In the past several months, Beyonce, Lena Dunham, and Rihanna have taken intense heat for the following ills of society:

1. Sexism overall, specifically their own capitulation to sexism by refusing to wear pants, or clothes, at given times in their performing lives. Other problems apparently include their sexiness, their sexuality, and, in the case of Lena, the sexiness of others on screen with her.

2. The fraught history of women taking their husbands’ last names upon marriage.

3. Racism.

4. Violence against women.

5. Promiscuity.

6. General lack of morals and possibly the decline of civilization.

Now, I am the first person willing to overanalyze pop culture, to hold up its artifacts as evidence of social issues or, at minimum, accessible entry points into serious discussion. I do believe that Beyonce’s displays of extreme feminine empowerment, coupled with unapologetic sexuality, are worth noting. I do think Lena Dunham has given us a perspective on young womanhood worth dissecting. I do feel that Rihanna’s public persona — tough, edgy, and sexually voracious — and the parts of her sad private life that have become common knowledge — her abusive relationship with Chris Brown — are a juxtaposition we must process at some level, if only to make sense of them for the young women watching it all.

But we need to make a distinction between starting interesting discussions inspired by these women and blaming them for every issue they evoke. And we need to remember that the end result of these discussions needs to be action on the issues, not against the performers who bring them up.

The crazy amount of Beyonce chatter online over the past few weeks, namely due to her Super Bowl performance and subsequent announcement of her “Mrs. Carter World Tour,” directed an awful lot of its bile right at the brilliant Ms. B. According to her critics, she pranced around too suggestively in too revealing an outfit, and then gave in to further sexist pressures by adopting her husband’s last name for her tour. We already debated these specific issues in another post, but my point today is this: Whether you think Beyonce is demonstrating against sexist pressures is one thing; but you cannot blame the woman for creating those pressures. If anything, she’s a victim here. (Even though we maintain she definitely isn’t, of course.) Oh, and the Mrs. Carter business? She did not invent the tradition of women taking their men’s names.

Now, Lena Dunham. She has taken a lot of criticism, some of it quite sound, for not making her show, Girls, diverse enough. (We’ll refer you to the paragraph above on the sex stuff and the naked stuff, and to this post we wrote about her.) But, you guys: She did not create the entertainment industry that has shut people of color out for its entire history, and she cannot reverse this problem by herself.

Rihanna is a particularly fraught case of victim-blaming, given the history of victim-blaming in cases of domestic violence. But the fact remains: She is a product of our society and her specific environment, not the one who is the problem here. We need to work on the root of the problem — what drives partner violence — not on Rihanna. I maintain that we can still refuse to watch or listen to Chris Brown, and urge others to do the same; he is part of the problem of violence against women.

We get it. It’s much easier to rail against pop stars and writer-actresses than it is to fix sexism, racism, and violence. But at some point we need to start figuring out the hard stuff, and leave the famous ladies alone.

In one of her earliest songs, “Don’t Let Me Get Me,” P!nk sang, “I’m tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears/She’s so pretty, that just ain’t me.” We’ll respectfully submit that Ms. Alecia Moore has her own share of attractive physical qualities, and also assure her: Don’t worry, no one’s about to mix you and Ms. Spears up anytime again soon.

P!nk may well be the most outspokenly, unapologetically, and explicitly feminist pop-rocker currently on the charts. While many female pop stars continue to profit from “empowering” images while ducking the “feminist” label — hi, Katy Perry! — P!nk weaves feminism into the fabric of almost everything she does. She shoes off her buff bod when she feels like it, but never in a self-objectifying way. (Somehow, we’re pretty sure she wears whatever she wants and doesn’t care what anyone says about it.) She writes songs about loving sex, hating her husband, loving her husband, and hating superficial starlets. See “Stupid Girls” for quintessential example: “What ever happened to the dreams of a girl president?/She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent.”

Call her a mean girl if you’d like — there was a bit of feminist hand-wringing over “Stupid Girls” taking other women down. But P!nk would be the first to embrace the label; she simply says what she’s thinking. And sometimes, we need to call other women out if they’re the ones bringing us down.

If there’s anything girls need to see more of in culture, it’s women who express themselves no matter what — in love, righteous anger, or even misdirected anger. Nobody does that better than P!nk — who gives that quintessentially girly color a much-needed edge.

In this ongoing feature, we’ll be exploring the stories behind some of our favorite feminist anthems.

