Beyonce's Identity

Race and gender are dominant in the construction of identity in contemporary culture. Modern representations of what it means to be a gendered body and how this intersects with race and identity are internalized very differently depending on your culture, socialization and education. Identity is widely recognized the product of the psychological and cultural processes in which we construct and express our sense of self. In contrast, subjectivity is the condition of being a subject – it is the way in which we as individuals situate ourselves in relation to power. Then, subjectivity informs our perceived experiences, feelings, beliefs and desires. In this essay I will discuss Beyoncé’s music and her identity as a feminist – particularly in

This stipulates that we as a society have moved beyond feminism – that we now live in a society where ‘the issues at the forefront of feminism have somehow gone away; so there is no room for feminism in contemporary political culture’. One might ask how Beyoncé’s identity can be interpreted as anti-feminist while her lyrics address some important ideas in mainstream culture and attitudes. Because of the interpretation of Beyoncé’s identity as a performer, I suggest that we still live in a ‘society plagued by biases’. For example, in Beyoncé’s song “Flawless” she quotes a famous Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who brings attention to the fact that as a woman in modern society you are expected to - “"have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful otherwise you will 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?” (). Now if you compare this to what Butler is saying – that the body is a bordered object, which has consequences for sex acts which are considered normal, proper or legal (Butler: 2007). This is solidified by the notion that some sex acts should be outlawed. This can be compared to drag – as a male who dresses in drag imitates femininity and thereby mocks the expressive model of gender and ‘true’ notions of gender identity (McRobbie: 2007). The soul, then, or soullessness is inherently prescribed to the body in gender and in birth (Butler: 2007). In other words, this becomes an issue with the way feminism is interpreted by society. In the case of Beyonce – it becomes painfully obvious