If I Were a Boy

I heard a song last night I thought would be interesting to examine for this class. It's actually a bit confusing to me. It definitely sends mixed messages about gender in my opinion. The song is called "If I Were a Boy" by Beyonce Knowles. In the past, she's been known for singing empowering songs such as "Survivor" (when she was in the band Destiny's Child) and "Irreplaceable." I can see why some people would argue that this new song is also empowering, but I don't think it is. Here are the lyrics:

If I were a boy
Even just for a day
I’d roll out of bed in the morning
And throw on what I wanted and go
Drink beer with the guys
And chase after girls
I’d kick it with who I wanted
And I’d never get confronted for it
Because they’d stick up for me

Chorus: If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I’d be a better man
I’d listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he’s taken you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
So they think
that I was sleeping alone
I’d put myself first
And make the rules as I go
Cause I know that she’d be faithful
Waiting for me to come home

Chorus

It’s a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake
Think I forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
You thought wrong


But you're just a boy
You don’t understand
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you’ll wish you were a better man
You don’t listen to her
You don’t care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
Cause you've taken her for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
But you're just a boy…

I think there are a lot of problematic things with this song. Just like so many other things, it falls into the trap of gender stereotypes. Not all men are the way she describes them. Not only that, women cheat too, not just men.

I think the chorus is where she is trying, in a weird way, to be empowering. I think she's trying to teach men to be better and to appreciate the women in their life more. But the rest of the song appears to be a mixed message to women to act like men in order to teach their partner to appreciate them more.

The video was also problematic to me. Until the end of the video, it's showing her as this strong woman acting like a man. Therefore, her partner makes her breakfast and she doesn't thank him. She goes off to work being a cop. She teaches her partner at work how to shoot better. None of these images seem wrong to me, but she is using them to show this world where women act like men. Therefore, traditional women can't be cops or have their husbands make breakfast for them or for that matter, be a better shot than a man.