User:Chikiaart/Black feminism

Beyonce performing her album 'Lemonade' on stage.

Beyonce claims herself to be a feminist in her commercial called Ban Bossy directed by Lifetime. She believes in equality for men and women is the meaning of modern-day feminism. bell hooks, a feminist scholar, critiques that Beyonce is an “anti-feminist terrorist.” In her panelist with many fellow feminists, Janet Mock, a trans advocate, Shola Lynch a filmmaker and author Marci Blackman in New York School on Wednesday May 7th, 2014, the conversation titled “Are You Still a Slave'' discussed women of color in social media. hooks claimed that Beyonce doesn’t have power over her own imagery, and the TIME magazine cover featuring Beyonce wearing underwear without pants on is something that is too highly sexualized for being a feminist; especially seen from the eyes of young girls exposed to the imagery. hooks thinks that beyonce is using her power and fame in the media to display a patriarchal system that is highly veiled as a feminist view. Mock argues with bell’s critique saying that “femme” black female bodies should still have a space in the feminist movement of black bodies, and that the intersectionality should be a space that is further discussed. Intersectionality means the minority of a gender and minority of a colored person, therefore referring to women of color, unable to fit into either category of radicalization or gendered assumptions.

In the album 'lemonade', Beyonce has borrowed lyrics from Chimanmanda ngozi adichi’s TedTalk “***Flawless” as how women should be feminists. Beyonce in her album 'lemonade' references the somali-british poet Warsan Shire, who writes about the stages of intuition, denial, forgiveness, hope, reconciliation in her poetry books titled "Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth" and "The Salt Book of Younger Poets" as part of her music video.

Bell hooks critiques Beyonce's album of ‘lemonade’ and considered her work to be ‘fantasy feminism’. She says that Beyonce sexualizes the violence displayed by black female bodies, and that the black female bodies are becoming a part of the capitalist commodity that is sold to the world. According to bell hooks, black female bodies considered in the view of beauty and power is useless in the grand scheme of the patriarchy system. Healthy self-esteem is a better solution to black feminism. bell hooks states that Beyonce's album 'lemonade' is that the world where the album is situated is a fictional world that has been glamourized to include female gender as a paradox. In the fictional world, emotional pain can be forgiven and given freedom. The image of black bodies in the album has been too sexualized to become truly powerful. bell hooks also says a positive statement about 'lemonade', saying that the album shifts the patriarchal gaze, but that it might only be for the short term.