Christina Aguilera and Lil' Kim sing about the women of today's society. The song conveys the idea that woman in today's world 'can't be held down', in this case by men. Simply, it means that they will not be placed under the thumb and forced to do what the men wanted them to do. Aguilera sings about the opportunities women have to fight back and to claim power because the men did not respect them. With this, Aguilera creates the idea that men do not like this idea of women in power so they have to create controversy to take back the power.
             The song 'Can't hold us down' uses many different techniques to represent the idea that women are fighting back. Techniques such as the word choice, repetition, and aural features such as Aguilera's tone of voice in sections of the song, are used to signify the change of power through the status of both genders.
             The first technique is the title of the song. The responder will see that Christina Aguilera sings 'Can't hold us down'. It introduces the listener to what this song may be about and that she is referring to women as 'us'. It emphasizes the idea that women are not going to be tools of men anymore before the song even starts.
             The selection of some words in the song has conveyed the idea that women are fighting back. In the bridge of the song, Aguilera refers to the male as a 'little boy', and at the beginning, she refers to the females as women. This makes the responder think that Aguilera thinks very little of the men in her world 'You must talk so big, to make up for smaller things.' She uses the word 'nobody' in the section after the chorus, but what she is implying is that the 'nobody' is a male. Generally, 'nobody' refers to both male and female, but Aguilera has created the idea of the male being a 'nobody' throughout the song, inclu...