Bitches

No apologies to anyone who thinks these questions are boring or cliched or show a lack of 'understanding' of hip-hop, incidentally. I think they're important, more so for me because I do love a lot of mainstream hip-hop.

It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the music.

Lloyd Cole's mysogynistic? The things you learn...

In the songs, it's tolerable - usually, the beats and cadences are such that the words don't really stick, which is fine. In cases where the misogyny is really obvious and unavoidable (hi, Marshall), I give the artiste some poetic license to work their particular mojo. It doesn't affect it all that much, mostly because I don't want to frustrate myself in considering such things. Selective ignorance, I guess.

In videos, though, it's a bit much sometimes. The slo-mo pan of a woman in thong & bikini top jiggling her booty loses a bit of its flavor after a while. And seeing assertive women affect the same poses (like Trina & Li'l Kim) doesn't strike me as empowerment as much as capitulation.

Misogyny = aesthetically preferable to simpering about how sensitive one is, which usually is untrustworthy anyway

Depends on what you do with it in your own life. Either you believe in smacking your woman around or you don't. And nobody should be raising your kids but you, so if they disrespect women or beat up homosexuals later in real life then that's your own damn fault, not Jay-Z's.

Part of the appeal of hiphop (going back to that previous thread) is that it's "dirty". Not real, but escapist and with damn funny results too: I remember splitting my sides listening to 'Me So Horny' for the first time ('put your lips on my dick and suck mah aaassssshooole too!', now that's comedy gold!). Oh, and 'Oochy Wally' too! Pleased to meet you, Mr. Horse...

So it's totally up to you and your sense of right and wrong to take it seriously or not. My mom raised me well, and in the end these artists too will have their moms, sisters and girlfriends to answer to.

it should be said that most of the unflattering rhymes about hos, etc in rap songs concern actual hos and bitches. nasty cheap women who lie to you about everything, and/or just want your money. these women exist. YET they are loved, because they are fucked up, because they don't play by the rules, because they have got their own agenda. female thugz. "Deez Hoez" by Outkast gets to the conflicted heart of this question. "Don't lie, you love them..."

Yes. We're not talking Le Tigre here. I find the misogyny in lots of hiphop quite offensive (no, that is not accurate; the proper term would be distasteful, actually), but when I listen to it, I take the misogyny as part of the hiphop package. If I feel like playing such music, I can take the crap they blab about. The fact that it is often really funny - slick lines, ridiculous overstatements - helps a lot. Indeed, maybe it is the humour in mainstream hiphop that often makes the misogyny less offensive, but still as distasteful.
Ultimately, the problem here (and its solution) is that it's not my culture (that's how I feel about it), therefore most hiphop always retains an aspect of cultural shock to me. I'm an outsider. "Are they really saying that?!". Like they say in the film Barcelona, it's a cosa de gringo (negro, in this case): I cant take it personally, because I feel it is not addressed to me, nor concerns me.

Sure it's misogynistic, but not more misoghynistic in my opinion than the treatment of women in forms of entertainment besides hip-hop. I think rap gets unfairly blamed because they use the stronger language, the hos and bitches crap, but how is it any different than anything else?

i just don't understand why anyone would listen to biggie or too short or whatever and get surprised that they're going to talk about their disappointments with the opposite gender. rap has an obligation to be blunt. why can't people talk about/complain about/show grudging admiration for conniving back-stabbing women?

Well that's the other side of the coin: they say something negative about a woman, any woman, it's misogyny. But what of Destiny's Child and their NONSTOP BITCHING about men? TLC and their scrubs? Is that not the same thing?

The initial question - and incidentally the qn isn't meant to indicate either way my own feelings on the subject - is flawed because it treats mainstream hip-hop as a monolith. Which admittedly is what participants in this debate also tend to - the people who decry hip-hop for its misogyny make no distinction between one track and another; the people who defend it do likewise. Whereas I think some hip-hop misogyny seems less distasteful (and I like the word distasteful, rather than offensive) than others - a fairly obvious point, to be sure.

