Dr. Kapasula's lecture.

(Claire. "Single Ladies." 17 June, 2009. Online image. Yahoo Creative Commons. 9 March, 2010.)

On Monday, March 8th, I attended Dr. Kapasula's lecture "Feminist Agency in the Age of Beyonce's 'Single Lades': Faces of International Feminism in Transnational Popular Songs." From just the title of the lecture I assumed that it was going to be a good lecture worth going to, and I was proved correct. Dr. Kapasula was a very fun lecturer. She was funny, and passionate about her beliefs.
In her lecture I learned that the song 'Single Ladies,' by Beyonce, could be analyzed to a point where she was singing about women's oppression, without even really realizing it. What surprised me the most was when Dr. Kapasula went as far as to suggest that the 'ring' in Beyonce's song stood against homosexual relationships. The most interesting part was probably when she told us about 'divorce' in one of the African nations. For this to happen, a woman merely needed to send the man on his way, and light a torch of grass that she pulled from the ground. This was made possible, because it was a matriarchal society where the men took the women's names and move to where they were from.
To me, this helped me to clarify the meanings of order and chaos in a feminist sense. Women all over the world are fighting for freedom, yet you have other women like Beyonce who are creating hits that they don't realize have the opposite effect as intended.
This can be related to The Burial at Thebes, because in the book Antigone (a woman) is being ruled over by Creon (a man). Creon makes all the decisions for her, until she decides to stand up for herself and defy him. This could represent the oppression that women face, followed by the rise up and take over of power. I think that it is fair to say that while Creon is still King in the end of the story, Antigone's defiance has left him powerless.

- Tia Lambert '13