Jessica Jones’ Freakish Strength & Our Fear of Strong Women

I can never be happy.

I should love Jessica Jones, the newest Marvel universe hero to hit Netflix in a binge-inducing 13 episode first season. And frankly, I do. I won’t go into the many reasons why since other people in other online spaces have done it better than I could. Briefly, the show puts a woman in a traditionally male role (as the brooding PI with few friends who only depends on herself) and highlights some feminist issues, such as abortion access in jail. Jessica Jones is a bad ass with a painful history, the plot being a thinly veiled allegory for getting out of an emotionally abusive relationship, that has caught up to her. Really, I can’t not like a woman who drinks bourbon to wake up and would rather stay away from people.

But Jessica Jones still follows at least one irritating trope: having a freakishly strong woman played by a very slight actor. The show inverts and pushes the envelope on so many other aspects of the superhero story. It basically takes the Bechdel Test (whether two named, female characters speak to each other for more than a minute about something other than a man) and tells it to “shove it.” This is refreshing after painstakingly sitting through two episodes of Daredevil in which literally all of the female characters are crying and in need of saving. But somehow the envelope containing what a super strong woman can look like is waiting to be pushed.

Jessica Jones – like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wonder Woman before her – has super human strength. It seems to be due to something that happened after a car accident, although the audience has yet to find out what. She is played by the talented and beautiful Krysten Ritter who, while tall, does not have the physicality of a super strong woman; she is very thin and the character keeps herself going on booze and adrenaline most of the time. I probably wouldn’t have even paid attention to her build, since shows like Buffy are some of my favorites, save for two elements of the show. One is a minor scene in the first ten minutes of the first episode and the other is a major character that plays alongside Jessica.

Within the first ten minutes of the show we are introduced to Jessica’s late night addiction – secretly watching people from an NYC fire escape. We zoom into the window of a fat woman on an elliptical clearly having a hard time. At first I thought that might be the whole scene but the woman abruptly gets off of the elliptical grabs a burger and starts to eat it, then eats it while she’s on the elliptical (no one does that…no one). Jessica’s internal monologue says, “Two minutes on a treadmill, twenty minutes on a quarter pounder.” This seemingly unnecessary line about this fat woman exercising is meant to hammer in the idea many people have of fat people – they are lazy and lack willpower. I’m not sure why it deserved a whole line in the first ten minutes but there it is. And it only served to highlight for me Jessica’s thinness (and apparent disgust towards fat people). Especially since other than a few fat side characters on the show everyone else is impossibly fit.

What makes Jessica’s slight build most apparent though is the character Luke Cage, played by a whopping 6’3″ and ridiculously muscular Mike Colter, whom we get to see a lot of without a shirt. He has unbreakable skin paired with superhuman strength. But his strength is readily apparent – you just look at the guy and know that starting a fight with him would be a really bad idea. Side by side Luke makes Jessica look tiny which I’m sure is part of the visual the show wants. In addition, throughout the show there are references to “the green guy,” the Hulk, who also shows his super strength via his massive, green muscles. The strength of men in the Marvel universe (and in most pop culture) is something that is conveyed visually. But women’s super human strength often comes as a surprise – like when we see Jessica break open a locked door with a simple tug or bend a metal chair with ease and the audience has to wonder what’s going on.

Logically, Jessica’s slender frame doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If her strength does come from her muscles, even if they have been tweaked, wouldn’t it make sense for her to try and get more muscles to be even stronger than she already is? That might help with her high jump that allows her to escape from many sticky situations. At least Buffy trained quite a bit to improve her abilities, and as far as I remember there weren’t really any fat jokes on that show. But no, Jessica survives off cheap whiskey and little sleep. While her best friend tries to convince her to sleep at some points in the show she is never told to eat, and we never see her eating save for a bit of banana bread baked by a weird, but almost lovable, neighbor.

While I’m disappointed in having another super strong female character played by a lithe actor it’s not very surprising. People have a problem with physically strong women, just look at the treatment that Serena Williams gets. (I won’t go into it because it makes me sad.) Amy Schumer did a bit on it focusing on tennis. Physically strong women, Xena the Warrior Princess excluded, simply don’t get to be the stars. Maybe with the recent increasing interest in female UFC fighters we’ll one day see a super heroine with muscles big enough to make us want to hit the gym and lift some weights.

