in my home, in retrospect of her former decision to ignore

her initial feelings about her partner, so that she could enjoy the immediate sexual and

emotional benefits of being with someone (Me, Myself, and I). This lyric both serves a

legitimation of black womens experiences as well as a cautionary tale about the effects of
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practicing politics of respectability5. While she confronts politics of respectability, Beyonc

falls back on the StrongBlackWoman complex when she sings, It took me some time/But

now I am strong, a strength she locates in being isolated rather than a strength that could

be located in a healthy relationship (Me, Myself, and I). By constructing a philosophy of

empowerment based in isolation from others, Beyonc operates in the gray area between

feminist and problematic because her song can be seen as both a song about the

importance of self-care and as a song that presents a hopeless view of the potential of

healthy romantic relationships with black men.

In her second album, BDays most successful single Irreplaceable, Beyonc

declares her self-love by kicking out a cheating partner; however, she continues to rely on

the patriarchal notion that her partners define her existence and her value. In bell hooks

corrective text, Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center, she writes, Like most men, most

owmen are taught from childhood on that dominating and controlling others is the basic

expression of power, meaning exercises of power by women are not indicative of

maleness but rather a manifestation of internalized structural sexism (hooks 85). Upon

learning of her cheating partner, Beyonc sings, I could have another you in a

minute/matter of fact, hell be here in a minute, baby, and in doing so, reminds listeners

her identity is still bound up in her relationships with men; that is, she does not exist

outside the confines of a relationship (Irreplaceable Lyrics). To see Beyoncs anthem as

merely a problematic piece that further contributes to the patriarchy is to view Beyonc

5 This term originally coined by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham describes, a range of strategies, largely
regarding notions of honor, self-respect, piety, and propriety, deployed by progressive black women to
promote racial uplift and womens rights and to secure broader access to the public sphere (Durham, et.al
724).

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only through a White Feminist lens; a hip hop feminist examination of the song accounts

for both the problematic messages implicit in its content as well as its feminist overtones.

When Beyonc proclaims its [her] name thats on that jag/So come move your bags, let

me call you a cab, she conveys the importance of womens economic freedom to the

struggle for gender equity (Irreplaceable Lyrics). According to bell hooks, men are taught

that they will be able to rule in the home, to control and dominate, that this is the big pay-

off for their acceptance of an exploitative economic social order that assigns worth based

on the gendered acquiring of economic assets (hooks 121). Contrary to bell hooks analysis,

Irreplaceable stands as a proclamation of the value of womens economic independence

as had the woman in the song not been financially secure on her own, she would have

needed to rely on her cheating partner for support financially. Furthermore, Beyoncs pop

hit serves as an emphatic dismissal of her partners infidelity, a persuasive sign her

listeners should behave the same when confronted with partner issues. In Irreplaceble,

Beyonc sings, Standing in the front yard/Tellin' me, how I'm such a fool/Talkin' bout, I'll

never ever find a man like you/You got me twisted (Irreplaceable Lyrics). By refusing to

deal with her partners unacceptable behavior, Beyonc uses her musical platform to

campaign against the rampant devaluation and dehumanization of women in heterosexual

couplings. Although Beyoncs Irreplaceable contains elements that could be deemed as

rooted in patriarchy, her unwillingness to accept cheating also provides her female viewers

a moving example of a woman, who demands respect from her romantic partners.

In a clear departure from the implicit feminist messages of her earlier works stands

Beyoncs ***Flawless, an explicitly feminist club banger. In Gwendolyn D. Poughs

pivotal work, Check It While I Wreck It, she describes how hip hop generationers use music
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as a vehicle of resistance when she writes, Much like the Black Panther Party in the 1970s,

these youths bring wreck by redirecting the gaze and controlling the images the larger

public sees. In this they are representing the exact opposite of late-nineteenth-and early-

twentieth-century notions of Black respectability (Pough 27). ***Flawless changes the

narrative around what feminism is and what feminists look like. Through the inclusion of

snippets of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Ted Talk, We Should All be Feminists, Beyonc

brings the conversation about feminism to a global scale. By presenting a definition of

feminist as, someone who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the

sexes, Beyonc not only gives truth to the power of feminism, but declares black women

can in fact be feminists (***Flawless). In the act of definition and reconstruction of the

identifiable face of feminism, Beyonc participates in subaltern counterpublic,6 a

phenomenon that occurs when members of a marginalized group create counterdiscourses

about the group as to formulate opposing understandings of the groups identity (Pough

