FEATURE:
Man’s Best Friend?
A Double Standard and Sexism in Music That Needs to End
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EVEN though she is…
only twenty-six, Sabrina Carpenter is gearing up to release her seventh studio album. Her first album, 2015’s Eyes Wide Open, was released when she was a teenager. Last year’s Short n' Sweet was one of the best-received albums of 2024. Coming so soon after that album is Man’s Best Friend. That is due for release on 29th August. Unfortunately, rather than people celebrate that and focus on the music, there has been more attention on the album cover. With Carpenter on all fours like a dog – hence the album’s title, I guess – and wearing a collar, you see a man out of frame grabbing her hair. It is tongue-in-cheek and provocative but also an image from an artist who is very much in control. A backlash was created. Many saying it pandered to the male gaze and was setting a bad example. I am going to take from Wikipedia, and their collation of reaction to Sabrina Carpenter’’s cover for Man’s Best Friend:
“Glasgow Women's Aid, a charity providing support for victims of domestic abuse, called it "regressive" and "pandering to the male gaze and [promotion of] misogynistic stereotypes" with "an element of violence and control". Kuba Shand-Baptiste of The i Paper wrote: "At best, Carpenter's cover is a bad example of satire. It's titillating to those who do believe women are inferior
Others saw the cover as satire—a way to challenge "misogynistic expectations of women" and initiate a conversation about women's sexual desires. Adrian Horton of The Guardian thought that Carpenter was "clearly working in the Madonna tradition of sexual provocation for provocation's sake, poking fun at tropes and people's prudishness with an alluring frankness." Dominique Sisley of Dazed wrote: "The idea that one image has that much influence, in an internet full of hardcore pornography, where men can now freely make deepfakes or use AI prompts to create a whole world of horrors, seems a bit delusional." Jessica Clark of Mamamia thought that the album's cover and title worked together to imply a statement on the derogatory use of "bitch" in popular culture, adding: "She's not reinforcing objectification, but rather skewering it [...] It's one huge joke and [she] isn't the punchline, but rather the one delivering it." Helen Coffey of The Independent believed that the cover's detractors "know literally nothing about Carpenter, her music or her brand." Emma Specter of Vogue called the controversy the result of a "depressingly puritanical society"
In reality, the cover is perfectly fine and inoffensive. It is satire and funny. People clutching their pearls and being outraged. It is not regressive or anti-feminist. There are articles like this, that argue how the album cover is unhelpful when it comes to women’s rights. How abuse and assaults against women in the media right now – including Cassie Ventura testifying against Diddy – are almost being mocked. How it isn’t subversive or funny. Sabrina Carpenter is not trying to disrespect or make light of women who have been abused by men. This article from The Guardian has a different take:
“On TikTok, the image has folded easily into one-woman explainers on how the cover is actually the opposite of empowering, or how the furore encapsulates the context-less, ahistorical, flattened discourse that is everything wrong with modern society, etc. (For what it’s worth, there’s also a semi-convincing theory that Carpenter will eventually reveal a larger image in which she also plays the man in the suit.) A women’s aid group for victims of domestic abuse in Glasgow went as far as calling it, absurdly, “a throwback to tired tropes that reduce women to pets, props, and possessions and promote an element of violence and control”.
In short, the discomfort is palpable, if predictable. Though female sexuality is de rigueur in pop music, we are still not used to seeing pop stars in control of their own sexuality, let alone framing themselves as the submissive. Carpenter on all fours rubs against the prevailing rhetoric of female sexual empowerment – “be on top”, “have sex like a man”, “call the shots”. Fuck, not be fucked. Dominance as the only acceptable mode, submission for sexual pleasure as inherent weakness. To be submissive and strong at once is to break some brains, the idiosyncrasies and confidence of one woman’s sexual performance inflaming the chronic poster’s allergy to fun, as well as the internet’s incentive for black-and-white thinking.
