Christina Aguilera is a well-known singer and songwriter who sings mostly in the pop genre. She has been in the music industry for a very long time. One of her best songs is meant to empower women. It was released in 2002 and features Lil Kim. Very often, women are portrayed as not being able to do things for themselves and needing a man to take care of them. However, Christina attempts to break stereotypes with this song. The song, “Can’t hold us down,” starts off by Aguilera singing that she can’t have an opinion and is expected to sit and listen to the men talk because she’s a woman. She calls out men who belittle women and who decide to retaliate when a woman defends herself. She then says, “this is for my girls all around the world” and that women will “stand their ground” when facing sexist men. She then brings up a very important point in today’s society by saying that if a guy has “three girls then he’s the man…but if a girl do the same, she’s a whore.” She, along with Lil Kim, show their feminist side in the next line by saying that the “tables about to turn” because from now on, women will do whatever they want and they will not listen to any judgement that they might receive. In the video, some of the men are shirtless and some women are seen doing explicit dances. However, the dancing is not seen as derogatory for women because they are all standing together and are facing the men who are also united. Their unity and their separation from the men shows that they are declaring their independence. They don’t need a man to dance with them and they don’t need to dance for any man. They are dancing because they want to dance. One musical characteristic of this song is its dissonant harmony. Some women choose to sing about heartbreak and how they miss their ex-boyfriend, which reinforces the stereotypical role of a women, which is that they are fragile and dependent on men. These songs are usually sung by soft-spoken women, which means that their songs have a pleasant and consonant harmony. However, Christina Aguilera does not appear to be soft-spoken seeing as she is basically shouting at the men telling them that women won’t tolerate their disrespect anymore. Instead, through the use of this dissonant harmony, she is telling men to shut up because women won’t stand by and let them stomp all over them. She gives women more confidence to stand up for themselves when she says “Lil Kim and Christina Aguilera got yo back,” which might encourage them because they see that someone very influential is taking a stand.