Table of ContentsIntroductionArtifact DescriptionThe Gender Binary and Other Ideas About GenderGendered BodiesGender PerformanceIntersectionalityGender InequalityConclusionWorks Cited:IntroductionBeyoncé Knowles began her music career at a very young age with a group made up of his childhood friends. His father left his job in the world of cooperatives to participate in the management of the group. After achieving some success; Beyoncé later split from the group and began her own solo career. His platform grew and his fame exploded. The singer, dancer, entrepreneur and actress has never looked back and throughout her success, she instilled in her fans the importance of feminism and race from the start. Many of her songs dictate exactly this, Beyoncé's song "If I Were a Boy" is the most significant of her songs as it reiterates the gender binary, gendered bodies, gender performance, intersectionality and inequality of gender. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Artifact Description The song “If I Were a Boy” is an incredible example of gender roles and how they are presented. At the start of the clip, the couple expresses the key elements of their ideal relationship. Beyoncé responds with the masculine stereotype, her first phrase being “intimacy.” Her partner, who expresses the feminine stereotype, responds with “honesty”. In this video, typical gender stereotypes are reversed. Beyoncé's husband makes her a warm breakfast, she takes a bite and leaves, showing no degree of gratitude. She goes to work and flirts with her partner throughout the day, while her husband goes to work and looks for gifts for her. Attractive women ask him out and he refuses and ignores the obvious attention. She goes out with his friends, doesn't tell him and ignores all his calls because he stays late at work. A few days later, the couple goes to a party and she dances with intense sexual tension with her partner. Her husband gets upset and when they get home they have a blast and she responds “why are you so jealous, it’s not like I’m sleeping with that guy. He responds “what?” silence settles in and the roles are reversed. The husband responds, “I said it’s not like I’m sleeping with the girl.” The next morning we, the audience, see the revered roles. She prepares him a hearty meal, he takes a bite, leaves for work and flirts with his partner. The song then ends with the powerful lyrics “but you’re just a boy.” When describing the video, Beyoncé (2008) said: “It's a bit like Freaky Friday. At the beginning of the video, my husband is making me breakfast and he's excited about it, and I kind of don't have time to eat. As a police officer, I have a male partner and the video runs through our days. My husband is at work and attractive girls are flirting with him, but he refuses their advances. I have a guy who flirts with me and I flirt back. Beyoncé added that the video depicts common things men do to hurt their loved ones, like not answering the phone. She explained: “It's about all the little things that mean so much in a relationship. end of the clip, we realize that I was playing his life, and everything starts again He was a cop and everything that happened, it was really him who did the same thing to me (songfacts, 2008. ) The Gender Binary and Other Ideas About Gender Binary gender is the concept that there are only two types of people. Male-bodied individuals who emphasize masculinity and female-bodied individuals who embody femininity. THEGender binary separates the two genders and places them in two very opposite sections of one plane (Wade and Ferree, 2015). Beyoncé imposed the gender binary in her song and music video in multiple ways. The beginning of the song says, "If I were a boy, even just for one day." I got out of bed in the morning, put on whatever I wanted and left. » This statement obscures the idea that women must take more time to prepare and look more polished than men to function fully in society. This ideal has been embedded in society for a very long time and gives the impression that women's sole objective is to be presentable to those around them. She also says, “(If I were a boy) I would put myself first and make the rules as I go along. Because I know she would be faithful, waiting for me to come home. This statement reinforces the male stereotype that men are unfaithful, careless, and selfish. Sexual Bodies Male and female bodies are scientifically similar but not completely identical. Psychologist Janet Hyde combined 7,084 studies by various researchers that examined 124 alternative aspects to fully map the difference between men and women in terms of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, intellectual abilities, communication styles and skills. “Hyde found no differences between men and women for 30 percent of the traits examined. In an additional 48 percent, there was evidence of a slight gender difference” (Wade and Ferree, 2015, p. 37). Wade and Ferree mention these differences throughout their book. There is a statistic that men are more likely to engage in heroic helping behavior than women. Beyoncé described it well, portraying male stereotypes, she single-handedly fights with a criminal in a conviction store and aggressively throws him into the police car, showing courage and heroism. Gender Performance Gender performance can be thought of as anything that has to do with sexual identity. . This can mean the type of clothing men and women look at, the type of body language, the prefix before your name (Mrs. Mr. Miss, etc.). This does not necessarily have to correlate with the biological aspect of gender. Gender performance is mental and voluntary. Beyoncé expressed this throughout the video. The husband worked in a cooperative setting and seemed quite clean and neat. Beyoncé worked for the police, wore a little less clothing and embodied her physique. When the roles were reversed and Beyoncé became more feminine, she remained shy and wore a significant amount of clothing compared to her husband. She wore pants, a blazer, and a blouse buttoned all the way to the top. The interpreter; when it was the husband or Beyoncé, the femininity seemed much more passive, the body language was soft and gentle, and their clothing was very modest. When the interpretation of masculinity was on point, the body language was very aggressive and confident. As Nandini Seshadri (2013) stated: “Almost all gender expressions are performed. That is, almost all of the ways you communicate your gender to others around you are a culturally determined performance of gender rather than an innate biological expression. they apply to a given individual or group, seen as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Black women are often seen as less feminine and more masculine than feminine, because during the period of slavery, they did just as hard work as men...