Cyndi Lauper launched her music career like many wannabes don’t: singing in cover bands. She spent most of the seventies wailing renditions of Led Zeppelin, Bad Company and Jefferson Airplane songs before she was discovered, signed and added to a pop group. Blue Angel had one album.

Lauper’s first solo album, “She’s So Unusual,” spawned five top-10 hits (a first for any female artist) and earned her the Best New Artist Grammy in 1985. The album is packed with empowerment hits such as the gay-rights petition “True Colors” and the masturbation confessional “She Bop.” But it was “Girls” that was released as the first single. It made her an instant superstar.

Lauper initially didn’t want to have anything to do with the song. It was written by the male rock artist, Robert Hazard, and she wasn’t sure a song written by a man would send the right message. She was also determined to write her own material, something the record labels were always pushing her away from. But then she got to thinking how she could make the message her own. She told Time, “When I was told ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ would be an anthem, I thought about how it really could be an anthem.”

The song became a rallying cry for women in the ’80s to express their independence and individuality—be that through fashion, sexual expression or rebellion. It also set the tone for a new breed of female pop star: the sexy rabble-rouser. Madonna owes her entire early career image to Lauper. In fact, it’s an influence she can’t seem to shake. Recently, music critics have mused on whether Madonna is just rewriting Lauper’s material.

There’s room enough in feminist song for both of these icons. Though Lauper definitely took a more deliberate stance on what her songs say about women. In the book, I Want My MTV, she explained: “I wanted ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ to be an anthem for women around the world—and I mean all women—and a sustaining message that we are powerful human beings. I made sure that when a woman saw the video, she would see herself represented, whether she was thin or heavy, glamorous or not, and whatever race she was.”

The video for “Girls”, which won the first-ever Best Female Video prize at the 1984 VMAs, featured a multicultural cast of Lauperized women—teased, sideways hair, neon eye shadow, et. al.—singing the hook alongside the star.

Since its release, the song has been used in countless movies and TV shows (Clueless, Boys on the Side) as an example of female empowerment. It even got its own eponymous movie in 1985 starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt and Shannen Doherty.

Part of the power of “Girls” lies in the fact that the rebellion it champions doesn’t include running off with a bad boy. Instead, these girls get their kicks on their own. It was a powerful statement at the time—still is: Some boys take a beautiful girl/and hide her away from the rest of the world/I want to be the one to walk in the sun/Oh girls they want to have fun.

In this new feature, we’ll be exploring the stories behind some of our favorite feminist anthems.

Beyonce is a great songwriter, seemingly able to spin out a girl-power anthem on demand: “Single Ladies,” “Survivor,” “Independent Women,” “Run the World (Girls),” “Bootylicious.” She has appeared to struggle more with her sensitive side in songwriting, despite her protestations that she’s not Sasha Fierce in her everyday life. “Irreplaceable” slows things down and tells you she’s a little hurt by love gone wrong, but she can’t help doing a great, empowered woman scorned and giving us a kiss-off for the ages: “To the left, to the left.”Beyonce has famously talked about how she has a stage persona she evokes to become the monster-diva she needs to be for concerts — Sasha Fierce. For most of us, Beyonce herself is our Sasha Fierce. A few years ago, my sister and I resolved at New Year’s time to always think, “What would Beyonce do?” Since then we’ve both found relationships with fantastic men; she started her own boudoir photography business, and I have two passion-project books coming out this year. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I’ve been watching Bey’s “I Am …” concert tour video on demand lately just to up my inspiration factor, and it never lets me down.

That all changed with “If I Were a Boy.” This 2008 ballad softened her vocal delivery and showed a new vulnerability even as it still catalogued double-standards still present in our everyday lives: “If I were a boy … I’d put myself first/And make the rules as I go/’Cause I’d know that she’d be faithful/Waiting for me to come home.”

Of course, what may have gotten lost in fans’ swooning over this new kind of song for Bey — and the undeniably satisfying video in which she and a guy switch roles for a day, she playing a cheating cop and he mooning for her back home — is that Beyonce did not write this song. Which is standard practice in the music business, but an interesting departure for the singer. And, as it turns out, it also included some intrigue and rivalry.

