By Abi Smith
Vocal opposition to rampant misogyny in some hip-hop music has grown louder, with more than a few decrying the way that women — particularly black women — are often portrayed in the genre’s lyrics and videos. Essence Magazine has even started a campaign called “Take Back the Music”; it began in January and is expected to last for the rest of 2005.
It’s a little too easy, though, to blame just the artists producing the filth or the chicks who willingly strip for them. At the end of the day, female objectification is also actively supported and sustained by those women — of all colors — who buy and listen to culpable artists’ output.
Liza Weisstuch of the Christian Science Monitor writes that many “rappers and MCs coolly objectify women with vulgar song lyrics and hard-hitting, raunchy images on MTV. It’s common, for instance, to see videos in which hip-hop artists lounge poolside as a harem of women gyrate around them in bikinis. The video for Nelly’s ‘Tip Drill’ goes so far as to portray scantily clad women as sexual appliances.”
Spelman College, a historically black, all-female institution whose students voiced strong opposition to “Tip Drill,” held a forum once regarding the issue.
As Ernest Holsendolph of Black Issues in Higher Education writes, though, “One audience member asked if Spelman women continued to dance to music created by … offending artists.”
The response from one of the university’s students was, “Yes, we do, and that is a difficult problem.” For women, sexually abusive songs should be treated like racist jokes; when we hear them, we should immediately feel uncomfortable.
I mean, c’mon. I’m not being a prude, but if we take away the melodies, those songs are just sexual harassment set to beat tracks — giving purposeful hip-hop a bad name.
If we wouldn’t let men say offensive things to us in conversation, how in the world can we let them express those same things to us through music? And if we actually dance to demeaning songs, then we’re behaving no better than the trampy-lookin’ girls in the videos whom we rightly scorn; the only difference is we’re not on camera, and we’re likely to be showing a little less skin.
When gender-based disrespect is examined holistically, though, insensitive rappers aren’t the only ones deeming women inanimate playthings.
Look at out-of-control catcalling. The twisted sense of entitlement that leads certain musicians to objectify in their artistry is the same sense of entitlement that gives some guys the guts to screech pick-up lines at a girl from his car, and then call her a bitch when she becomes visibly annoyed.
Lots of “men” on this campus openly do it, and if female students are bothered by their idiocy, then they should duly register the insult of being called bitches and whores through their iPods — it’s just that simple.
In the final analysis, fighting any vestige of misogyny, whether in music or elsewhere, is the only way to change any of this.
Men who coarsely indulge verbal insensitivity toward women must be challenged; whence do we think the attitudinal seed for date rape stems? By consuming anti-female diatribes burned to compact disc, far too many women are actively perpetuating gross gender-based stereotypes.
And with friends like those, who needs juvenile, sexist male enemies?
Abi Smith is a graduate student in Political Science and a columnist for The Cardinal.
E-mail her at: asmith@louisvillecardinal.com
