Dangerous Women Feminism

Abstract

In the last 10 years, feminism has been foregrounded in popular music more than at any time. At the same time, female pop music artists have been the target of hostility because of the feminist messages they espouse. This chapter examines US-based female popular music artists who have embraced a postfeminist agenda. This agenda engages messages of empowerment, sex positivity, and elements of girl culture. In addition, this chapter explores the notion of resilience in relation to how these music artists have used the voice of feminism to become outspoken and show independence and strength in celebrating the female body. In particular, the author discusses the discourse of their concert tours, as this is a time when these artists are in the spotlight through both their performance and the promotional materials for those performances and as a consequence are more open (and vulnerable) to critique than at other times.