I think there are two kinds of 'relationship' based hip-hop - the bitter-personal-experience type (what Tracer is talking about) and the sexual fantasia type (which is usually framed as personal experience too of course). Both these find lots of analogues in other genres - the former, much more prevalent in R&B, tends to come across as more sympathetic, which is why I don't really hear Destiny's Child as man-hating, more as unfortunate.

The sexual fantasia type crosses boundaries a lot with more general bragging rhymes - I'm so bad because I do this and this and this. And sometimes it ends up in darker territory still with undertones (and overtones) of rape, sexual violence, etc. That's I think the aspect people who attack rap for misogyny latch on to, lyrically.

More good points raised above - how does hip-hop compare to other genres? And more to the point how does the treatment of women within the actual hip-hop community compare to the treatment of women within other social/musical 'scenes'? Does the 'misogyny' so-called of hip- hop act as a valve, a release for various feelings, an arena to act them out safely. Goodness knows most of the worst-behaved or most confused men I've actually known have been committed fans of other genres - many, as Dave Q suggests, have prided themselves on the 'sensitivity' and 'sophistication' of the music they enjoy. Whereas the men I know who love even the 'worst' hip-hop behave - as far as I can tell - very well towards women. Anecdotal evidence, to be sure.

I'll post about my own experiences with these kind of issues later, maybe.

The biggest arsehole I know, my nemesis MS, is a hardcore indie kid, and believe me he has some funny ideas about wimmin.

No, obviously there is a difference between songs and there is some extremely bad misogynistic hip hop, but to go into "XYZ is this while ZYX is that while ABC does this totally different thing" ends up becoming a big massive detour, doesn't it? I mean, I personally find Eminem's lyrics on his most misogynistic tracks disgusting, and it does slightly dim my enjoyment of the music (though not as badly as his voice does), but that's one example out of about 8 trillion artists...

As an Eminem aside - what bothers me about Eminem, when he bothers me, isn't the woman-murdering stuff (which falls into Tracer's bitch- did-me-wrong category) but the casual little digs in the jokey tracks - "rapin' lesbians" etc. etc. "Kim" I find very hard going but not because it's misogynistic: indeed I'd say it wasn't.

tom's right, the jokey one-liners in his novelty hits are much more offensive than the full on bitch-killing tracks.

Two tidbits to toss in. Percival Everett's new book, Erasure, is about a black professor who writes a satire of "ghetto" novels called My Pafology, which is taken seriously and becomes a best-seller, much to his dismay. I found the following, from Slate's "book club," fairly spot-on:

In My Pafology, one really gets the sense that he could "do" the ghetto if he had a mind to. As Van Go flees an enraged and saddened 14-year-old whom he has just gleefully date-raped, she screams, "I hate you." Go responds, "And I hate you too. What that got to do wif anythin'?" Watch Ricki Lake or Jerry Springer; Everett has crystallized the can't-live-with-them-can't-live-without-them battle between poor black men and black women perfectly with that exchange.

Also worth noting: I think lots of attention is called to misogyny in hip-hop because the rappers themselves are perceived as more threatening by mainsteam America. It's telling that Eminem is sort of the only white person ever to be taken to task for this -- I get the sense that, say, an 80s hair-metal band could have been just as misogynistic as most hip-hop, but people wouldn't have taken it as seriously or perceived it as so threatening because the people it was coming from were recognizable to them, people they wouldn't normally fear. Surely fear of misogyny with rappers has to do with pre- existing fear of sexual assault by black men, and the mistaken sense that they're always talking about reality.

Is Ally the only woman here who listens to hip hop???? And Ally, you don't really count anyway.

ripping off 'the producers' to expose the inherent racism of white america's love affar with lower class black culture is so last year.

Well, but apart from that, Ethan, what do you think of the interpretation from Slate? It seems keen, and applicable to lower-income whites in America as well ...

Now what is that supposed to mean, Tracer?

Anyhow, that's what bothers me about Eminem too, much to certain people's absolute abhorrence and disgust. Kim does bother me, but his "jokes" about raping women are far more disturbing - it's kind of hard to believe there isn't a grain of truth in the songs, that it really is what he believes. Which is creepy to listen to, and upsetting.