Ain’t I a Human? A Query for the Fairweather “Brothers…

An amazing piece on the Rice event.

 

Ain’t I a Human? A Query for the Fairweather “Brothers….

Obesity Shaming Doesn’t Work – Stop THAT Cycle

Last month I was in Rome to give a talk at the International Society for Political Psychology annual conference. To start my talk I asked the international audience to tell me what things came to mind when they thought of the United States of America. While I expected answers like: the flag, New York, and hamburgers one of the first answers I got was “obesity.” I was clearly not expecting that answer, but it wasn’t at all surprising. According the Centers for Disease Control over one third of Americans are currently obese. While the measurement of obesity is controversial it is clear that many Americans carry more weight than people in most other countries. And spending two weeks in various European cities made this very obvious to me.  Almost everyone I encountered was at or very close to what seemed like a “regular” weight in spite of a plethora of indulgent foods.

Recently, Strong4Life, an organization focused on reducing the obesity rates in children, released a video that quickly made it to the front page on Reddit and has already popped up a few times on my Facebook feed. It’s titled “Rewind the Future – Stop the Cycle:”

It begins with a 32-year-old, 300-pound man arriving in the hospital due to a heart attack. The attending doctor asks, “How the hell does that happen?” The video then rewinds from the point of view of our heart attack victim to see his eating habits over the last 30 years, which have notably been pretty bad. Many times during the video it’s his mother giving him sweets, fries, and juice which leads to the boy wanting those things over other foods. The last segment is of mom giving her son fries as he’s crying in his high-chair. A friend says, “I can’t believe you give this child french fries,” to which mom responds through a smile, “I know, it’s the only thing that will make him stop.” Words on the screen then warn parents that their child’s future doesn’t have to look like the man’s on the gurney fighting for his life due to a lifetime of poor eating habits.

While this video tends to be called “powerful,” I would say it’s only feeding the cycle – the cycle of shame – instead of ending it. Because one thing we know about how to reduce obesity is that if shaming fat people worked, we would have no fat people. And shifting that shame to parents is not going to work either. 

Recent psychological research on stigma and discrimination has focused on the discrimination against obese and overweight people, because it is one of the few prejudices that can be expressed without much social consequence. While people know it’s socially inappropriate to say things like, “Black people are just lazy, everyone knows that,” it’s acceptable to most people to say that about the obese. But if we look at this situation on an international scale then that logic turns into: Americans are simply lazier than people in other countries, which is why the obesity rate is so high. And I don’t think a lot of Americans would be okay with that logical conclusion.

So let’s look at what else is potentially different between ours and other countries. For anyone who has traveled across the Atlantic and come back, one of the things you are likely to notice is simply the availability of food in the U.S. Food is EVERYWHERE. And advertising is billions of dollars of investment, thousands of hours of market research, and a lot of hard work in crafting the messages to convince people to buy that food. The sheer amount of food advertising in the United States is staggering compared to what I experience in other countries. Pump gas at the local gas station and the screen now shows the foods available in the convenience store. They remind you to “fuel up” for your trip. Even watching television is a completely different experience. Have you ever noticed how many ads are for food? We are constantly thinking about food because we are constantly being told to think about food.

I know that many people believe all it takes is willpower to say no to these foods. But again, if that’s all it took then you would reach that same conclusion that for some odd reason Americans are afflicted with a severe deficiency of willpower. That seems unlikely right? But if there’s one thing you can bet on it’s that food companies do not invest money in advertising their products because it doesn’t work. That’s why it’s called an investment, the returns are worth it in the end. To add insult to injury, most Americans would say that they experience a fair amount of stress, and research shows that people under cognitive load (something is on their mind) find it harder to make good, well thought-out decisions. Instead, you go with the easy decision. And for us, humans who evolved to take advantage of high-calorie foods – which is why sugar and fat taste so damn good – that decision is usually not the best one for our waistlines. The overwhelming availability of food paired with scientifically engineered messages create a culture in which grabbing a soda with 21 grams of sugar is the norm at the gas station, grabbing snacks for a three-hour car ride seems practical, and using food as an energetic pick-me-up is not questioned. And that’s not even touching the cultural belief that food is a reward, something I’ve written about before.

