I haven’t written anything in far too long. As much as I’d love to chalk it up to being busy with school, the reality of the situation is that I’ve been lazy and uninspired. However, things are different today. As my unemployed self was slothing about on social media this morning, I came across what was probably the fifteenth article I’ve seen posted about Meghan Trainor this month. For those of you who are unaware, Meghan Trainor is the songstress behind the controversial (albeit catchy) singles “All About That Bass” and “Dear Future Husband”. Since Trainor came into the limelight, I’ve watched the media (and people at large) alternate between praising her for championing feminism through the body confidence movement and slamming her for preaching outdated, sexist ideals at an alarming pace. The piece I saw today belonged to the latter camp, and criticized Trainor for her reliance on male validation in cultivating her self-image and alleged “skinny-shaming”. The article brought up a lot of incredibly valid points; Trainor isn’t a perfect role model, and her lyrics obviously shouldn’t be heeded as the be-all-and-end-all truth. But there’s a larger phenomenon at play here that I want to address, and it has more to do with the nature of the discussion around Trainor than what’s being said in the discussion itself. Namely, our insistence on grouping female celebrities into the polarized categories of feminist and anti-feminist is, rather ironically, pretty “anti-feminist” in itself.
I know that some of you reading this will likely be tempted to role your eyes and dismiss what I’m saying as a product of poor education about feminist ideals, but please, hear me out. One of the foremost tenets of feminism is that women need to empower one another rather than tearing each other down. Females have already been put down enough by society as a whole; the last thing they need is to be put down even further by the rest of womankind. Most people are aware of this concept and frequently cite it when objecting to the actions or words of a given celebrity, but the twisted thing is that it all too often gives rise to scathing comments about the celebrity in question if they happen to be a woman. While trying to enforce the idea of mutual empowerment among females, we tend to fall victim to a trap in which we forget about what we’re trying to accomplish and contradict ourselves by venturing into the realm of the malicious. A woman sings about making her husband dinner, and suddenly she’s undeserving of her success due her “backwards” belief system. She utters the word “bitch”, and suddenly she’s receiving death threats. She pens a tune about loving her butt, and she’s a villain. What’s up with that?
Do you know how many male musicians have written songs praising The Almighty Booty and specific manifestations of the female form in general? A lot. A whole heck of a lot. From Sir Mix-A-Lot, to the Beastie Boys, to Jason Derulo, there truly is no shortage of male references to ladies’ bodies throughout musical history. Big butts. Small butts. Legs. Shoulders. “Itty-bitty waistlines that move with the bassline”. Fergie’s humps. And while some of them have been criticized as offensive, they really receive a lot less focus than the body-centric songs performed by their female counterparts. Male performers have also preached other “anti-feminist” ideals without so much as a peep. If we’re going to criticize people for reinforcing the idea that male validation is necessary in order to cultivate one’s self-esteem, we need look no further than the One Direction hit “What Makes You Beautiful”. The entire song focuses on the fact that a girl is beautiful purely because she has no idea that she’s beautiful; one of the lyrics blatantly decries her as “insecure”. Basically, the message here is that if you want boys like Harry, Liam, Niall, Louis and Zayn (bye, Felicia) to find you attractive, you can’t find yourself attractive. That’s pretty fucked up, no? And yet they’re not the ones coming under fire. Nine times out of ten, it’s the women. Women are critiqued on the latent sexism of their songs far more frequently than men nowadays, which itself paints a nice sexist double standard. It’s a mess of contradictions.
We need to stop trying to categorize women as purely “feminist” or “anti-feminist”, because doing so is, in truth, an insult to feminism as a whole. The feminist doctrine really should not be viewed as such a fixed, all-or-nothing belief system. You can believe in a whole host of different things, make a tonne of different choices, live your life however you want, and still be a feminist. You can believe in abstinence until marriage and be a feminist. You can choose to focus on your marriage or family rather than pursuing a career and be a feminist. You can enjoy receiving compliments from men and be a feminist. What’s truly important here is that you believe women deserve the freedom to hold these beliefs, make these choices, and pursue their happiness however feels right for them. Feminism is valuing the empowerment of women and fighting to secure equal treatment for them among their male counterparts, and it seems like this foundational idea can get muddled in the chaos that is popular culture. Feminism can’t be broken down into two camps with completely opposing beliefs. Consider someone who’s pro-life (“anti-feminist”), but is an adamant member of the movement for equal pay (“feminist”). Our society’s instinct is to weigh these opposing beliefs and file the person away as either purely feminist or purely anti-feminist. But the fact of the matter is that things aren’t nearly so polarized; feminism occurs along a spectrum, and we should respect that it might manifest itself differently among different people as long as we’re united in our journey towards equality and empowerment.
Again, Meghan Trainor isn’t a perfect role model. But who is? None of us are perfect, and that’s okay. Holding up female celebrities to the ideal of being a “perfect feminist” is akin to holding them up to other unrealistic ideals (perfect body, perfect marriage, perfect hair, etc) that we’re slowly but surely (and rightfully!) weeding out of the way we think. The bottom line is that we should be praising successful women in the media instead of tearing them down. They’ve risen to the top, and so can we - regardless of whether you’re someone who construes success as running a Fortune 500 company, maintaining a happy marriage for fifty years, dedicating your life to art and travel, or anything in between. Women are all different, and we should be celebrating these differences. That’s what feminism is all about, isn’t it? In the oft-quoted words of Ellen DeGeneres, let’s be kind to one another. The path to equality and empowerment isn’t paved with insults.
