Critics may have slammed Beyoncé for supposedly losing sight of her identity and message (anything more to add, Rush Limbaugh?), but the pop superstar wants the world to know she has no doubts about who she is and what she stands for.
The "Bow Down / I Been On" singer graces the cover of British Vogue's May issue, and she opens up about her views on feminism, equality and her widely scrutinized decision to dub her upcoming tour The Mrs. Carter Show.
"I guess I am a modern-day feminist," Jay-Z's missus tells the mag, per an excerpt in The Huffington Post.
"I do believe in equality," she adds. "Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I'm just a woman, and I love being a woman."
"I do believe in equality," she adds. "Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I'm just a woman, and I love being a woman."
That said, the songbird still maintains that "we have a way to go and it's something that's pushed aside and something that we have been conditioned to accept."
As for criticism that, as Limbaugh claims, she's now bowed down to her role as Jay-Z's wife—the rapper's real name is Shawn Carter—by name-checking him in her tour's moniker, Blue Ivy's mama is clear about where she stands.
"I feel like Mrs. Carter is who I am, but more bold and more fearless than I've ever been," she says.
"It comes from knowing my purpose and really meeting myself once I saw my child. I was like, 'OK, this is what you were born to do'. The purpose of my body became completely different."
The singer's tour kicks off on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia, and will wind its way through 42 cities in North America and Europe before wrapping up in her hubby's home turf of Brooklyn in August.