I mean, when it comes down to it, it's kind of the difference between "Area Codes" and any number of Eminem tracks. On surface they're both stupid misogynistic, but how can you take seriously a track that uses the word "whore-d'ovres"? It's very clearly a very silly, OTT joke, whereas Eminem just slips it in kind of mid-thought, and it's really not clear whether it's OTT or not. Which is why I'd label Eminem a misogynist but wouldn't be so quick to label Ludacris and Nate Dogg misogynists.

Does anyone really believe that there is just as much misogyny in other kinds of music as in hip-hop? Could you post some examples, please, & then I'll dig into the Ice Cube lyric archive.

As for how to describe the hip-hop mainstream, how about we just say albums that have gone platinum? A million-seller is mainstream.

The problem with lyrical comparison, Mark, is that a guy like Cube is spilling about 500 times more words per album than your average rock band -- and in a more explicitly conversational tone -- so you're always going to be able to spot the misogyny more easily than the potentially-poetic or subtextual misogyny of rock. (Beyond which you start getting into the minefield of intent; "Girls Girls Girls" could come from a place way worse than "Nappy Dugout," but we'd never know.) That said, I still think I'd agree with you -- hip- hop is worse. (Although I think the question here is "how much worse?" -- i.e., "Worse enough that it deserves to be singled out and dismissed entirely?")

Related issue: why the inertia? Adam Smith would speculate that if people like the music but are put off by the attitude, someone would come along and provide the former without the latter. And yet many of those who have done this (the "undies," essentially -- with reference to both the misogyny and the cash-flashing) have wound up attracting white indie audiences and little else. Does this imply that the bitches'n'bling attitude is inextricably tied to what people like about hip-hop? Or have those undies just been too preachy and self-righteous in their rejection of it? (I don't mean to make a great sweeping generalization here, but it does seem like forsaking those attitudes are a big liability in sales terms.)

I don't think the hiphop I listen to has any remarkable amount of misogyny.

I do reckon a lot of hip hop's treatment is misogynistic, but the thing that worries me most about that is how little I actually do worry when I'm listening.

I think what was said before about hip hop's devotion to bluntness is fairly spot-on - it's not that hip hop has become more misogynist in recent years so much as that the attention of songs has increasingly turned to gender and relationship issues (a chicken-and-egg style cause-result of its mainstream-ification, I guess) applying the same extreme fantastical element it previously applied to black liberation, criminal violence, etc.

In regards to Nitsuh's thoughts: I don't think it's the lack of misogyny that stops people from liking indie hip hop. It's what the rappers usually replace it with.

nitsuh is absolutely right ! machism is always to be found in heavy metal as well as in hip hop ( or in the worst avatars of both musical genre). so we should consider that sort of attitudes pays: heavy metal and hip hop have been for ages two of the best selling genres in the music biz( something to do with nerdish 18 years old guys collecting records with enlightening bon mots as " get on your knees" or "love gun"etc..etc...to feel empowered towards the semi-unknown joys of sex?).

well, not the best selling in the music biz for sure but a great money cornucopia in "alternative enterteinment".

Is Ally the only woman here who listens to hip hop????

No. But I really don't feel like I have much to say about it, and what I do have to say would probably get jumped all over and dismissed anyway. So, no comment.

Oh, come on Nic, just cos I got cursed out insanely that one time over Eminem doesn't mean everyone is like that. I actually wish more women would post to threads like this, cos the guys all put on weird little airs when this topic comes up, and I think perspective is important.

The thread came out of a conversation I was having with a woman who listens to hip-hop. I think anyone who did say "I find this offensive and here's why" might well get jumped on - maybe we shall see.

Oh, come on Nic, just cos I got cursed out insanely that one time over Eminem doesn't mean everyone is like that

I don't think everyone is (in fact most people aren't like that), but I really don't want to get stuck arguing about it for ages.

Fwiw I don't even think about it most of the time, most of the records are so amazing on their own terms that the lyrics aren't that important.

