The Man
Business empowerment: the direct confrontation with gender inequality in professional and public contexts. The speaker imagines the radically different treatment she would receive as a man, a systemic critique of how the industry rewards and punishes along gender lines.
mad as a privilege she is not granted
“They paint me out to be bad, so it's okay that I'm mad”
“Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy” — mad woman
Community discussion sets The Man beside this song as the same argument made twice: The Man states from the hypothetical man's side what mad woman lives from the woman's, anger that is licensed when male and pathologised when female. One song is the satire, the other the testimony.
the fearless leader
“I'd be a fearless leader”
“my lost fearless leader” — Peter
Peter's opening address to a lost fearless leader is heard against The Man's I'd be a fearless leader, the same phrase carrying loss in one song and defiance in the other.