The song was actually written by a singer-songwriter named BC Jean. You can imagine her singing “If I Were a Boy,” with her soft-guitar-rock vibe. In addition to the song going into the big murky pot of song choices that many artists pluck from for recordings, Jean also recorded her own version. Beyonce, however, fell in love with it, recorded it, and decided to release it as a single. That’s when Jean first heard about Bey’s version, and she was not pleased. Bey’s version, of course, went platinum, and even inspired Reba McEntire to do her own cover.

Beyonce told MTV News she chose the song as a deliberate departure: “I had to try it, because I remember Aretha Franklin said a great singer can sing anything and make it her own.” But Jean vented to fans on her MySpace page: ”I have been reading some of these comments and to set the record straight from the horse’s mouth – IF I WERE A BOY is my song; YES, I wrote this song; It is my story; a painful one, and the song is very dear to me.” Eventually, however, she struck a deal with Beyonce’s manager/father, Matthew Knowles, that seemed to make everyone happy. She now proudly claims the writing credit for the hit on her website.

Beyonce, meanwhile, garnered particular acclaim for her version. Billboard said her vocals were “breathtaking, exquisitely emotive, mournful, and mature.” The LA Times raved,  ”This isn’t just another breakup song; it’s an elegy for female empowerment, Beyoncé’s admission that no amount of money, fame or skill can solve the basic inequity between her man’s heart and her own.”

In case you haven’t noticed, things are going relatively well in the feminist-TV realm. No longer are we forced to call a show “feminist” just because it has a lady crimesolver at its center! Nor because there is a lady who is funny in it, or even because there is a lady who runs the whole damn show! Here’s to hoping “peak vagina,” as one disgruntled male producer called the trend, lasts forever. Because, really, we’re more like at normal vagina, which is to say, close to 50 percent. Huge progress, yes, but also known as closer to equality.

Now. Onto our favorite shows for this fall (so far), new and old:

The Good Wife: This show is so damn good, isn’t it?

Homeland: This homeland-security drama is poised for a breakout season on the Downton Abbey level. It stars Claire Danes as, essentially, Kiefer Sutherland in 24. Yep, that’s pretty much all you need to know.

The Mindy Project: You knew this would be here. Creator/star Mindy Kaling, formerly Kelly of The Office, is a revelation here as an OB/GYN who’s got her career act together but is still working on her personal life. She combines killing it at work while still being super-girly (her character worships romantic comedies) while still making fun of all of the above (she knows romantic comedies are silly, but still). Yeah, hers is the latest in a string of female-driven comedies being compared to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The fact that hers is created by and starring a woman of color shows we’ve made at least a little progress since the ’70s.

Suburgatory: This ABC sitcom snuck up on us last season, and we’re totally hooked now. The main reason: The sparkly Jane Levy as sardonic Manhattan-to-suburbs transplant Tessa Altman. Other reasons: Cheryl Hines as a sweet mother figure in the body of a Real Housewife, Jeremy Sisto (lightening up, finally!) as Tessa’s dad George, and our girl-crush Alicia Silverstone as George’s crunchy girlfriend. We love how Tessa is an alterna-girl who isn’t really an outcast, but isn’t all that interested in popularity, either. She just is, which makes her one of the best teen heroines we’ve seen in a long time.

Up All Night/Guys With Kids: Something old and something new in the men-as-participatory-fathers comedy genre. (Please, let this become a genre!) Neither of these approaches the transcendence of Louie, which also happens to be about a dude who cares about being a dad, but as the next level down, and the next level down (respectively), they are solid. If you’re going to watch one of these, choose NBC’s Up All Night, which is hilarious whether or not you have kids, thanks to the brilliance of the writing and the cast — Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph. Arnett’s stay-at-home dad stays at home like it’s a totally normal thing to do, though also deals with the adjustments that go along with being the primary child-rearer. Guys With Kids, a new NBC comedy combines the idea of men who are fathers with the buddy-comedy genre and comes from producer Jimmy Fallon. It’s a down-the-middle sitcom in the tradition of ABC Family and TV Land, which is in the tradition of retro ’80s hits, but it’s cute. And it makes kids the center of the three main bro characters’ lives, which is both realistic and progressive.

Well before the Spice Girls were running around yelling about “Girl Power,” feminism was a part of kid culture. So many of us have always wanted to be like some of the smart, independent, adventurous female characters from our youth. And while there is always room for more feminist characters, here are some of our favorite feminist icons in kid culture, past and present.
What feminist characters from your childhood inspired you? Tell us in the comments below!
Photo: tvguide.com