FEMINIST FRIDAY: Lizzo, The Highwomen & Halsey Serving Up The Feminist Music Hits We Need This Summer

Lizzo ‘Juice’ music video (Youtube screenshot)

Welcome to another summer edition of Feminist Friday! That time of the week where we change it up from our regular content and instead share 3 videos we can’t get enough of right now, usually centered around a theme that is intersectional, fierce, and of course feminist.

This week we’re all about the music, and since we’re in the middle of a searing hot summer, these hot hits are keeping our feminist fire going this season! First up, the one and only Lizzo, who has been having a stellar year on the charts and her success doesn’t show any signs of slowing down any time soon. But according to an interview with the singer on Complex.com, she almost considering quitting the music biz altogether when her album ‘Truth Hurts’ initially flopped in 2017.

With encouragement from her music team as well as family and friends, she kept going, and the rest is history. Her track and music video for ‘Juice’, off the album ‘Cuz I Love You’ (out now) seems to be a fitting ode to the power of never giving up and her own perseverance. With lyrics like, “If I’m shiny, everybody gonna shine. I was born like this, don’t even gotta try. I like chardonnay, get better over time. Heard you say I’m not the baddest b*tch, you lie,” how can you not get pumped up!

The second video this week comes from country supergroup The Highwomen, consisting of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. Their song ‘Redesigning Women’ is all about female empowerment and was directed by Elizabeth Olmstead. The song is all about the many things women today juggle on a daily basis, showing the hilarity and reality of it all.

“‘Redesigning Women’ is the life most women are living today. We juggle so much in 24 hours and I wanted to write a song that reflected the goodness, the madness and the hilarity of it all,” said the group’s Natalie Hemby who wrote the song, according to Billboard. If you’re a woman who feels like she is constantly performing a daily juggling act with your life, this one’s for you.

But sometimes not everything is fun and games being a woman. In fact, there are so many things that make us mad on a daily basis and letting it all out with a primal scream and venting to our besties is the only way to get through the day. Halsey’s power-packed ‘Nightmare’ music video is exactly the kind of track that echoes some of the frustrations and angst that are a normal part of our lives.

With lyrics like, “I’ve been polite, but won’t be caught dead / Lettin’ a man tell me what I should do in my bed.” She calls out catcallers with “Come on, little lady, give us a smile / No, I ain’t got nothin’ to smile about … I don’t owe you a goddamn thing” we can’t help nodding along, high-fiving, and uttering a “I feel ya, sister!” at the same time.

When the video was initially released in May, Halsey tweeted a powerfully emotive statement about what the song represents, and who it represents: “Imagine getting onstage every night and seeing young women sweating mascara tears, lightning in their eyes, throwing elbows and raising fists, screaming till the veins in their necks raise under warm skin, and not being inspired by it. This song is about you, for you,” she said.

The video features an all-female cast which includes Cara Delevingne, Suki Waterhouse, and Debbie Harry. Watch below:

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