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I want to chime in on the Lana controversy in a thread because we had an extensive debate about her in my writing seminar course before corona shut down my university. Please don’t hate me, just move on if you disagree or express your opinion in a civil manner.
I think people don’t understand Lana’s version of feminism. Feminism often gets a bad name in today’s society and has been associated with women who “hate men” or “want to be more powerful than men”. Obviously this isn’t true, but this is the perception.
Lana believes that feminism doesn’t have to be limited to these women who are perceived as dominant. Submissive women can be feminists too- they can embody traditionally expected female traits/roles but still believe in gender equality.
Her message was an expression of anger towards the critics who have constantly accused her of not being a real feminist because her persona is “glorifying abuse.” But she just wants to sing about her experiences.
How can we call ourselves feminists if we too are expecting women to act a certain way? Is telling a woman it’s bad for women when she acts submissive truly better than tellling her it’s bad to be dominant?
I think that many fans have taken her message out of context and believed she is attacking other successful women. She simply named the current female artists who are topping the charts. They happen to be women of color, but this does not mean she is racist.
It just so happens that these women of color with number 1 hits seem to be singing about similar themes which many would consider to be feminist because they are very in tune with their bodies and their sexuality. They are not ashamed to discuss so called “unladylike” topics.
Lana is not shaming or dragging them for their version of feminism. She is simply asking why theirs is valid and hers is not. Why do we have such a limited definition of feminism- isn’t that just further oppression of women??
She also is not denying the struggles of the women she mentioned. She is not saying they haven’t been criticized, but that they haven’t been criticized for the same reason that she has- “setting women back hundreds of years.”
I think it’s perfectly valid for a woman to express her frustration about how society perceives her and her work. Us women of color experience plenty of struggles but that does not mean that no white woman can ever complain about anything.
