This is 2022. Not every feminist has to act prim and proper to get respect from men. This is 2022. Not every feminist needs to act like the delusionary vision that men have of how women should act, look, and talk. This is 2022. It’s finally time for a messy, creative, and totally human role model at the frontlines of the new age, feministic movement.
Who said feminism isn’t twerking on national television to a song about making money and not being apologetic for embracing the real, beautiful you? Megan Thee Stallion is the bad bitch that holds the crown these days when it comes to women celebrating everything special about them.
Finding very quick success and critical acclaim with her debut album, there was no stopping the cultural reset that was Megan Thee Stallion. She is the Billboard poster icon for women in music, specifically rap, a genre where women are generally sexualized and seen as objects for men in the rap game to add to songs like they are simply trophies. While she was not the first woman defending the genre, she has been the most influential in recent history. She was the second female rapper to ever win Best New Artist at the Grammys, being able to stand in front of her role model, Beyonce, and thank her for inspiration on just the beginnings of what seems to be a long and prosperous career.
Megan Thee Stallion was rightfully added to Times Most Influential People list not because of her bars or her looks, but because of her impact on the women of the brand new and bold generation. With every song, she reminds women that they are more influential and “savage” than they may believe. While critics may believe that Stallion’s sexually explicit lyrics may target just the advantages of physical beauty and using money as a power dynamic, those critics completely miss the mark. She is not idealizing and highlighting these surface level interests that women have, she is empowering them to explore the confidence behind these surface-level interests and the fact that women should be able to share their success with the public just as men can. Megan Thee Stallion wants to be able to put women’s success on the same importance level outwardly in the mainstream as men have done for years, ignoring women in their narrative of success. Megan Thee Stallion is not loud or arrogant; she is embracing what has been ignored for women: power and success.
Her music moves people not only physically on the dance floor, but in the way women are able to express their power, changing the way women feel about themselves. When they hear another powerful woman be proud of herself unapologetically, it changes their mindset, creating a wave of women embracing the taboo of their lives that have been willfully ignored for centuries like sex and feeling confident enough within themselves to know that they are truly beautiful the way they are. While Megan is traditionally beautiful, she does not talk about her beauty in the way the modeling industry has or the way the mainstream media focuses on the idealization of petite. Stallion is large and in charge, not in body, but in attitude and influence. Women see themselves grow metaphorically taller by listening to self-affirming lyrics that truly make women feel like they are as bad as Megan.
However, her music is not the only thing that is empowering, but also one of the main messages she speaks about consistently: women going to college. She was the first in her family to graduate and continues to talk on how formative education is. With these ideals, women are not only going to be physically confident, but also intellectually confident and more likely to break the glass ceiling that still exists no matter what men say about the subject.
While Megan Thee Stallion’s success has now been validated by money, chart-toppers, awards, and the number of likes on social media, this is not the shallowness of her influence. Her influence is depicted in the number of women listening to her music and seeing themselves as the modern woman who doesn’t need to be humble if nothing humbles her. Her listeners see themselves as they should: the best versions of themselves they can be and allowing them to reach for even higher as long as they look at life with confidence. Megan Thee Stallion challenges and transcends social normalities with what may seem like simple lyrics, but they are not so simple because what she is saying is still new to modern society. However, with women like this spearheading the movement of new-age feminism which centers around apologetic womanhood with no regard for the male gaze, these ideas will not continue to be taboo or something to debate. There is no debate: bad bitches rise.