Analysis of Gender Roles in Destiny Child's "Cater to You"

Men and women are largely limited by society in what they can or cannot do due to society's views on appropriate or normal gender roles. Many traits and acts are characterized as either masculine or feminine, and if a person of either gender display signs of either trait, they too are categorized as either masculine or feminine. To use masculinity and femininity to its advantage, the music industry relies heavily on how each trait can be carefully used to appeal to its target audience. This is especially apparent when the music industry releases music videos for songs such as Destiny's child - Cater to You. Relying heavily on many feminine traits and even some masculine traits generated by society to not only appeal to its target audience, but even maintaining the very societal gender roles that it relies on to create a never-ending circle of gender roles in the entertainment industry and society.

Cater to You is a song and music video relies almost completely on the female gender roles. Society's female gender roles put women in a traditional housewife role whose main concern is to take care of her husband and family. As part of this role, women were expected to cook and take care of children, and pampering their husbands, the latter being the main point of this music video for Cater to You. Women also have a specific type of image built by modern American society for them to base their "beauty" on. Based on society, a beautiful woman should be fair skinned, tall, and slim while still maintaining curves in the breast and hip areas to maintain an attractive figure. Women should also be dressed in what society deems as feminine, which includes wearing revealing and constricting clothes to communicate physical weakness and appearing inviting to men, "...femininity must be expressed through modes of dress... which communicate weakness, dependency, ineffectualness, availability for sexual or emotional service..." (Devor). When all of these feminine traits are brought together, it creates a subordinate and vulnerable woman built in favor of what society ideally thinks of women: second to men.

Men on the other hand, have much more powerful traits that can be thought of as compliments to a woman's. Since women are expected to be housewives and take care of a man, someone else will have to fulfill other duties, such as providing and security. In society, the ideal man is expected to be successful at work and busy because of his success, physically healthy, rugged, powerful and adventurous. To look and act masculine includes its own set of traits, which include being stern and unmoved, to indicate that men emotional or easily influenced, "Masculinity can also be conveyed by stern or serious facial expressions that suggest minimal receptivity to the influence of others... maintenance of egoistic dominance" (Devor). Physically taking up a large area of space is a sign of aggression and also considered extra masculine, "Typical masculine body postures tend to be expansive and aggressive. People who hold their arms and hands in positions away from their bodies, and who stand, sit with their legs apart - thus maximizing the amount of space that they are physically occupying..." (Devor).

The music video is set in the middle of the desert which includes a pool and low-dive board. Initially, the time seems to be pre-dawn and quickly switches to a late afternoon setting still in the same desert. The desert indicates a sense of rugged adventure to journey out into uncivilized territory stripped of society, where the only relationships on the surface are those between man and woman. In the desert is a pristine swimming pool equipped with a low dive board, showing that even in a desolate area, there is still a sense of wealth and high class status in the lives of the people in the video. To add to the wealth and high class status, there is also a Mercedes sports car, indicating a high level of success of the people in the video.

Everything about the three Destiny's Child singers depicted in the music video for Cater to You match society's female gender roles, from the way they dress revealingly, their appearance to what is beautiful in American culture, to the vulnerability and subordinate movements in their posture and movements. The three singers filmed in Cater to You are all slim, curvy in what society deems are the right places, light skinned, attractive, and very feminine, just as described in Joan Morgan's article, "'...the girls in them are always skinny, White, Asian, or Latino - anything but Black. Or if a dancer is black, then she's extremely light skinned'" (Morgan). Society creates these images of beauty that everyone ignorantly strives to match, thus these beauty traits appeal to its audience. These feminine qualities are then exemplified in all of the different clothing that these women wear; tight and revealing clothing that exemplifies not only the singers' already feminine qualities, but also implies other female gender roles such as vulnerability and subordination, "Feminine styles of dress likewise display subordinate status through greater restriction of the free movement of the body, greater exposure of the bare skin, and an emphasis on sexual characteristics" (Devor). Vulnerability is superfluously apparent when the music video starts and the singers are not wearing anything at all, covering themselves with only their arms and flashing green lights in a vulnerable fetal position. The next few outfits are equally inviting, going from two-piece bathing suits that barely cover anything more than the essentials, to form-fitted dresses that the singers can barely walk in, to revealing safari clothes. To top off the vulnerability that is already created by wearing such clothing, the singers are also wearing high heels to further limit their movements. In addition to their appearance, the singers also appeal to American female gender roles in the way they move and position their bodies. The singers move vulnerably and subordinately, which appeal to society by again communicating vulnerability and a subordinate status, "They demonstrate subordination through a minimizing of spatial use: People appear feminine when they keep their arms closer to their bodies, their legs closer together, and their torsos and heads less vertical" (Devor). They achieve this femininity through keeping their limbs against their bodies while making slow, nonthreatening movements and seeming immobile by a lack of standing.