Carpenter, unapologetically girly and often bedecked in lace lingerie, knows exactly what she’s doing. With only an album cover and one song to go by, it’s still too soon to see the full scope of her tongue-in-cheek satire, but the outline of riffing and reclaiming male fantasies is clear. The Rolling Stone shoot – floral, pastoral, fairy-esque – invokes the imagery of tradwives, the third rail of female empowerment discourse online. Such women sell a fantasy of chicken eggs, meals from scratch, barefoot and pregnant and always in service of the man. They also sell sex, albeit quietly, as baby-making machines for the head of the family. Carpenter in gingham lingerie, posing with a deer in the woods surrounded by flowers, makes the subtext literal: this is a male fantasy for men who do not like women’s independence, and she is owning it.
The thing missing from all this commentary is a sense of fun, which Carpenter appears to be having in spades. Like Addison Rae, a fellow recent breakout who frequently performs in a bra and underwear, Carpenter’s pop performance relishes the messiness, sexual exploration and growth of one’s mid-20s via refreshingly catchy tunes. Rae’s brown-eyed, Louisiana girl-next-door perkiness, athletic dancing and pure pop instincts recall a young Britney Spears – except, crucially, she is 24, and has been pursuing mega-fame on her own terms for years on TikTok. Both she and Carpenter exist at the young adult nexus of self-awareness and youthful abandon, their frank sexuality both cheeky and serious”.
The bottom line is that the furore created by the album cover has overshadowed the music on Man’s Best Friend. The truth is that male artists have released album covers like this and it is sexist and regressive. They have not been taken to task. I think about the mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, and the album cover for Smell the Glove. That famous scene where the band try to defend using this sexist and offensive image. Unironically, men in music have depicted women in derogatory ways. They have been reduced to objects for decades. Sabrina Carpenter is definitely not adding to that narrative. She is a feminist and someone who supports other women. Someone too who would never create an image that disrespects any women who are victims of abuse. She has come out to say how little she cares about the negative reaction. This article argues how there should be nuance around the debate. How the backlash has been an overreaction but, rather than get outraged, there are things to discuss when it comes to images like Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover. It is clear that there is more discussion to be had. More campaigning about how women are treated in society and how they are still objectified. That there is this widespread misogyny. However, as I have mentioned, men in music have shared videos and created album covers that are genuinely offensive and regressive and not been held to account. What comes out of this is how there is a double standard. Women much more likely to be attacked than men. This misogyny that means women are judged and abused if they do something seen as controversial or provocative. I am thinking about how Chris Brown, currently accused over an alleged nightclub bottle attack, is selling out arenas. Whilst Sabrina Carpenter is being lambasted and judged for a single image, a man who has a history of assault and is a known abuser is allowed to roam free and his music is widely available! Where are the discussions around Brown and whether he should be allowed to tour?!
His fans – deluded and insane as they – pay money to see Brown and fill up stadiums. It is not the only example of a man in music being celebrated and profiting following abuse, violence and all manner of disgusting things. Chris Brown will no doubt get his own way and continue on with his career. Women do not have that luxury. If roles are reversed and a woman was in court accused of assault then they would be attacked and harassed. Their career would be in jeopardy and they would find it hard to make a living. There are very few examples of women being accused because, as we know, violence and sexual assault is largely a male issue. However, there has been more oxygen judging Sabrina Carpenter and an image – that hurts nobody and has been misinterpreted by many – than there has been about Chris Brown touring. This sort of double standard is misogyny. I know that Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend cover has nuance and there is more conversation to be had. However, she has been vilified by many and if a male artist released something like this then it would be seen as edgy or risqué. Have we progressed much since bleak decades past when it comes to sexism and the way women are judged on different standards?! Look around the music industry and those doing the greatest harm are men. High-profile artists in jail for or on trial for sexual assault, trafficking and abuse. Regular reports of another man being accused of God knows what, whilst women are contributing the greatest music and changing the industry for the better! However, if you are a popular male artist then you can get away with a lot before your career is in actually jeopardy. Women are walking on eggshells all the time. If they say anything slightly controversial or create an album cover that might offend some then the heat on them is immense. This needs to end. Call it a double standard or misogyny, there need to be change. As always, women in music need to be treated with…
GREATER respect.