Beyoncé upped her feminist cred yesterday in an essay on the Shriver Report website, one in a multi-author series on gender equality. "We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality," she writes. "It isn't a reality yet."

The essay collection, titled A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, focuses on the financial inequality and insecurity faced by women. It features pieces by Maria Shriver, Eva Longoria, LeBron James, Anne-Marie Slaughter. But you know whose you really want to read. Beyoncé writes:

Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible.

From "Independent Woman" onward, people have wondered whether Beyoncé is a real feminist. Does "Run the World (Girls)" really empower women? Does sampling audio from a speech entitled "We Should All Be Feminists" really count? So we're relieved to finally have (yet another piece of) definitive proof that she does, in fact, believe in gender equality and female independence.

Beyoncé, you just keep on being you.

[image via AP]