BEGGING TO BE SEEN: BEYONCÉ'S »PARTITION« Chris Kattenbeck, Megan Lavengood, Sean Peterson, Holger Schwetter & Júlia Silveira I. INTRODUCTION AND PROCESS This chapter explores what's at stake for Beyoncé, a self-proclaimed »mod- ern-day feminist« (Ellison 2013) when, in her 2013 song »Partition«, she por- trays herself in ways consistent with patriarchal gender representations: as a wife, as eager to please her male partner, and as sexually provocative. The track opens with a live concert recording in which Beyoncé engages in call and response with the audience, encouraging them to greet her as »Ms. Carter.« 1 Furthermore, the promotional tour for the album Beyoncé, on which »Partition« appears, was titled The Mrs. Carter Tour. Conspicuously drawing attention to her status as Shawn Carter's wife and using her married name in this interaction is curious: in many ways Beyoncé epitomizes independ- ence, strength, and self-determination of women in the entertainment in- dustry. Beyoncé has been a polarizing figure in contemporary discussions about feminism both in journalism (Bennett 2014; Vagianos 2015) and schol- arship (Weidhase 2015; Hansen 2017), which have been attentive to her use of her body and costuming. 2 Her manner and dress in performance are fre- 1 Carter is the surname of Beyoncé's famous husband, the rapper and music producer Shawn Carter (better known as Jay-Z). 2 While we raise some of the same questions as Hansen, we examine different aspects of the song's sonic qualities, and our conclusions center on ways in which Beyoncé mu- German Society for Popular Music Studies e. V. Ed. by Katharina Alexi, Eva Krisper, and Eva Schuck https://gfpm-samples.de/index.php/samples/issue/archive Volume 22 (2024) – Version of 17 October 2024 Group Analysis Special – Guest Editors Ralf von Appen, Samantha Bennett, André Doehring and Dietrich Helms