At the 2004 Super Bowl, Janet Jackson’s nipple was revealed in a performance with Justin Timberlake. He was immediately invited back; she was banned for life. In 2007, Britney Spears infamously shaved her head and took to a car with an umbrella handle. That same year, Chris Crocker posted a video entitled “Leave Britney Alone.” Crocker was right. As Justin Timberlake has expressed regret for his actions toward both Spears and Jackson, and the #FreeBritney movement has gained traction, it seems many are reckoning with why the public and industry have been so excessively punitive with femme pop artists. But why did this happen to begin with, and why did it take so long for us to collectively recognize that we were not just critical but cruel?
I, like many others, was unfortunately afflicted with the terrible disease of internalized misogyny at a young age. Nowhere was this more obvious than in my reaction and treatment of female pop stars. My personal brand of misogyny was not created in a vacuum, and as we have entered the #FreeBritney era, I’ve come to understand that so much of the early media and news that we have consumed has truly villainized what were very young women in the public eye, often to the point of cruelty.
This is not a new trend: femme artists have been deserving of so much more through a large part of popular music history. Tina Turner deserved more than to be recognized only in affiliation with Ike Turner, Lil’ Kim deserved better than the hate received from both media and men alike, and countless other female artists deserved more than the media flak they got.
Though I would come to love pop culture, I was often denied it at a young age, and part of this denial was the typical parental adage of something along the lines of, “this music is stupid and unfeminist.” While certainly, I’m not here to champion for the Spice Girls or Cristina Aguilera as the epitome of feminism (even though they both did embody their own particular brand of neoliberal choice feminism), it’s critical to recognize the double standard that we set women in pop up with. Why was Justin Timberlake invited back to the Super Bowl at all when Janet was not? Why do male artists with actual abuse records (hello Chris Brown, Gary Glitter, Phil Spector, John Lennon, Dr. Luke, etc.) get much more lenient treatment than women and femmes who haven’t done much of anything at all?
Part of my irrational dislike of these women came from my (truly despicable) “not like other girls” complex. Many of us had it in 2012-2016, egged on by such platforms as Tumblr, the marketing of figures like Avril Lavigne, and the early 2000s rise of pop-punk and garage rock. This “not like other girls” personality was partially created by the warping of feminist—especially second wave—ideals, like studiousness and intellectualism, rejection of the hyper-feminine and domestic, and even riot grrl and girl rock, and reshaping them in a way that still manages to cater to heteronormative, patriarchal values.
The “not like other girls” phenomena, though not totally the same, overlapped a fair amount with the “pick me girl” in which femmes would embrace their “quirkiness” and their difference from other femmes in order to gain male approval. Yet, there’s something more insidious about the “not like other girls” phenomena that I and many others now recognize.
The idea that one was “not like other girls” was essentially predicated on the idea that all “other girls” were a monolith. Cultural discourses that continue to be peddled today, including music, created the sense that all other girls didn’t have a story, they didn’t think about things, and didn’t have complexity. This created both a rejection of “other girls” and the villainization of the hyper-feminization (think Sharpay vs. Gabriella and Regina George), embracing the era of the “not like other girls” girl.
While misogyny has certainly never left the collective treatment of women in music, the Reagan and Thatcher era of the 1980s bred a new brand of femininity, misogyny, and pop culture. After the gender normative culture of the 1950s seemed to take a turn for the less harsh, however, most of that counter-cultural work was mitigated by the advance of repressive policies and the rise of neoliberalism. The bimbo as a hated and derided figure came back in full blast, seemingly vapid women were decried as stains on our collective culture rather than evident products of it.
Anna Nicole Smith, Vanna White, and even the legendary Dolly Parton were collectively laughed at and pointed to as the antithesis of subcultural music and intelligence. In the 1990s, with a new wave of commodified feminism handcrafted for the neoliberal age, figures like the Spice Girls, Lil’ Kim, and Madonna were criticized from both ends. These women were often loved, yet they were neither feminist nor sexy, moral, or passive enough. As in any other industry, femmes in music couldn’t win.
Then came the early 2000s, with the chunky flip-flops, horrid outfits, and War on Terror that none of us could forget. With the 2000s and the burgeoning internet culture, globalized media combined with paparazzi to create hyper-focused and shamelessly in-your-face groups like TMZ. Along came the increased tenacity and speed of paparazzi, combined with the young age of women like Britney, Ke$ha, and Paris Hilton. The music industry allowed for abusers, violent rhetoric, and interviews to run rampant against these artists. The division of music into clean-cut genres and the clear disdain for pop music in other genres made hatred against femme pop artists especially potent in the music world.
To be one of the cool kids, you had to deride artists like Britney, Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga. While some of these women have done things that I believe are important and necessary to critique, they often received much more punitive treatment than was truly necessary.
So I’d like to take some of this space to apologize.
I’m sorry to Ke$ha for hating for no reason, I’m sorry to Taylor Swift, I’m sorry to Katy Perry, I’m sorry to Janet Jackson, I’m sorry to Kelis, to Whitney Houston, and to many other women artists I’ve derided, shamed, slut-shamed, ridiculed and otherwise disrespected.
To all the women I’ve hated on before, I’m sorry. To Britney, I hope you get free.
Written by Xia Jimenez