My take away is not that parents or individuals are free of all of the blame. But my point is that we cannot ignore a culprit that is taking advantage of our biology and psychology: the food companies. Because believe me, as long as we keep blaming individuals for the obesity issues we face today, they will continue to make money hand over fist on our ailing health.

Be Brave and Roar

Hey everyone!! I haven’t written a post since April. APRIL! But over the past week or so I’ve had a little pinball of an idea in my head rattling around so I thought I’d share it with you. I hope you enjoy!

Recently there was a tiny hoopla over the similarity between two new songs by somewhat different artists. Sara Bareilles came out with a song called “Brave” that was a bit poppier than her normal singer/songwriter tunes and shockingly not about love or lost love or found love or wronged love or any other kind of love. Except for maybe self love but I’ll get into that later. The other song was by Katy Perry and is called “Roar.” It’s not really outside of her realm in terms of types of song.  I’m not saying she has more of a “right” to the beat/melody than Sara does. I’m just saying it’s not totally surprising to hear this sound from Katy.

 

Here’s Sara’s Brave:

Here’s Katy’s Roar:

There’s even a video of a VERY cute kid singing a mash-up of the two songs here.

Now of course it’s not THAT surprising that two pop songs sound similar. (And they do sound similar, I played them back to back and couldn’t figure out which one was which when they first started.) Pop music’s variety is limited and often the same producers are working with various artists and end up creating similar sounds. That happened with Kelly Clarkson’s “Already Gone” and Beyonce’s “Halo” which were both written by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. Though I have to admit I’ve been lazy and haven’t looked into whether these two songs share any creators in common. But even if they don’t pop music tends to flow in similar directions because everyone is trying to create whatever the masses are enjoying at the moment.

That being said I have to admit that I’m a big fan of both songs. And you all KNOW I’m not really a Katy Perry fan (as evidenced here, which is my most commented on blog post to date). I’m also not that into Sara Bareilles. Nothing against her it’s just that her stuff isn’t my cup of tea. But instead of concentrating so much on the similarity of the songs’ sounds let’s talk about the similarity of the songs’ messages and applaud them. Cuz I think they deserve to be applauded.

Here are some lyrics from Brave:

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

 

And from Roar:

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR
Louder, louder than a lion
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me ROAR

 

Now granted some of Katy’s lyrics are ummm….borrowed…from other places (Rocky, Alexander Hamilton, and most notably Helen Reddy). But I’m happy to have her taking other people’s messages because they all add up to telling young women (a good chunk of her fan base) to be LOUD. To be HEARD. It’s the same message Sara is saying in Brave, “Let the words fall out.” The words don’t have to be perfect, just say them anyway. And in a society where girls and women are constantly, CONSTANTLY, told that they should be passive and have no confidence in themselves (One Direction’s – the most popular band right now with young girls – “What Makes You Beautiful” is an ode to a shy, insecure, quiet, hiding-in-the-corner girl.) I’m so happy to see this message being put out there. And I do think that the different fan bases means that both girls (Katy Perry’s fans) and women (Sara Bareilles’ fans) will hear the message and hopefully follow it. Because once we all start saying how we feel, once we realize we have the right to be heard, it’s going to create a much better world for young girls. You just wait ROAR and see.

“Accidental Racist” or Brad Paisley’s Birthday Present to Me

My birthday present came a little early this year, and I didn’t even know it at the time. It came in the form of song, which is not surprising given my obsession with music. On Monday a fellow social psychologist posted the song “Accidental Racist” on Facebook. At first blush, I blushed.  LL Cool J, how could you? As the days wore on and the song received a lot of attention, from academics to musicians to comedians to everyday folk, my thoughts on the song became more and more clear. And finally, on the day that IS my birthday, I’ve finally realized just how much of a gift it really is.

Two things make this present so special for me: 1) Thoughts on race in the U.S. hardly ever appear as bluntly as they do in this song, at least not in a genre like country, and 2) we hardly ever get to hear from the majority group their thoughts on race. And as happy as this makes me (I don’t have to do so much of the heavy lifting to figure out what this song is saying about race) I’m almost speechless about the information I’ve been given access to. Almost.

