There was a time when Shakira confessed in her songs not knowing about soccer, having been unfaithful and not bathing on Sundays. Those were her days when she was a brunette, when she was labeled as the Latin American Alanis Morissette and she mentioned Marx or Sartre in her lyrics. Then came dye blonde, the raid on the Anglo-Saxon market, and the Waka Waka . The Colombian went from being a Hispanic star to conquering the world charts with a hit of the hip and exploiting the sexuality of her miscegenation. A musical and image transformation that has resulted in establishing herself as ‘Piqué‘s wife’ and boasting of it every time she has a microphone near her. Now that she returns to the media arena for her new job –Shakira,on sale on March 25–, the Colombian is not shy about emphasizing her role as a submissive and obedient woman every time she is asked about her relationship.
“Piqué is territorial and jealous. He likes to have everything under control,” he told an American radio station in the middle of the month. On Wednesday, he told Caracol News News: ” Gerard doesn’t let me make videos with men, he’s a very conservative person . It would impress you because he’s very young and we already know what the new generations are like, but the truth is, yes, he’s very conservative.” 
Shakira was referring to her latest video clip, Can’t remember to forget you, where she smokes cigars and shares a bed with Rihanna. Another example of pseudoerotic content in pop art along the lines of provocation that Cyrus sells and that Lily Allen or Katy Perry have criticized so much. For Shakira, who decides how far she can go in her work is her boy.
How does an independent woman, who has known success since her teens, come to make these kinds of statements? If we take a look at the newspaper library, the singer has had a hard time defining her role as a woman, without ever making it clear if she is a conservative or a liberal. She was running in 2006 when she stated that she did not feel part of the fight for equality, adding to that endless list of celebrities that confuses the meaning of feminism. “I don’t feel like a feminist, I don’t want to wear that sign. I really feel my feminine side, but I think I’ve somehow become closer to the masculine side of life, especially in my relationships.” Three years later, she slightly changed her mind. In an interview with Rolling Stone , she said that she published the album Ella she Wolf / Lobato respond “to that difficulty women have in satisfying themselves in a world where men are in charge. We live in a society that represses women’s subconscious dreams… You know, women have to do enormous efforts in life, much greater than men”.
The ” Shakira syndrome ” perfectly exemplifies how, in the middle of 2014, there are still unquestionably successful women who opt for submission and undervaluing themselves in their personal relationships. They are women capable of selling millions of records and accumulating prizes, women who champion NGOs and who travel to developing countries as champions of social equality but who later, on a personal level, extol the need to control their partners . Let them set the limits of what to do and what not to do. They even brag about it. Because Shakira is not the only one.
Before breaking off their relationship at the end of the year, Miranda Kerr went through Spain and sang “you have to let the man be the man” when asked by Orlando Bloom. As if the gender roles of a couple were subject to some rules, the Australian who rose to second place in the world’s best paid model in 2013 (she earned 5 million euros in 2013) has gone so far as to say that “perhaps I’m too traditional But men feel it’s important that you ask them for help, instead of thinking you can do things yourself .”
Throughout her campaign to lead the Republican Party, the ultra-conservative and evangelical Michelle Bachman took a toll on that phrase she sang in 2006 when she said “Women, you have to be submissive to your husbands.” Last year, the title Marry and be submissive became a best seller thanks to phrases such as “we must take a step back in personal life”, “do I have to agree with him even if he is not? I would say yes” and that “when in doubt, however, obey. Submit with confidence” .
One of the books published by the archbishopric of Granada is not the first to defend how to bow down to your partner. Candace Cameron, sister of Kirk Cameron and whom you will remember for being the older sister of Forced Parents , has just published Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose (a title that plays with the Have it all that is so repeated in the US ) and in which he defends the submission after 17 years of marriage with an NHL player and their three children. “I chose a submissive role in our relationship because I wanted to do everything possible to make my marriage and family work,” she explains on her pages.
Candace Cameron has been following “the teachings of the Bible” for years, just like her brother (the homophobe) Kirk Cameron. His, therefore, is not surprising. But of supposedly liberated women like Shakira or Kerr, yes. Both have bothered to denounce social injustices (Shakira leads the Pies Descalzos Foundation and Kerr actively supports the Red Cross and Children International) and thus become roles of conduct through their fame. In a country where public television says “either report mistreatment, or keep quiet for the rest of your life”, selling the role of submissive and self-sacrificing is not just another eccentricity of fame.
