The “If I Were a Boy” trend in music

Last week, Reba McEntire covered Beyoncé on the Country Music Awards. The song: “If I Were a Boy,” as made popular by the R&B star in 2008.”When I got the song and the lyrics, I thought it was an incredible song,” the country singer said. Her recording of “If I Were a Boy” appears on her new album, All The Women I Am and also made Reba a viral sensation of sorts last year when she initially sang a stripped-down version on YouTube.  

McEntire’s version is poised to be almost as successful as Beyoncé’s, which was made more popular by the accompanying music video that starred the singer in a Freaky Friday scenario of sorts: While singing the song about what she’d do if she were male, she donned a police uniform and acted out lyrics like:

If I were a boy / I would turn off my phone / Tell everyone it’s broken / So they’d think that I was sleeping alone / I’d put myself first / And make the rules as I go / ‘Cause I know that she’d be faithful / Waiting for me to come home

These lyrics translate well from R&B to country, as cross-genre songs typically do when they’re about a universal theme. And this theme is one that seems to be popping up more and more as of late – songs about the privilege of being male.

One of the earlier performances of this theme is from the movie musical Victor/Victoria, a gender-bending film and stage play that starred Julie Andrews as a woman pretending to be a man who was a female impersonator. One of the songs she sings in both versions is “If I Were a Man.”

Man assumes that the world is tailor made for him, which it is / He presumes that the world indulges ev’ry whim / If it’s his / What a fabulous pursuit, / Hands in pockets, running things / I must say, it appeals / In my hundred dollar suit / Toying with my golden fob-watch / As I make my deals / Lucky man who is not made to feel / Like an also-ran / What a lovely life I’d plan / If I were a man.

What’s made interesting not only about the lyrical content of songs about women longing to have the privileges of men is that they are often accompanied by performances of masculinity. Beyoncé singing about switching roles with her boyfriend might not be so queer, but her performance as a strong policewoman with no concern for her male counterpart gives her some queer subtext, whether she’s intending to or not. And Andrews is performing as a man-turned-woman, donning suits and short haircuts and balancing masculinity and femininity as best she can depending on who she’s around and what she is trying to evoke.

But somewhere in between Julie Andrews and Beyoncé, there were several other similarly-themed songs. In 1986, Bonnie Tyler (famous for her single “Total Eclipse of the Heart”) released the song “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)” which had a little bit of a different bent. She acknowledges the male privilege of control in relationships, but wants to know if the male in question can relinquish it so they are on the same level.

How’s it feel to be a woman / How’s it feel to be a man / Are we really that different / Tell me where we stand / I look at you, you look away / Why do you say we’re night and day / I’d like to try another way / Oh baby for just one day

In 1992, Cowboy Junkies released a similarly titled track: “If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man.”

If I was the heart and you were the head / would you think me very foolish / if one day I decided to shed / these walls that surround me / just to see where these feelings led / if I was the heart and you were the head.

It seems the idea has evolved from men being flippant to men being downright disrespectful. But they share the common bond of feeling less-than in relationships with men.

Cabaret singer Andrea Menard recorded “If I Were a Man” for the Queer As Folk soundtrack in 2007. The more playful track is less concerned with privilege as how it affects women, but more about how fun it would be to have that power.

If I were a man / I’d speak with authority / I would be so eloquent My stacked vocabulary and my witty repartee / Would win respect from all my peers, but never give me away / If I were a man / I’d be a cowboy / I’d terrify you with my gun / I’d be the cop in cops and robbers / I’d be a demolition man / If I blew up all my friends I’d be king of the land / If I were a man, if I were a man I’d like to meet somebody like me

So, to recap: Men have all the fun. Men do not care about how women feel. And while this is a big stereotype about males in general, you rarely hear songs sang by men about what they would do or how they would act if they traded in their sneakers for heels and proverbially walked in our shoes.

In the last decade, there have been several other variations on this theme: FeFe Dobson’s “If I Was a Guy,” Pussycat Dolls’ “If I Were a Man” and Ciara‘s “Like a Boy.” This last track came along with a video that had the singer donning a white tank top, tattoos, and dancing in a very masculine manner. It was a hit with queer women, likely much more so than it was with men. In this case, as with Beyoncé’s, the music video brought out the innate queerness that underlies such a song. Butch or more masculine and sometimes androgynous women are thought to be emulating boys; so when pop stars are doing so in relationship to their song, it’s inevitable this performance will align itself with our ideas of drag and gender-play.

At the time of Beyoncé’s song’s release, Ciara was asked about their song’s similarities. She said, “The song is different, but it does have the same concept as mine.” Beyoncé’s track was written primarily by a woman, while Ciara’s was penned with a team of mostly men. But Beyoncé’s video inspired feminist perspectives to spring up, especially in relation to “If I Were A Boy” in juxtaposition to “Single Ladies” and “Cater 2 U,” songs about marriage and loving a man so much you’d worship him.

Said Beyoncé of “If I Were a Boy:”

I didn’t write it, but that song is so perfect. It’s so refreshing. It’s definitely something that will last forever. I felt like I was singing for every woman in the world. I feel like I’m an artist who says a lot of the things in my music that women want to say or need to hear. Fans always tell me, “You got me through this argument with my boyfriend,” or, “Because of you I was strong enough to stick it through.”

And while the song might strike a chord with some women who deal with disrespectful men, there seems to be much more wrong with what Beyoncé presents than what help she can give. Salon.com’s Tracy Clark-Flory says:

The message isn’t exactly new: Boys and girls are different, and boys treat girls like shit. But this video is especially irksome because it masquerades as an empowered attack on rigid gender roles while only reinforcing them. The idea here – just as with Ciara’s “Like a Boy,” which, OK, I secretly love — is that the only power a girl has in a relationship is to act like a boy, instead of redefining “the rules” or refusing sucky relationships.

And Judy Berman commented in the same article:

I can’t even tell what this song and video are trying to say. Is it that there aren’t female cops? That women don’t go out for beers with their friends? That we’re not allowed to ignore phone calls from men we’d like to avoid? That Beyoncé is a jealous, lonely hausfrau type who gets no respect from men?

So what does it say about us, then, as gay women if we enjoy these gender-playing music videos because it gives us the opportunity to see Beyoncé and Ciara out of their stilettos and glitter and in a pair of slacks and cap on their heads?

The recent addition to this genre is UK pop singer Jessie J’s single, “Do It Like a Dude.” The song itself is quite simple:

I can do it like a brother / Do it like a dude / Grab my crotch, wear my hat low like you

The video, however, employs many more ideas. But there are no men in this music video. In fact, it seems ripe with women of various gender-identities. Besides the women kissing, there is the masculine dancing from Ciara’s video, but with additional scenes of these butch-esque women playing poker, fighting, scowling and smoking cigars. If it weren’t for the singer’s overtly sexual dancing and grabbing of her body parts, it might actually be somewhat of a good video. Instead, it comes off as a bizarre promise that Jessie is tough, but she is tough and still sexy. So sexy, she will show it all of, even in a room full of really butch women: One of these things is not like the other.

To what do we owe this trend, that seems to only be picking up popularity in different genres and countries? Likely the continuing ideas of gender stereotypes, and the willingness of women to sing these songs that men wouldn’t dream of performing. What would be more radical and enjoyable are songs about female empowerment that feature them in masculine or androgynous attire. But that, I fear, is too threatening to the social ideal of how they want to be seen. They prefer to be seen as less-privileged, and willing to put up with it.