Let’s break down why this song, as an EXAMPLE of what many White Americans think about race and not necessarily how it will AFFECT thoughts about race, is problematic:

Slavery is Worth Remembering
The premise of the song is that the main character, a Souther White man, is wearing a t-shirt with the confederate flag, which he hopes the Black guy working at Starbucks doesn’t take as a sign that he’s someone who wished slavery was still around. Of course he doesn’t think slavery should still exist, it’s just that he happens to like a band that uses (used) the flag. And besides, it’s really just a symbol of his Southern pride, not a comment on slavery or his views on race.

One of the assumptions that this song could not exist without is that slavery is in the distant past, and we need to get over it. Paisley’s lamenting that he’s not proud of everything the south has done, that we’re still “fightin’ over yesterday,” and LL Cool J’s “if you don’t judge my gold chains, I’ll forget the iron chains,” contribute to the idea that slavery is something we CAN forget. And this is a sentiment we hear a lot. As Louis CK says: “Every year White people add 100 years to how long ago slavery was. I hear educated people say ‘slavery was 400 years ago.’ It was 140 years ago. That’s two 70-year-old ladies living and dying back to back.” Not only was slavery not that long ago, but the effects of slavery can still be seen in our country today. The wealth gap between Whites and Blacks (for every dollar of wealth a Black family has, a comparable White family has 10) rests a good amount on the accumulation of wealth that happened when Blacks were either someone else’s property or were denied property within the law (I’m looking at you Jim Crow).

But of course, remembering that slavery existed and that it was wrong means having to put the blame on someone, and White people in the south are so over having to apologize for mistakes their forefathers made. In a region of the country where family loyalty and American pride are so important, it makes sense that remembering slavery is so difficult. But it doesn’t have to be. We can remember slavery the way we remember the Holocaust: it happened, it was shitty, let’s not let it happen again. Because that’s important: slavery (and something like slavery) is not an event that exists in the distant past alone. During WWII we had internment campus where thousands of innocent Japanese Americans were kept imprisoned because Americans assumed they could be spies. Today, immigrants work long, hard hours and cannot complain because even though they keep our food costs low and do the work the average American will NOT do we call them “illegal” and deny them the right to a fair wage and decent working conditions. Unfair treatment of an entire group of people is ALWAYS possible, given the right circumstances, and we must remember slavery so that we can avoid those circumstances like the plague.

Racism =/= Slavery ONLY

But here’s the other thing. Slavery in the United States, just because of it’s obvious unfairness, is not the only form of racism there is. I mean, yes, if you come at me saying that you think slavery wasn’t all that bad I’m going to call you a racist. To your FACE. But racism now exists in many more insidious and subtle ways. So the Black guy at Starbucks might not think you’re a racist for your red flag, but he might think you’re a racist if you didn’t vote for Obama simply because he’s Black (or you voted for the other guy simply because he’s White). Or when you think a young, Black man reaching in his pocket MUST have a gun, especially if he’s wearing a hoodie. Or when you see nothing wrong when you hear the number of Blacks in prison far outpaces the percentage in the US population. Or when you assume a Black college student was raised in the poor, inner city.

Research has shown that one of the reasons Black and White relations are so tense is that Whites tend to focus on how far we’ve come (“Look, we don’t own slaves anymore! We’re awesome!”) but Blacks focus on how far we need to go (“I have a dream…”). This song is so clear in that it focuses on how far we’ve come, but many Black Americans don’t see it that way. Which leads me to LL..

Having a “Black Friend” Does Not Make it Okay

Ta-Nehisi Coates over at the Atlantic made the point that choosing one Black voice to represent all Black perspectives was actually a sign of racism itself. He wonders why Paisley didn’t choose to work with a rapper that has already said many insightful things about race within their own music (Mos Def, Talib, KRS-ONE) but the choice of LL, and the lyrics that are included in the song, are far from accidental.

LL Cool J is “the convenient thug” in this song. While the country lyrics serve to give us the perspective of the White southern man who wants to forget slavery and therefore erase all potential that he could be labeled a racist accidentally, LL’s presence on the track serves to confirm to White listeners that Paisley’s perspective is completely legitimate. His character is dressed in baggy jeans, wearing gold chains, who doesn’t want to be judged by his attire. In return for this lack of judgment he is willing to forget slavery. This character lets listeners believe that racism only exists when one person judges another negatively based on arbitrary items, like do-rags and jewelry.That this is the way that Blacks are chosen to be represented in the song (as a “thug”) is racist, not that his voice is the only one represented.  As I stated before, racism is much more complicated than this song makes it seem. In a country where a White man with a felony on his record is more likely to receive a call for a job interview than a Black man with NO felony I think it’s slightly off to believe that it is simply a Black man’s ATTIRE that is being judged. Just because Paisley has a Black friend to back him up does not make his perspective the correct starting point for this conversation.

