You Have To Listen To The Powerful Feminist Speech Beyoncé Samples On Her New Album

[ismnotwasm]

Ok, I have to admit it. Beyoncé isn't my kind of music. But I watched in dismay feminist internet faux "fights" over whether she was a good role model for young women, a "feminist" or able to own her own sexuality just as she flaunts it. Those who follow the feminist blogosphere know that this has caused a rift between black and white feminists to a certain degree.

I don't think any women can use her sexuality as a marketing ploy without being prostituted, no matter how powerful. But if any woman can, it's Beyoncé, if any women pop star is striving to get a message of empowerment to her sisters it's Beyoncé. I don't think I've heard more than one song of hers as I listen to different music, but I'm listening to this one.

Her sample of the speech reflects many of the things Beyoncé explores in this album: love, sexuality, empowerment, and marriage.

“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.”

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/powerful-feminist-speech-beyonce-new-album

Adding this article to put more perspective on it

That Time Beyonce's Album Invalidated Every Criticism of Feminism EVER

Early Friday morning, Beyonce gave us all a heart attack when she released her self-titled visual masterpiece, Beyonce.

And really, whose edges didn’t Beyonce snatch? She’s sexy, fun, talented. She’s a visionary — the videos are not only aesthetically pleasing, they are stories built from images. Her voice, as always, is perfection. She proves, once again, that she is the greatest of her time in overall entertainment. But there was something else about this album that caught our attention — something that wasn’t there in 2003′s Crazy in Love or critically acclaimed 4.

It was a womanhood I hadn’t seen before. It was Beyonce’s emancipation from social chains, from criticism, from the lines media drew that illustrate her as something manufactured or “polished” in comparison to the alternative, her sister Solange. These are boxes, they are inaccurate and Beyonce crushed them, quite literally, in this new album.



And if you aren’t woke, as Erykah Badu would say, then you probably missed the message. Yes, the album is about sex. Yes, it’s about love. Yes, it’s even about Baby Blue. But Beyonce is really an ode to womanism, feminism or whatever euphemism you might use to describe the empowerment of women, but especially women of color.


Read more at ONTD: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/84190074.html#ixzz2nZkdg6LX

[msongs]

1. the queen of T&A goes all feminist lol. well we all are multi-personalitied in many ways nt

[ismnotwasm]

2. I think she's been trying to get there

I think she's been bulldozing her way through. But sampling such a powerful speech is an incredible step forward.

[bettyellen]

3. i always felt that if she was a folky white girl, mainstream feminists would be much more forgiving

It has always seemed to me that modern R&B is looked down upon by a lot of white people who didn't grow up with it. The Bronx was very tribal like that when I was young. I think this is why I am not an avid record buyer, it felt like picking sides, LOL.

[ismnotwasm]

4. And THIS is exactly the problem black women/feminists have with the feminist movement

And it's not that Beyoncé doesn't have her black feminist detractors, but the black "experience" is not the white "experience", we get where we get from different directions. "Owning" ones sexuality is almost impossible in marketing for women, so it comes down to individual power and charisma.

[KitSileya]

5. Not to mention, things that are negative to many white feminists

Such as changing your name when you marry, is a radical act to many Black women. I have learned a lot about this from Gradient Lair, as we have talked about before. A lot of the things I as a white woman take for granted, or think of as patriarchal, are seen differently by woc, who have been treated differently, and been oppressed through other means. Different methods, same result.

[MuttLikeMe]

6. Excellent points