Although this music video runs on American feminine gender roles, it is still balanced out with carefully chosen masculine gender roles such as success, sternness, and body language. Though the main focus is on the three singers of Destiny's Child, there are three men in the background looking extra masculine to balance out the excessive femininity. Success is a big masculine trait, and judging from the powerful clothing worn by the three men and the Mercedes pictured in the music video, success is not foreign to the men pictured. The men are also very rugged and stern, which is shown in their choice of outdoor and adventurous clothing, their excellent physical condition with chiseled abs, and their unemotional faces. More masculinity is displayed in the way the men sit, utilizing a confident, while relaxed posture, arms and legs away from their bodies and taking up a lot of space; masculine traits according to Devor. These men are examples of extreme masculinity, perfect for complimenting the extremely feminine singers.

Cater to You is a music video about the most ideal of American gender roles, and the lyrics speak for themselves in promoting the gender roles that society: masculine providers and feminine nurturers. The line "My Life Would Be Purposeless without you" (Destiny's Child) in the first verse sets up the singers to already be subordinate and helpless without men and therefore need to pamper their men in ways described in the first verse such as untying their shoes, giving them a manicure, sing to them, etcetera, or risk losing their men to another woman "I know whatever I'm not fulfilling, another woman is willing" (Destiny's Child). The importance of beauty is also a factor in risking the loss of their men; if women do not keep up their beauty, such as in the second verse, "I'll keep it tight, I'll keep my figure right, I'll keep my hair fixed, keep rocking the hottest outfits" (Destiny's Child), they may lose their man to another woman. Another female gender role is presented by the lyrics describing women to traditionally be the cook of the house in parts of the chorus, "I've got your... dinner, your dessert and so much more" and also in the first verse, "Do you want to eat boo? Let me feed you". All of the lyrics follow feminine gender roles to appease and appeal to their successful, hard-working men, indicated by lyrics pertaining to wearing cuff links and a need for stress relief when coming home from work, "Let me help you... take off your cuff links... I just wanna take the stress away from you..." (Destiny's Child); successful men are hardworking and tired because of it, and wear cuff links. Lyrics such as these in modern hip hop culture not only understand and exploit American gender roles, but also promote and enforce the very gender roles that they rely on as norms in society.

Many music videos such as this production for Destiny's Child's Cater to You understand how to exploit gender roles to best appeal to its target audience, and even implying what society says is the norm for feminine and masculine gender roles. Using female gender roles such as American society's image of beauty and the traditional role of the nurturing female to compliment the ideal men of success and masculinity, Cater to You and many other music videos imply that this is the American way to live. When gender roles are such a norm in society that anything going against it can be an embarrassment, the entertainment industry relies on the gender roles that it creates to target as broad of an audience as effectively as possible.

Works Cited

Cater to You. Dir. Jake Nava. Perf. Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams. 2005. Youtube. 1 May 2008 .

Devor, Aaron. "Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes." Signs of Life os 5 (2006): 458-463.

Morgan, Joan. "Sex, Lies, and Videos." Signs of Life os 5 (2006): 496-498.