"If I were a boy"

            “If I were a boy” by Beyoncé Knowles, was released on the 12th of October 2008. Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She was married to the most well-known hip-hop icon in the United States of America and gave birth to a daughter. Beyonce is strongly showing her girl’s power and women formation in most of her music video. The song “If I Were A Boy” is a post-breakup ballad and a follow-up to her “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)“, the definitive girl power anthem of late 2000.  This song shows the image how Beyonce herself being a boy as a way to talk about how she feels as a girl. What is more important is that she is not singing about being just any boy but she is actually addressing a particular boy who has broken her heart. By imagining herself as "a boy," Beyonce opens up the possibility that the song is also about gender in general, not just another heartbreak song. She is able to talk about a specific relationship, but also about the gender dynamics in that relationship. In other words, she uses "If I were a boy…" to emphasize that how she wished that she was born as a boy. However, she is singing as a girl.

The songs main plot is the difficulties of relationships and the inequality between the sexes. The music video reinforces this idea, through a narrative of a male and female role reversal. In the video, Beyoncé is shown going to work and ignoring her supportive husband. The audience can sense that she is behaving very badly towards her husband and portrayed her as ignorant and selfish. Halfway through the video the roles switch and revealed the couple's reality. This reveals that she was showing how life is for her. How the world said that it is okay for a boy to treat a girl unjustly but if it is a girl treated a boy in a bad way, she is regarded as a bad person. The audience then feels sympathy for the female, and questions the accepted behavior of both genders.

One main scene is the role switch, in which the implied reversal is fully revealed. Beyonce is seen flirting with another man, and when confronted she pointed out that he is “so jealous”. The roles then changed, and the scene is shown reversed. The dialogue in this scene helps emphasize the feeling of inequality whilst helping the audience relate.

“If I were a boy” like much of Beyoncé’s music; has a strong feminist perspective. Many of her lyrics describe independent women and go against the typical conventions of pop music in that area. The whole video is shown in black and white, showing the opposite nature of men and women. The lyrics of “If I Were a Boy” are not just a girl lamenting society’s double standard but they are a reflection of the ingrained double standard of “boys will be boys” as seen through a negative lens.