Inventory A soundproofed room of one’s own: 17 well-intended yet misguided feminist anthems

1. Pink, “Stupid Girls”
Pink has made a career out of working just far enough outside the pop-tartlet mold that she can make fun of the Britney Spearses and Jessica Simpsons of the world while remaining marketable to the exact same audience. Take her hit single “Stupid Girls,” which uses annoying L.A. starlet indicators like “itsy-bitsy doggies” and blonde hair as an excuse to indulge in some girl-on-girl hate, including an ugly interlude where she mocks bulimia. While in theory the song’s message about being yourself and avoiding destructive superficiality is admirable, it’s distressingly black-and-white and dismissive: Girls are either smart or stupid, girly or tomboy-ish, and those who don’t fit Pink’s mold of “feminism” should be derided.

2. John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band, “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World”
Though there’s something to be said for the incendiary spirit of a title like “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World,” the song—released in 1972 during the height of the women’s-lib movement—fails to deliver any real punch. It’s a dangerous statement to make, equating women’s status worldwide to slavery, nesting white women in the violence of the civil-rights movement, and suggesting an unconstructive who-suffers-more battle between blacks and women, but there’s potential merit in the comparison as well. The song was written, John Lennon said on The Dick Cavett Show, following a couple of years of introspection about his own chauvinistic ways. Ono’s titular statement kept playing in his head, so they laid down a track, but instead of focusing on women’s plight worldwide, which might start to justify his calling woman “the slave of slaves,” the drippy, meandering song focuses more on middle-class woes. (“We make her bear and raise our children / And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen,” etc.) The title got the song banned, but the song itself is vanilla.

3. Shania Twain, “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”
The boilerplate “Let’s let our hair down and go crazy!” rah-rah message of Shania Twain’s 1997 hit “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” is so bland and uninspired it’s practically nonexistent; it’s basically a jingle for lady razors extended over three and a half minutes. The fact that Twain’s version of female rebellion involves coloring her hair, talking loudly, and going out dancing with her friends raises the question of what sort of imaginary, Victorian-era standards she thinks she’s rebelling against. Then there’s the video, which “subverts” Robert Palmer’s unapologetically leering “Addicted To Love” video by swapping out a snappily dressed Palmer singing in front of a harem of hyper-sexualized models for a hyper-sexualized Twain in front of a band of goofy-looking male models, all of whom are wearing more clothing than she is. It isn’t that Twain’s sexualization or message are objectionable, it’s that they’re pandering and banal, diluting whatever good intentions the song had into an easy-to-swallow mush. 

4. Geri Halliwell, “Bag It Up” 
In “Bag It Up,” Geri Halliwell suffers from “a bad case of opposite sex.” Of course, this requires her to do housework in a nightie while her bored partner watches TV and she pouts for his attention. The song and video are a glorious clusterfuck that take cues from Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract” and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” transforming the positive message of girl power into something called girl powder, a magical mix reminiscent of laundry detergent that, when delivered to a man, tricks him into doing things like vacuuming and waiting hand and foot on women. “Treat him like a lady,” Halliwell instructs from her Girl Powder factory of playboy-bunny male pole-dancers. Because it isn’t that the roles that need to change; they just need to be reversed. 

5. Christina Aguilera ft. Lil’ Kim, “Can’t Hold Us Down”
Released at the height of Christina Aguilera’s dirrrty Stripped phase—a.k.a. The Assless Chaps Years—“Can’t Hold Us Down” is actually one of her better songs, a girl-power duet with Lil’ Kim confronting the double standard of female sexuality. But once David LaChapelle’s video gets factored in, the medium swallows the message. Clad in a tube top and the faintest wisp of a pair of shorts, Aguilera pops her booty, humps a fire hose, and generally demands respect as she engages in a sexy yet empowering water fight. The fact that Aguilera’s supposed control over her own sexual image is in fact helmed by a male director raises icky male-gaze issues, but beyond that, it glosses over the fact that there are in fact stops on the female-sexuality spectrum between “burka-clad” and “dripping-wet stripper chic.”

6. Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin, “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” 
This danceable, boisterous neo-soul anthem seems like a perfect ’80s feminist anthem: It’s big, brassy, and performed by two women with a lot of experience defying female stereotypes: Annie Lennox, who wrote the lyrics, and Aretha Franklin. But while the song was intended to “celebrate the conscious liberation of the female state,” it traffics in clichés about women as much as it disproves them. Women are “comin’ out of the kitchen” to tout their “new exterior,” as if feminism was a shiny paint job. Praising women for being doctors and lawyers is a compliment that came a good 50 years too late even in 1985. And the fact that women are “politicians, too” may not strike some people as much of a great leap forward. The most damning lyric comes in the bridge, though, which seems designed to put the men’s minds at ease: “We ain’t makin’ stories and we ain’t layin’ plans”—don’t worry, fellas, we aren’t plotting anything crazy! “A man still loves a woman and a woman still loves a man.” No lesbians here, guys. Rest easy.

7. Aretha Franklin, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” 
Though Aretha Franklin’s feminist credentials are impeccable, she’s a repeat offender on this list. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” is a great song, but it’s been widely embraced as an earthy pro-female anthem, and it’s hard to see why. Not only was it commissioned by Jerry Wexler as an afterthought companion piece to a song he’d thought up about a “natural man,” but also it’s a strange self-esteem builder for women. “Your love was the key to my peace of mind” isn’t exactly the best message for independence-minded girls, nor is the notion that the singer’s boyfriend is the only thing she’s living for. There’s nothing wrong with the message “Hey, thanks for the awesome orgasm,” as messages go, but as a feminist statement of purpose, it’s a bit lacking. 

8. Sheena Easton, “Strut” 
From the lyrics, Sheena Easton’s 1984 “Strut” reads as a suggestive yet empowering slap back against piggish men. A man tries to convince a woman to get naked by telling her he’s paying her the ultimate compliment: that she’s so good at sex, it should be her job. Easton takes him to task for objectifying women and being a lazy lover to boot. However, the song’s video undercuts the message, since Easton does exactly what she complains her man expects of women: strutting and pouting.