35). By declaring she is a feminist in a public forum, Beyonc deconstructs the idea that

feminism is just for white women, and that black women ought not proclaim their

flawlessness in public. In this way, ***Flawless is a feminist vehicle of resistance against

white supremacist dominant narratives that trivialize black womens existence and the

misogynistic that undergird them. Furthermore, Beyonc directly addresses Morgans

concept of chickenhead envy, 7which Morgan argues results from a gendered race to the

bottom for economic resources and public fame. In the song, Beyonc uses a clip from

6 Subaltern counterpublic is a term first introduced by Nancy Fraser in the book The Black Public Sphere: A
Public Culture Book.
7 Morgan defines chickenhead envy as female jealousy that propels women to willfully be the other woman,
in an effort to secure the financial and emotional security of being with a particular man (the chickenhead)
(Morgan 198).
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Adichies Ted Talk, in which she states, We raise girls to each other as competitors/Not for

jobs or for accomplishments/Which I think can be a good thing/But for the attention of

men (***Flawless). This chickenhead envy brought on by societal gender norms that

force women to compete with one another facilitates a concept called trickin [that is] a

womans ability to use her looks, femininity, and flirtation to gain advantage in an arguably

sexist world (Morgan 202). In addressing this prevalent issue in dominant culture,

Beyonc conveys the need for the feminist stance she calls for as a more feminist world

would undoubtedly not stand for this patriarchal race to the bottom for resources and

validation. ***Flawless, Beyoncs first outright charge for feminist equity works to

deconstruct harmful narratives surrounding feminism and constructs a feminism aimed at

dismantling patriarchal structures and mindsets.

While ***Flawless takes an unequivocal stance for equity, the song also makes

feminism into a palatable commodity, and because of this, the song still fits inside the hip

hop feminist framework of feminist and slightly problematic. Like Hobson and Bartlow

argue in their article, Introduction: Representin': Women, Hip-Hop, and Popular Music,

whether hip hop artists want to admit this or not, hip hop culture is intrinsically

connected to the corporate machine and U.S. imperialism (Hobson and Bartlow 7).

Although ***Flawless is in itself a form of resistance, it cannot be removed from the

economic context in which it operates. ***Flawless, then, operates as a vehicle of

commodification, defusing the resistive forces of the song to make the song more

consumable in the eyes of a global economy (Watkins 569). While some may argue

capitalism propels the messages of the song to greater audiences globally, there is also a

harm in the corporatization of feminism. As Callie Beusman states, the problem with
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feminism being "trendy" isn't that interest in the movement might be ephemeral. It's that

interest in the movement might be shallow and disingenuous, an easy and intellectually-

validating afterthought (Beusman). The feminism of ***Flawless is in some ways

palatable in that according to Beyoncs definition, all one needs to do in order to be a

feminist is believe in equity; this definition requires no action. As argued by bell hooks,

implicit in simplistic definitions of feminism like this is a dismissal of race and class as

factors that, in conjunction with sexism, determine how one moves or is immobilized in

the world; in short, the commodification of feminism prevents in-depth analysis of social

structures necessary to form an intersectional feminist worldview (hooks 18). To be sure,

the commodification of the song contributes to watered down understandings of sexism

and feminism and in this way, commodification interrupts Beyoncs feminist project.

Across Beyoncs career from Destinys Child to her current fame as a solo artist, she

has operated the lyrical content of her music operates in the gray between feminist and

problematic; in this way, her career can be seen as decidedly hip-hop feminist. Within the

past four months of her career, Beyonc has more fully embraced the demands of hip hop

feminism in that, she has incorporated explicit forms of activism within her music and

performances. From her Superbowl 50 Black Panther inspired performance of Formation

to her massive hit visual album, Lemonade, Beyonc has become what hip-hop feminists

really are: agents of social change and critique. As academic hip hop feminists, bloggers,

and detached journalists like Piers Morgan continue to write about Beyonc, it is

imperative that they view her work, her life, and her activism through the lens of hip-hop

feminism. While defining Beyonc in the constricting dichotomy of feminist or problematic

is certainly more palatable for wider audiences, those who write about Beyonc ought to
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heed the words of Morgan who writes, hip hop feminism is necessary because even our

existences cant be defined in the pasts simple terms: house nigga vs. field nigga, ghetto vs.

bourgie, BAP vs. boho because our lives are usually some complicated combination of all of

the above (Morgan 62). If journalists choose to ignore this call for nuance, Beyoncs back

might indeed become a bridge for their own agenda to dehumanize black women.

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