Hard Out Here: A Feminist Anthem?

“Hard Out Here,” a song by Lily Allen that was released on November 17th in 2013, has been boldly called a feminist anthem by critics. The song talks about the struggles women face in regards to how they are portrayed in pop culture, and the unrealistic standards women must meet in order to be considered conventionally attractive. While the song certainly has its merits, I believe it takes a few missteps that leaves it a bit short of being a “feminist anthem”, and I will be using the feminist analysis approach to show this.

Using the image and representation approach, the main issue with “Hard Out Here” becomes apparent in its first stanza, where Lily Allen sings “you’ll find me in the studio, and not in the kitchen… don’t need to shake my ass for you, ‘cause I’ve got a brain.” For many years, women have been attempting to break out of the stereotype that we are only kept around for two things: cooking and looking good. Sometimes, this comes at the expense of other women. Women should not be forced into the gender role given to them by society, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying that gender role. These lyrics invalidate the experiences of women who like activities such as cooking and dancing, and actively shames them for it. While these lyrics seem to appear as positive for women empowerment, they put down women and give off a overall negative image.

Despite this, Lily Allen does a wonderful job with the rest of the song. She discusses the double standards of sex, where a promiscuous woman will be called a “slut” and shamed for it, but a man is celebrated for having a lot of partners. This also alludes to a lot of other double standards women face in today’s culture, like if a woman wears too much makeup she’s trying too hard, but girls who go natural are ugly and aren’t trying hard enough. Meanwhile, men are hardly expected to put even the bare minimum into their appearance. Later in the song, Lily Allen goes on to describe all the standards women have to meet to be attractive, like being rich, good at cooking, and thin. These lyrics are clearly sympathizing with women, and they attempt to empower women (through heavy sarcasm) by telling us that we don’t have to be all these things to be successful or happy with ourselves. This image is made by women, for women.

While Lily Allen does her best to create a song worthy of the feminist movement, worthy enough to be called an anthem, she falls just a bit short. The song illustrates a lot of the issues in modern society in regards to women, but it does so by partially alienating other women.