Weaponizing Sexuality: Sabrina Carpenter & Tate McRae

In pop culture today, there are two young women who are dominating the pop music industry.

These two women are Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae.

Both artists are well loved and adored for different reasons.

Recently in social media there has been a new trend where content creators look into the difference of the male gaze and the female gaze. The male gaze is something we have all heard about before, it is what types of dress and make up attract a man. These types of styles are usually soft and feminine. The perfect
obedient girl. But the female gaze is a little different. With the male gaze referring to men looking at women, it could be easy to assume that the female gaze is how women look at men. But really the female gaze is how women look at women. These are makeup and outfit styles that are more hard cutting and edgy show confidence and independence. Many make up artists that are content creators do back to back looks where they use the same products but one is for the male gaze and one is for the female gaze. It is a very interesting phenomenon that has been surfacing on the internet.

In the same light, I believe that these two artists mentioned before, Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae, represent these two gazes. Sabrina represents the male gaze, and Tate represents the female gaze. 

Sabrina Carpenter in recent years has branded herself in the light of a 1950s wife. Her style of make up, hair, and outfits all fit this theme as well as her songs. Sabrina’s songs are very sexual and her album art is seen as preferred readings, “preferred reading reinforces taken-for-granted status quo beliefs and behaviors as normal, desirable, and common sense.” (Sellnow, pg. 141). On her latest album, the picture depicts Sabrina on her hands and knees in front of a male who is pulling her hair. Sabrina is playing into the male gaze by showing her subservience to them. Sabrina also has many male dancers who are used in a sexual manner in dance. 

Tate McRae plays into the female gaze. She has had outfits in the past that have been seen as different and not necessarily something men would want to see. She also has very strong independent songs that are sexual like how
Sabrina’s songs are but the difference is that Tate puts herself as the ruler in these situations. Tate McRae also has majority female dancers and the male dancers she does have are all gay. In this light she is boosting her female gaze by not even allowing straight men onto her stage. With the gay male dancer, McRae does do sexual moves with them but once again she is dominant in these situations. 

Overall, both of these artists in some way do play into the stereotypes of women but are also both breaking it. Sabrina Carpenter fans believe that in her album cover the man in the photo is supposed to be her, showing that she actually is dominant. And with Tate McRae, her outfits have gotten more and more towards the male gaze as time has gone on. But in both instances, I believe that these women are weaponizing their sexuality to gain power in different ways. 
Sabrina may be playing into the 1950s house wife ideology but in her music videos she almost always
kills a man in the video. This may be her trying to give the message that 1950s wives were actually smarter than they seemed and only appeared dumb to play into appearances. 

Tate McRae has been playing into this more tom boy aesthetic with her outfits while also using beautiful women dancers to show their skills and their strength. Tate McRae may be getting more scandalous outfits as time goes on but not for the male gaze, for the female gaze. 

What messages do you think Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae are trying to make? Are they actually trying to send a message or are we reading into things? Are they falling into a postfeminist trap where the authors Walsh, Fürsich, and Jefferson stated, “Perhaps women will never be able to progress on television because it is already assumed that they are where they want to be. In these two cases, the women reflect a somewhat exasperated acceptance of traditional gender constellations—as long as extreme sexist edges are kept in check.”