Back in 2020 (that ominous year), MARINA found it to be the perfect time to release “Man’s World,” the first single from what would become her fifth album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land. While the latter didn’t come out until 2021, “Man’s World” set the tone for the overall theme of the record—which was that man had fucked the world over. And how that fucking was a large part of the catalyst for the pandemic. After all, were it not for men’s corporate greed, surely the destruction of so many animals’ natural habitats wouldn’t occur. And, in turn, wouldn’t lead to the unnatural commingling of animals in human environments in such a way as to create novel viruses.
To that point, MARINA works her chorus around the idea that living in a man’s world (with its associated patriarchal values still firmly in place) is the direct cause of Mother Nature’s relentless destruction. A phrase that functions to mean both 1) humans are destroying her and 2) in response, she is destroying them. So it is that MARINA sings, “Mother Nature’s dying, nobody’s keeping score/I don’t wanna live in a man’s world anymore.” Granted, the only thing anyone is keeping score of is how much profit they’re making from the carnage they’ve wrought upon the environment. The excess packaging, the amount of fossil fuel emissions for shipping, the fast fashion throwaways transforming into non-biodegradable piles in places that should be inhabitable but soon will not be. Et cetera.
All of this is to say that MARINA paints a far more effective and meaningful picture of what it would mean to live in a woman’s world—a matriarchy—by describing the current bleak portrait of a man’s world than Katy Perry does in her lifeless touting of how great women are and that everyone is, in fact, already living in a woman’s world. But obviously, that’s not so.
If it were, perhaps a man like Dr. Luke wouldn’t be able to freely continue producing “hits” like Perry’s latest single despite his reputation for being an abuser. Whether or not one believes his abuse was sexual (since women are not to be believed, right?), there’s no denying, at the very least, its verbal toxicity in relation to Kesha, the inaugural artist he “took under his wing” in order to solidify a reputation for “nurturing” talent. This would also extend to Perry, whose first major hit, “I Kissed A Girl,” was produced by Dr. Luke. Along with “Hot N Cold,” the second official single from Perry’s “debut” (if you don’t count Katy Hudson), One of the Boys. An album title, incidentally, that feels as though it’s come back to bite her in the ass, considering how much it applies to the notion of continuing to work with someone who has been called out for his long-standing inappropriate behavior. And how much Perry represents a version of “the divine feminine” that is in keeping with pandering to the male gaze.
There is no better example of that than the video for “Woman’s World,” all part of her latest attempt at a “comeback.” But whoever dealt with the “brainstorming mood boards” and marketing aspects was perhaps too chickenshit to inform Perry that things have changed quite a bit since the last time she released an album, already four years ago (like “Man’s World,” Smile came out in 2020). And, even at that time, Perry’s rhetoric wasn’t striking much of a chord with listeners, with the album barely selling fifty thousand copies in its first week. Compared to the Perry “heyday” of Teenage Dream and even Prism, that was a long way to fall. And, in 2024, it seems Perry still has the mentality of Beyoncé’s approach to feminism circa 2014. Which means, essentially, shouting a lot of hollow, generic phrases (e.g. “She’s a winner, champion/Superhuman, number one/She’s a sister, she’s a mother”—except, like, what if she’s not?) and dressing up as Rosie the Riveter (yes, something Beyoncé also did in 2014).
Even if one could try to get behind Perry’s hackneyed form of feminism (white feminism, mind you), there is still the atrocious video to get over. One that portrays Perry in a porn fantasy-style version of Rosie the Riveter, complete with her “seductive” wielding of the drill she has in her hand. Contrast this against the ethereal, goddess-coded video for “Man’s World,” and the messaging divide between the two songs is even more marked. With the latter genuinely embracing the notion of a “woman’s world” and the former effectively upholding the status quo of a man’s world in terms of how they want to see women presented in it (that is, if they “must” be). So while MARINA frolics serenely through nature in loose-fitting fabrics with women and men of all different shapes and backgrounds, Perry reinforces the chasm between the sexes with her “us versus them” presentation, rounded out by that presentation being exactly what’s supposed to get an “average straight man” off. This also includes reiterating the trope that it can be a “woman’s world” even if still mirroring the same shit that’s been happening in a patriarchy for centuries.
Of course, with the true change that would arrive in a “woman’s world,” misogynistic men surely wouldn’t be happy. And yes, the most basic step toward that change is admitting this still is a man’s world—something the aforementioned Beyoncé didn’t want to admit either when she released “Run the World (Girls).” MARINA does that both deftly and poetically when she phrases the need for change like this: “If you have a mother/Daughter or a friend/Maybe it is time/Time you comprehend/The world that you live in/Ain’t the same one as them/So don’t punish me/For not being a man.” In the span of this three-minute, twenty-eight-second call to action, MARINA even manages to broach the unpleasant subject of female subjugation throughout history, singing, “Clouds in the whites of our eyes, we saw it all/Burnt me at the stake, you thought I was a witch/Centuries ago, now you just call me a bitch.”
Conversely, the “best” Perry can come up with (along with one of her chauvinistic co-writers, Dr. Luke) is the totally vacant lines, “Sexy, confident/So intelligent/She is heaven-sent/So soft, so strong.” This being about the only verse that deviates from the half-hearted chorus, “It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it/You better celebrate/‘Cause, baby, we ain’t goin’ away/It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it.” Perhaps Perry feels that if she keeps repeating it, it might come true.
But perhaps the next time she considers “writing” a “feminist anthem,” she might want to consult with MARINA, who clearly knows how to do the damn thing (complete with actually having the song produced by Jennifer Decilveo—you know, a woman).
