10 BEYOND
SPRING 2014
Hip-hop feminism
The skewed portrayal of women in hip-hop culture By Jess Bayer
O
kay now he was close, tried to domesticate you/ But you’re an animal, baby it’s in your nature/ Just let me liberate you – lyrics like this oppress women, according to hip-hop feminists. The term “Hip Hop Feminism” was coined by Joan Morgan. According to her, a hip-hop feminist is a woman of African American decent that was born during the hiphop generation. This ideology has been applied to how women within African American and Latino culture are portrayed within the hip-hop world.
The negative depiction of women is nothing new within the genre, and “the ways in which women are portrayed hasn’t necessarily changed,” said Aisha Durham, assistant professor of communications at the University of South Florida. According to Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, “every time one turned on BET or MTV, one encountered a disturbing music video: Black men rapped surrounded by dozens of Black and Latina women dressed in bathing suits, or scantily clad in some other fashion.” In his “Blurred Lines” music video, Robin Thicke has women walking around topless. On top of this,
the lyrics have been described by Edinburgh University’s Kirsty Haigh as “promot[ing] a very worrying attitude towards sex and consent.” Today’s songs focus on drugs, money, cars, sex and women. Music videos feature pricey cars and attractive women in little clothing nearly worshipping the male artist. Why is that? Sex sells, which means that there is money to be made. Women may want to gain some form of power through sexualizing themselves. “If [they] don’t have this kind of traditional power, meaning political and economic power, [their] body becomes this social capital that [they] can exert on somebody else,” said Durham.
“I don’t really listen to popular hip-hop anymore because I like to relate to the message,” said Sean Jackson, president of the Black Male Collegiate Society. Durham brought up an interesting point during a lunch interview that pop culture lacks female emcees because they challenge the norm – powerful females in hip-hop just aren’t favorable to today’s audience. There are female rappers out there, but considering they don’t fit today’s norm, they miss the spotlight, and their music can be difficult to locate.
Hip-hop continued on page 12