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“Why Don’t You Love Me” plays with traditions of sexualized female performance without abandoning insubordination. At the opening of the song, Beyoncé addresses an absent (presumed) male, warning, “Now, now, now, honey//You better sit down and look around//’Cause you must’ve bumped yo’ head//And I love you enough to talk some sense back into you, baby//I’d hate to see you come home; me, the kids//And the dog is gone//Check my credentials.” Beyoncé’s threat of desertion is not to be taken lightly. She does not hesitate to presume that this male figure will mourn the loss of herself, her kids, and his dog, instead insisting that she is doing him a favor by giving him a chance to reform his ways. Furthermore, her partner’s errant behavior is framed as illogical, with Beyoncé exclaiming that he “must’ve bumped [his] head,” as she can only assume that his behavior is not a result of her own actions but has to be explained away with a [figurative] head injury. Thus, this song can be situated within the older tradition of burlesque, in which female performers mocked, threatened, and seduced the audience through a combination of sexual display and verbal and physical insubordination.

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Baby Boy: The Sociocultural Effects of Prolonged Male Adolescence

Check on It: The Gendered Dynamics of Male Spectatorship in Urban Public Spaces

Crazy in Love: The Diagnosis and Treatment of “Female Hysteria” During the Late Nineteenth Century

Naughty Girl: Disidentification and the Performance of Female Sexual Promiscuity

Cater 2 U: Female Subservience and the Reinforcement of Hegemonic Gendered Power Structures

Get Me Bodied: A Radical Critique of the Sex/Gender Binary

Freakum Dress: The Role of Consumerism in the Construction and Assertion of Female Sexuality

Videophone: Social Networking Technology and the Deconstruction of the Dominant Gaze

Run the World (Girls): Historical Perspectives on Global Female Leadership

Bills Bills Bills: The Dual-Income Model and the Reshaping of the Domestic Sphere

Soldier: The Hypermasculinization of U.S. Military Culture

Independent Women: Girl I Didn’t Know You Could Get Down (to Business in the Public Sphere and Still Be Expected to Perform Domestic Labor During the “Second Shift”) Like That