The 5 Most Pro-Female Songs of 2013

2013 has been a banner year for representations of women in popular music. While some artists (most notably Lily Allen) have clearly hibernated through this cessation of sexist discrimination in pop culture, a select few men have taken it upon themselves to illuminate this happening to their female audiences. The end of sexism is here, and as we wrap up the year, let’s celebrate these five artists who broke the news.

5. Sean Kingston ft. Chris Brown—”Beat It”

I know I can’t be alone in saying that I missed Chris Brown! Sean Kingston intelligently features America’s best-known domestic abuser on this cleverly titled track, and with him, shows that violence is completely acceptable behavior. As the song’s masterfully composed lyrics demonstrate, she’s just “wanting [him] to beat it”!

4. Justin Timberlake—“Take Back the Night”

Come on, ladies. Groups like Take Back the Night have it all wrong. It’s up to us to stop rape by dressing modestly, not by changing male behavior. Timberlake realizes how necessary it is to trivialize the messages of these misguided organizations; after all, if men “know” when we “feel it,” they can’t possibly rape us.

3. Eminem ft. Kendrick Lamar—“Love Game”

Though it perhaps doesn’t give us the level of creative achievement attained by Eminem’s reclamation of the word “faggot” in “Rap God,” “Love Game” still gives us plenty to talk about. Eminem and Kendrick Lamar both demonstrate the dangerous nature of female sexuality, the former by listing the several men the song’s female subject has slept with, the latter by simply stating “I’m a sucker for love, you’re a sucker for dick.”

2. Rocko ft. Future and Rick Ross—“U. O. E. N. O.”

Sometimes, women are wrong. Sometimes, we need a bit of help from the superior, smarter sex. In “U. O. E. N. O.,” that help comes in the form of Rick Ross “put[ting] Molly all in her champagne.” Ross is clearly a man who knows how to handle that inconvenient female weakness of thinking she can make her own decisions about sex.

1. Robin Thicke ft. T.I. and Pharrell—“Blurred Lines”

If Robin Thicke doesn’t follow in Gloria Steinem’s footsteps and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the next few years, then I’m no longer to be taken seriously. He empowers the female subject of his magnum opus to “let [him] liberate [her],” augments her self-esteem by telling her she is a “good girl,” and finally obliterates sexism once and for all by “blurring” the “lines” between men and women (and not, as some ignorami have claimed, between sex and rape). Bravo, Thicke. You’ve accomplished for us women what we never could have done ourselves.

—Staff Writer Grace E. Huckins is an outgoing campus arts executive and the incoming books executive. She listens to a lot of Tegan and Sara and Sinead O’Connor. She can be reached at grace.huckins@thecrimson.com.