Manraj's Weekly Perspective

 Hello Everyone,

I would like to welcome you guys back to my personal blog where I like to dissect current 

hot topics in pop culture and its interesting impact on society. 

Society as humans know it today has altered right before our eyes, as we age and grow so has the 

influence of media personnels on our viewpoints. The impact is massive and equivalent to subconsciously 

conditioning our viewpoints, it  affects our interactions with our family, friends, peers, co-workers. The 

disheartening truth is that the constant masculine toxicity presented to us over generations has lead us to 

believe that it is normal and acceptable. Now, we will be furthering examining the music video by famous 

singer  Beyonce called " If I was a Boy" that depicts a reversal of patriotrical society in which a woman

lives a day in the life of a man and how differently she would act if she was born a male.  

This music video opens up with Beyonce taking on the role of a police officer as her husband prepares  

breakfast to start off her day. However, Beyonce proceeds to ignore her husband and walks out the door 

and get's into a car with another male police officer with a grin on her face.Then the seen cuts to her 

husband in office ignoring other woman in office as he was looking for an engagement ring online for his 

wife. Beyonce spends excessive amounts of time with the male police officer and disregards her husbands 

calls while he waits and worries for her. He sadly finds Beyonce dancing on the male police officer but 

when he confronts her about it she belittles his concern with laugh. This last scene reveals that this

music video has been Beyonce's imagination the whole the illusion in which her husband was in has been 

her reality this entire time. 

This music video might seem bizarre as it starts off with the husband cooking and the wife being the 

bread winner. We are not accustom to this form of set up and whenever we do see it is shamed upon 

because the male is in a more vulnerable and submissive position and the wife is more controlling 

position which traditionally would be the opposite. As the wife spends majority of her time at work, her 

husband is surrounded by other women but pays them no attention as he is more concerned 

about his relationship. Typically, women are expected to "be faithful and waiting for" her husband to 

come home as sung by Beyonce herself in this song. This song shows that despite being taken for granted 

women are made a mockery out of if they confront their unfaithful partners because this is a mans world 

with a mans rules.

The music video shows many different examples of gender misrepresentation throughout, initially 

showing how women are less than men and how it would be if the roles were reversed for a day. We have 

been taught by the society in which we live that women are meant to be beautiful and stay at home moms, 

when that does not have to be the case. This song perfectly illustrates that point as Beyonce is the one that 

is working as a police officer providing for the family while the husband makes the meals and works a 

much easier and less stressful job. Another example of misrepresentation in this video is when Beyonce is 

seen dancing with another man at the club, her husband was seen as very disappointed until the last scene 

where we learned that this was actually Beyonce's imagination as her husband was the one cheating. We 

have been taught that men are the more masculine ones with more power allowing them to be more 

independent but in reality we should be ensuring that both genders are given equal opportunity to express 

themselves. 

At the end of the day we are able to understand that Beyoncé’s music video “If I was a boy” showcases 

that switching up traditional gender roles provides society insight into how ungrateful we are for our 

women. Females for generations now continuously tolerate and adjust themselves for the pleasure of 

men,  we supposedly live in a modern society which should be progressive but similar to the music video 

that is far from reality even in our society. I believe in order for us to really grow as a society we must not 

only talk about valuing women but also showing that in our actions, and those steps need to firstly be 

implemented right in our homes. Let’s teach our sons and daughters that being good men and women is 

rooted in valuing and respecting one another. 

Papayanis, Alena. https://learn.humber.ca/ultra/courses/_215465_1/outline/file/_14495579_1.