An Ode to Male Singers Who Just Get It!
With all the recent talk about Girl Power and Feminism in the music industry, it’s easy to forget about the good guys out there who paved the way!
Written by Kaci Pelias
Illustrated by Gracelyn Prom
Female musicians are taking over, with their girl-power bops about loving your body and saying “no” (thanks, Meghan Trainor). After decades of struggling to exist in the music industry, these artists are finally getting the spotlight, but it’s important to remember whose shoulders they’re standing on. Sure, you could argue that women have “worked hard” and “advocated for themselves,” but there’s no denying that male singers have worked tirelessly to bring attention to the movement. This is my ode to those men.
I remember the first time I heard One Direction’s breakout single “What Makes You Beautiful.” I was an awkward 12 year old, too tall and embarrassingly anxious around boys. Of course, I’m gay now, but the power of my compulsory heterosexuality was, at the time, at its peak. One look at a boy and I became absolutely flustered! I experienced a particularly terrible interaction with my crush Dillion, a chiseled basketball player who paid no mind to me, a sweaty theatre dork who didn’t even know how to put her hair in a ponytail.
That night, I was laying face-down on my zebra-print comforter and hiding my long, acne-d face from nearby mirrors. My mind played the scenario on repeat, but I had accepted the fact that no man would ever love me — that is, until my thoughts were redirected by the British guardian angels singing from my radio, “You’re insecure, don’t know what for / You’re turning heads when you walk through the do-o-or.”
“I am insecure! I don’t think I’m beautiful,” I thought, smiling and in awe of these British boys who knew exactly what I was going through. They saw my social anxiety and low self-esteem and let me know that, actually, I was beautiful. Who else would do that for me? Therapy? Other girls? A complete redirection of media’s representation of women, specifically young girls? Of course not!
Furthermore, not only was I beautiful, but the fact that I was unaware of my beauty only made me even more so. One Direction’s new song gave me the power to develop a superiority complex against confident girls. Oh, so you “know what you’re worth” and actually think you’re beautiful? Sorry, sweetie, but that’s not what guys want. In fact, I’m the one who is going to get a husband, not you!
The next few years of my life were spent dangerously toeing the line between living in complete ignorance of my beauty and becoming too confident to actually qualify as beautiful, as per One Direction’s standards. However, this dilemma was a small price to pay for the newly formed complexity of my character. I’m so thankful that 1D made me 3-D!
Going beyond my personal insecurities and toward a broader look at feminism, Keith Urban recently released “Female,” his response to the Harvey Weinstein accusations and the larger #MeToo movement. And thank goodness! We were hearing from so many women at the time, so getting a man’s thoughts about the whole thing was really refreshing.
Image courtesy of Hit Red and Capitol Records Nashville
The lyrics read like poetry, but also like a really big inspirational poster on the wall of a feminist campus space. With “Female” (which, ugh, what a great and concise title), Urban not only makes the bold claim that maybe God created Eve second because he “saved the best for last,” but also defines womanhood and femininity in a way that’s never before been done: using approximately 21 metaphors rooted in religion and nature.
In fact, as soon as I heard this chorus, I added each descriptor of the titular “Female” to my Twitter bio. Before hearing this song, I didn’t know what being a “Female” meant. Now, thanks to Keith Urban, I can definitively say that I identify as “Technicolor” and “Broken Halo.”
If you, like me, find listening to women sing about feminism to be repetitive and overdone (I’m pretty sure sexism is over by now!), I urge you to seek out these male musicians who are really Doing The Work. They saw a space in the industry — and society! — that needed to be filled, and I am so grateful for their hard labor. Thank you, One Direction and Keith Urban, for your part in the movement!