Beyonce says she is one. Lady Gaga says she isn’t. Katy Perry isn’t sure, depends how you define it. Lily Allen has flip-flopped on the issue more than a live fish of a hot rock.
Pop stars benefit from the patriarchal society we live in which prizes youth and beauty in women above everything else. Katy Perry doesn’t need feminism; she gets paid handsomely for shooting whipped cream out of her bra. And more power to her, what a great gig.
Feminism isn’t about how many members you can sign up. It’s not about exclusively empowering women who identify as feminists. At its best (and it is not always at its best), feminism is about empowering everyone. It’s about equality of opportunity for all, whether they sign up as feminists or not.
Lady Gaga claims she’s not a feminist because she ‘hails men’ and ‘celebrate[s] American male culture, and beer, and bars and muscle cars....’ Which has got to be one of the most misguided reasons to not embrace feminism I’ve heard, but she can get a dance floor pumping.
Lily Allen fumbled with feminism in Hard Out Here ...
... but fell into some terrible racist tropes in the process. Judith Butler she is not but my word her tunes are catchy.
Arguing feminist theory with with quotes from celebrity interviews is a futile exercise. If we consider pop music in its rightful place, as a fun diversion, it’s a pretty ridiculous argument to attempt. But when the statements of celebrities are extrapolated to women at large and taken as broader statements about feminism we have a problem.
How it’s in any way surprising that a woman who makes her living from daily conversations with Kyle Sandilands doesn’t identify as a feminist is beyond me but people seemed genuinely shocked. The main thrust of many of the arguments against her statement was that without feminism she wouldn’t be in her position; that because she has benefited from the advances fought and won by the feminists of earlier generations she owed allegiance to the movement. I can see why that is an alluring idea but it is fundamentally flawed.
Feminism isn’t about how many members you can sign up. It’s not about exclusively empowering women who identify as feminists. At its best (and it is not always at its best), feminism is about empowering everyone. It’s about equality of opportunity for all, whether they sign up as feminists or not. People who have benefitted from feminism are not required to pay back their benefit in glib quotes to the media about how totally feminist they are. When they don’t, it does not mean feminism is finished, or outdated, or no longer appeals to young women. It just means that this female celebrity does not identify as feminist. That is all.
I’d like pop stars to be feminists. It would be great if influential women were engaged with the feminist movement, but feminism does not relay in celebrity endorsement. It survives, and indeed thrives, because of the tangible benefits it makes to people’s lives, pop stars at all.
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