Why Queen Bey is a Feminist |

Tina Knowles with her young daughter, Beyonce.

This statement is directed particularly to white feminists discussing and debating the Beyonce/feminist issue. Who are you to question Queen Bey? Does her beauty make you feel uncomfortable? Do her lyrics and her success make you question your own choices in life? What is it?

Beyonce is a feminist because she says she is a feminist. Some of her music teaches feminist principles. What, you say? Some of it does not? It’s art. It’s not going to be tidy and she doesn’t owe it to anyone to project a perfect image.

We don’t get to tell another woman what she is or is not, not even when she qualifies a statement about being a feminist with the words “I guess,” and certainly not because some of her art doesn’t meet our personally held standards of feminism.

We don’t have to agree, and it’s absolutely worth discussion, but it’s not fair to deny her own personal claims of identity, no matter what she wears, or sings, or does in her spare time. Queen Bey works her tail off and ultimately, her own words should be the final words on the subject.