Which brings me to my last point…

Is this the conversation we want to have?

I am trying really hard to understand people’s comments on many of the articles I’ve read that “at least” this is a starting point for conversation. But is it a starting point for the kind of conversation we want to have? It’s like having someone say, “I’m willing to have a conversation about global warming…as long as we both agree it’s the dinosaurs’ fault.” And what are we having a conversation about? White, southern pride? Racism? Only “accidental” racism? The end of a conversation is completely dependent on where it begins, and if a conversation in America about race begins with the assumptions that racism is only the obvious kind and in the past, or that the current forms are simply due to individuals judging one another, then the solutions we come up with to deal with racism will be missing most of the issue itself. And that’s simply not a conversation I’m willing to have.

The Steubenville Rapists & How Rape Culture is Not Rape

Okay, on this blog I try and take what most people think is innocent, light-hearted pop culture and turn it all serious. But this time I’m taking a serious issue and making it uhhh…serious-er.

Because this is my blog. And fuck rape culture.

As many of you have heard, two Steubenville football players have been found guilty in juvenile court of rape. Hence they are convicted rapists. But as some of you have also heard, they have not been treated like convicted rapists by most of the media. Instead, what CNN, ABC, and other news outlets have focused on is the “promising future” of these two young men that have been ruined by the verdict. Reporters like Candy Crawley and Poppy Harlow reported on how the two boys, after serving time in juvenile detention centers, will be “haunted” by their sex offender status since they will need to register as such (because they are in fact, rapists).

In response to this, the website Upworthy has been amazingly awesome at bringing to light just how horrible these rape-apologists have been (see here).  They even came up with the following image which they posted on Facebook.

But even this image is seriously flawed. Sorry Upworthy, but rape culture is not rape. Rape culture is made up of all of the little messages that men receive on a daily, if not hourly, basis that lets them know that it is their manly right, nay duty, to take what they want when they want it. And the little messages that women get on a constant basis that if we receive any unwanted sexual attention it is completely our fault since men are animals and can’t help themselves. You want a definitive guide to rape culture? Here we go.

1. Men….take what’s yours.

The best example of the rape culture messages for men came in my coverage of this year’s SuperBowl ads. I’ll refresh your memory. In the Audi commercial that made the cut a young boy gets to borrow his father’s Audi and drives it solo to the prom where he proceeds to walk up to, and without warning, plant a kiss on the hot girl. The young boy walks out with a black eye we assume is from the boyfriend of the hot girl who is not happy about what just happened. The message is that what a woman wants to happen sexually isn’t important…the young boy is allowed to take it when he feels like he’s finally a man, and the boyfriend has to defend the sexuality of his girlfriend. Maybe she wanted it, maybe she didn’t. We’ll never know because it doesn’t really matter.

How about we teach young men how to tell when a young woman is interested? How much better sex is when she’s into it? How about we teach EVERYONE that sex can be fun for women too?

2. Man Up!

Rape culture isn’t only in the little narratives we see in 30 second ads. It’s also in our language. Think about the following phrases: Man up! Grow some balls! Don’t be a pussy! Be a man!

The ultimate manly trait is to be as agentic as possible. That means to be the one in control and making things happen; don’t let the world happen to you. (And women are not allowed to be agentic…duh.) In our culture this means that men are always expected to make the move on women and whenever possible make sex happen. I’m not saying all men act like this. But this is definitely what is meant by “being a man.” See #1.

How about we all follow Betty White’s advice and start calling people vaginas when they’re tough? Because those things can take a pounding.

