Hey ladies! I don’t know about you, but waking up this morning, I felt different. Changed. Possessed by some kind of ineffable life force. A long-suppressed inclination towards total world domination suddenly blossomed. It was kind of scary, but I knew that I could do anything I wanted with this feeling. I could buy stuff, reveal the untapped complexities I’ve always kept hidden (you’re telling me I could be sexy and satirical?), succeed in business, or even become some kind of seltzer/shoe/apple cider vinegar mogul. I felt like the strong, complex female main character in the strong, complex female main character movie of my own life. What was this intoxicating sensation? As I watched Katy Perry’s new video while brushing my teeth – hey, I prize dental wellness and looking good just for me, I thought, sassily waggling my index finger in the slightly smeared mirror – I realized what had happened. I’d just been empowered, baby!
Perry’s clubby missile of a new single, "Woman’s World," affirmed that yes, it is a woman’s world – and you’re lucky to be livin’ in it. In her woman’s world, women are nuanced, winners, smart, soft, pretty, prickly, fiery, and shiny. As the video demonstrated, you could be a Rosie the Riveter type (but, like, hot), a businesswoman, or a big sexy bionic horse. Women can have it all! Thank god someone finally said it.
There was another strange sensation: that of being dragged back in time, possibly in some kind of cosmic wagon pulled by the scary bionic horse woman. Back to almost exactly a decade ago, to August 2014, when Beyoncé performed at the MTV Video Music Awards in front of the word FEMINIST, emblazoned in big baby pink letters, and the whole world had to pass its collective smelling salts at the pop-cultural notion that girls just wanted to have fundamental rights. Maybe a few years further back, even, to when the brash electro-pop of Lady Gaga stressed the importance of being exactly who you were. (Incidentally, Gaga’s biggest hit of 2014 was "Do What U Want," with R. Kelly, another winding reminder that we were ever so young.)
Woman’s World is Perry’s first solo single in three years: “the first contribution I have given since becoming a mother and since feeling really connected to my feminine divine,” the 39-year-old pop star said in a statement. Her last album, 2020’s Smile, was her first since her 2010 superstar breakout Teenage Dream not to hit No. 1 in the UK or the US. She has since had stints in Vegas. The sense, going into her seventh album era, is of a 2010s pop star now very much on the back foot – compounded by pre-release visuals that seemed nakedly inspired by the warped futurism of next-gen stars Arca and Charli XCX. At least the imagery suggested some kind of attempt to embrace pop’s present; then the credits for her new album 143 were revealed, heavily featuring Perry’s old collaborator Dr. Luke.
In 2014, Kesha sued Luke (real name Lukasz Gottwald) for sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, gender violence, and emotional abuse. Luke denied the claims and countersued for defamation, alleging that Kesha, her mother, and management had fabricated the claims to escape the record contract she had signed with him. In 2016, a judge dismissed Kesha’s claims. Kesha had also accused Luke of raping Perry, which Perry and Luke denied, and in 2020 a judge ruled that those comments were defamatory. In 2023, Luke and Kesha settled his defamation claim.
No conviction has ever been brought against Luke, although he is perceived by many as a pariah within pop music, and any artist – such as Kim Petras – who works with him becomes subject to disparaging online commentary from pop fans and will be called upon to defend the choice. When the collaborators for 143 were announced, Kesha simply tweeted “lol” – widely assumed to be a reference to Luke’s involvement – and was later photographed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the same word. The actor Abigail Breslin also called out the news and later said she received death threats for doing so. Much of the online commentary around "Woman’s World" underlines the disconnect between working with a producer who comes with such baggage to make a song about the strength of women.
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