Looking at one form of a feminist lens in pop culture includes four questions asking 1) what kind of images were present and what do those images reveal about women's position in the culture, 2) whose images are they and who do they serve, 3) what are the consequences of those images, and 4) how do such images have meaning? These four questions view women as a part of a male-dominant society and how they fit in, not how they live as a separate entity.
Viewing female culture positively differing from male culture, these four questions may be asked 1) given a male dominant culture, how have women managed to express themselves, 2) why has women's creativity been overlooked, undervalued, or ignored, 3) how do men's and women's creativity differ, and 4) what are women's stories and myths?
Taking the popular number one hit "Escape" by Rupert Holmes (1980) and Beyoncé's "Flawless" (2014), the answers to these questions would be tremendously different.
Focusing on the lyrics of "Escape", we can first analyze this number one hit 80's song from the feminist pop culture lens of how women fit into a man's culture. This song's images include a woman who is inferior to man, and who is probably dumb because she has "half a brain." This image reveals that women are and have always been, at that point, less than men, and were rarely viewed as higher. These images are society's images, not just Rupert Holmes's, and they serve all of the people who have listened to this song and this era of music. The consequences of the images are portraying women as lower in hierarchal societal standards, whether or not Holmes believed this to be true. And lastly, these images have meaning because they stand for a non-progressive society, keeping women at the bottom and treating them as lower than men.
Focusing again on the lyrics of "Flawless", we can answer the questions about how female culture positively differs from a man's in today's society. In this male dominant culture, women have managed to express themselves through gaining different equalities, promoting self-love, and not being a part of a man's world ("But don't think I'm just his little wife"). This song answers why women's creativity has been overlooked by an excerpt from a speech by Chimamanda Adiche. She talks about how society teaches girls to shrink themselves, and women cannot be too successful because they will threaten man. Society overlooks and diminishes women's creativity because women need to keep man in mind. The speech also answers the question about how male and female creativity differ. Adiche says society raises girls as competitors for the attention of man, not for success or accomplishments. Societal norms teach women to work for man, and not the other way around. And finally, the stories and myths are presented in this song by the line "Momma taught me good home training, my daddy taught me how to love my haters," mocking the social norms of society with women as homemakers and men as a tough guys.
You can find a censored version of Beyoncé's "Flawless" here .
As we can see, music has evolved greatly looking through feminist lenses. Music 30 years ago commonly looked down on women and viewed women as a part of a man's world, but now music views female and male culture differently, and embraces the positivities from a woman's culture as something that should be encouraged.
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