3. She asked for it

Rape culture defines not only men’s behavior, but how interactions between men and women “should” go. Women should sit around like beautiful, non-sexual flowers to be “picked” by agentic men (Twilight anyone?). Anything else, and she’s asking to get raped. If you think about that last sentence logically, it actually contains no logic. But this is not only after the fact when people bring up over and over and over and over (ad nauseum) that the 16-year-old Jane Doe made the decision to drink as much as she did on the night that she was sexually penetrated while she was unconscious. This is when a woman wears a skirt to work and has to endure catcalls on the street (“She must want it if she’s dressing like that right?”). This is when a woman takes a free drink from a guy and is called a “bitch” when he asks to get her phone number or to have sex with her and she says no (“Why ELSE would I buy her a drink?”).  This is when men assume that a woman who comes over to his apartment definitely want to have the same sexual experience as he does (“What do you mean you only want to make out? Why are you here then?”).

How about we teach men that what women want most is not sexual attention but respect. Aretha Franklin blaring Clockwork Orange style maybe? And how about teaching women that even when HE’S interested that doesn’t mean she has to be. She has agency too.

This is a short list but it’s a good start. When we see rape culture let’s at least do our part and call it out. Rape culture is NOT rape. Rape culture is in any way whatsoever making men think rape is only a problem if you get caught and that women were likely asking for it or deserved it for not following the set gender rules.

If we get our act together maybe one day Jane Doe won’t be seen as a hero for the simple act of speaking up for herself against something that is morally and legally wrong. Because fuck rape culture.

Beyonce Wants Us to Bow Down

As many of you have heard, Beyonce recently announced a world tour that came with the above image of her wearing some serious royal regalia. But people, especially some feminists who were pretty excited by her “Run the World” type music, were confused by the title of the tour: The Mrs. Carter Show.

Of course the name is a nod to her being the wife of Jay-Z, or Shawn Carter. While others were wondering why she would put herself “down” by acknowledging her marriage I thought it may have been a way to tell the world that she’s a grown woman. Perhaps she’s letting us know that marriage has affected her by making her feel like she’s the queen of a castle. I’m one of the last people in this world to tell you that marriage means anyone is more adult or grown or mature. But if marriage, or any relationship for that matter, is done right it should change you as a person because you have to work so hard to keep it going (see: Ben Affleck’s Oscar acceptance speech).

But that’s beside the actual point of this post. Beyonce has now released a snippet of a new single called “Bow Down/I Been On.” And she is stirring the pot with this one!

Here are the lyrics that open it up (listen to the song below):

I know when you were little girls, you dreamt of being in my world
Don’t forget it, don’t forget it
Respect that, bow down, bitches
I took some time to live my life, but don’t think I’m just his little wife
Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down, bitches
H-town bishes, H- H-town, bishes
I’m so crown, bow bow down, bitches

Damn. Okay, so the Queen Bey is not happy that anyone is saying all she is is Jay-Z’s wife. And not in a “let’s all be nice about this” kind of way. She is literally singing to women who have not been as successful as her to bow down to her, as if she was a REAL QUEEN you guys.

In a way, this song is surprising because she does a whole lot of work to come off as squeaky clean to her fans and the world. She has no known vices, she comes off as sexy but not dirty or trying too hard, and the pictures that she posts to instagram of her with no make-up show off her baby face. But in another way, this song isn’t that surprising. Beyonce has been working hard the past few months to let the world know just that: she works really, really, really hard to have the success that she does. Anyone saying that she’s riding her husband’s coattails is saying the exact opposite. And apparently, Bey don’t play that.

And as much as I would like to say that I don’t like this side of Beyonce, most of me kind of does. A lot. Because I think she’s right: let’s not get it twisted. Women who succeed, especially in a world like the entertainment one or in any other world where men make the rules, may have a lot of luck but they also have to put in a lot of work. And BOTH should be acknowledged. One of the problems feminism has right now is that women are often at each other’s throats, tearing each other down. And while Beyonce’s song may just sound like another version of this problem, I think it’s also a call to arms. If you don’t want to be bowing down to anyone else, including men, then you better learn to work as hard as the ones who are making the big bucks or who are the ones making the big decisions. And if you don’t want to work that hard that’s completely fine…but you better shut your trap about whatever you think is going on.

I believe that to be a good feminist you need to help other women as much as you can, and that includes acknowledging when another woman has done well for herself even if she does it differently than you do, or than you would. And I also think that it means when you’re not getting the respect you deserve…you should be able to call people on it, men and women alike. And Beyonce has certainly tried to do just that.