“Oh I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite / So don’t let me have any rights,” Gwen Stefani sings in No Doubt’s satirical 1995 hit “Just a Girl.” The song criticizes misogyny by mocking the damsel-in-distress archetype, exposing what it’s like to be a woman under patriarchy.

Gwen Stefani, the long-reigning pouty queen of the mainstream, released her latest album, “This Is What the Truth Feels Like,” on Friday. The album has a manufactured feel, like an airbrushed photograph,...