Reversal of Gender Roles

Both Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" and Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy" explore the intricacies which make up a relationship, more specifically focusing on the roles of each gender, both male and female.  The speakers openly wonder about what it would be like to be in the opposite gender role, Prince as a girlfriend and Beyonce as the boyfriend, with Prince's song focusing more on the intimacies he would like to explore with his girlfriend while Beyonce points out all the fallacies in male characteristics.

Prince's song is lighthearted and seems to be implying that he is talking about being his girlfriend's friend who is a girl, rather than the female counterpart in a serious relationship.  He is imploring his girlfriend to relax in their relationship and let him be more personal with her, as one of her friends might be.  This can be seen when Prince says, "Would u let me... pick out your clothes" and "Would u let me wash your hair".  These two examples of things he wants to be able to do with his girlfriend seem to be things which her best friend would do with her, and that's exactly what he wants do.  Prince later asks if they could "...go 2 a movie and cry together cuz 2 me baby that would be so fine".  Once again, he is stating things which good friends would do together, further emphasizing the fact that he wants to strengthen the connection between himself and his girlfriend by doing these activities.  However, later in the song, Prince begins to waver from doing things best friends would do together to more sexual things.  This shows that, while he would like to participate in these sexual acts with his girlfriend, he feels that they must have a stronger connection first, a connection which only best friends can have.  Therefore, Prince is attempting to persuade his girlfriend to be more open and intimate with him by exploring the ways in which she would open up to her girl friend instead of to him, a reversal of gender roles.

In Beyonce's song, she also focuses on the reversal of gender roles yet with a far different underlying theme.  While Prince's song is more lighthearted and intimate, Beyonce points out all the aspects of males which are, in her eyes, wrong.  This can be seen when she says, "If I were a boy... I swear I'd be a better man".  Beyonce is claiming that, with her female insight and after being on the other side of so many relationships, she would be a better man.  This statement seems to further perpetuate the conception that men do not understand women, a statement which I disagree with, but that is neither here nor there.  Beyonce goes on further to claim that men don't understand women by saying that, "But you're just a boy, you don't understand".  She then goes on to point out several male stereotypes by saying, "I'd put myself first, and make the rules as I go" and "chase after girls".  These statements seem to be bitter against men, signaling that perhaps Beyonce herself either recently or in the past has had a bad relationship with a man.  Yet this possible past relationship is not grounds for judging every man in the world by these obvious stereotypes.  Therefore, while Beyonce, like Prince, explores reversing gender roles in her song, she does it by pointing out blatant stereotypes which make all men look like cheating lowlifes as a form of venting anger from a past relationship, while Prince opts to explore the intimacy and connection between himself and his girlfriend.