Meghan Trainor’s Contradictory Messages

Meghan Trainor’s recent single “Dear Future Husband” has sparked a minor outbreak across the internet; people are ranting about the fact that the song (and the song’s music video) are deeply sexist. The song has a few lines that made me raise my eyebrows, but there was also some pro-feminist language in there. To give an example of the former, here is a short clip of Trainor in her new music video:

In case you couldn't catch the lyrics, she is singing "cause if you treat me right, I’ll be the perfect wife, buyin’ groceries, buy, buy what you need” while cleaning the kitchen floor. Trainor is essentially giving us a definition of the “perfect wife,” and in 6 seconds has managed to reduce women down to the person who does the shopping and the cleaning in the house. Her definition of a perfect wife seems to be all about pleasing her husband. The music video seems to be reminiscent of the 1950’s, with the costumes and the set, but the actual lyrics sound about as sexist as many people were in those days. The story her song is laying out is heteronormative and only reinforces gender roles. However, the line directly after this one was one that was pretty clearly trying to break gender stereotypes…

Trainor uses the phrase “9 to 5” and claims that both she and her husband will be in the workforce, and that he shouldn’t expect her to be cooking for him. This showed more empowerment of women, that the perfect wife is not defined by whether or not she’s at home baking pies all day. But then why did she just give us this basically opposite idea 1 second before, with her very retro definition of what it means to be the perfect wife?

This isn't the first time it's been unclear to me whether Trainor is trying to promote feminism or not. In her song "All About That Bass," she offered even more contradictory lines, saying "don't worry about your size" and "every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top" but then proceeds to talk about "skinny bitches." So is the song really about accepting yourself and loving your body? Or is she really just putting down all body types in her attempt to celebrate one? If Trainor is aiming to empower women, she might need to take a better look at her lyric choices.