I've been listening to more and more hip-hop in the past couple years, mostly since I moved to Washington DC.. and as a feminist... yeah, I think some hip-hop and some rock (a lot of rock, maybe, currently? all that aggression w/lyrics aimed at a 'you, you, you' that's constructed as feminine..) perpetuates really offensive ideas about women. It troubles me to hear *all* women only showing up in songs as bitches (etc., etc.) or that 'you' the nu-metal frontman is screaming his head off at.. It's awfully hard to have a discussion about this without people assuming you're advocating censorship; I'm tired of questions about misogyny in music getting deflected that way. No, I don't want to ban Limp Bizkit. Thing is, most of the super-misogynist hip-hop & rock stuff is really crap, and now I find myself saying, hey, if you gotta write weak lyrics insulting women to try & cover up your own lack of talent, that's not my problem.

Obviously, something more is going on than just black people - and a few white trash rappers - 'fucking up' or making political mistakes. 30 years ago even, this stuff wouldn't have been acceptable - it's about money, and that's all. Not black money, white money. It's big, don't be fooled by what it appears to be limited to. All the forms of liberalism flock together.

yeah, i wish we could go back to thirty years ago when misogyny didn't exist at all. damn you rappers!

This is about money, though. Back then, they hadn't worked out how to make misogyny most profitable. I'm sure there are many more advances just around the corner and I'm looking forward to being here to witness them. Maybe they'll be able to fool women into taking some kind of drug so they never have to sleep and can work all night too, for example.

and generations of refusing women any posiion of political, economic, or social power WASN'T profitable? i guess women didn't really have it bad until the eminem album sold a lot.

It's more profitable to have a larger labour pool, not a smaller one. It seems to me that the moment of a mass of women not working - that bourgeois moment - was a fairly short one in Western history, a sort of brief lull before it was understood again how to move almost all the surplus to the top. (Of course, women or others still perform all that same 'non-profit' housework they used to, so that unpaid labour force hasn't been lost either.) Well anyway, that's a bit off the topic. Um ... Eminem is interesting, because of being the white voice of that ultra-spectacular dirty outsider stuff. In about ten years, I assume you'll see select white women being paid a lot to perform the same sort of grotesque duty. But ... don't misunderestimate me here. The reason this stuff sells so well is because it's interesting aka 'good'.

it would be great if 'luke' was really a guilt-ridden luke skywalkker trying to make up for his sins.

What sins?

Are we the only two people on this forum? Is everybody else a pseudonym for you?

he made money by misogyny! surely this is the greatest sin?

go! go!

Does the misogyny in "Killing of a Chinese Bookie" affect your enjoyment of the film?

I'm serious. Why do movies get not exactly a free pass but at least the benefit of the doubt in portraying a situation - so-and-so said this, they stood like this, they treated this person horribly, etc - it's part of the story. but music doesn't get this treatment - maybe we don't take movies seriously enough? or is it the opposite?

Re movies -- probably because rap lyrics are usually first person, & they are often mixed with true details from the rapper's life.

I thought of this after I compared rap & rock above, but surely G.G. Allin has the most misogynist lyrics in music history. Course he never went platinum either, so can't compare his profile to Ice Cube.

Rappers who claim both 'reflecting reality' and 'it's just entertainment' NEVER get called out.

i've been hesitant to post here because i'm afraid i'll get jumped on for a lot of reasons -- i am the 'angry chick' who doesn't like fred durst, as most of you know.

i feel like there are, predictably, a lot of straw men being put up in this discussion -- movies don't always get a free pass, at least not from the critics i read; yes, misogyny has been around a while, thanks for bringing up that salient point -- and they're only serving to obfuscate the question at hand, which is i think important, especially when we look at the ways musicians from other genres (well, okay, rock musicians mostly) swipe from hip-hop. and actually, when i was initially talking about this, it was in the context of hip-hop tropes being reused by rock musicians.

my one observation for now: when you catch a song that does, musically, include both men and women, the women are usually there as aural adornment, just like in the videos, prettying up the songs, singing (in a high voice, almost always) the chorus. the exception being, of course, missy elliott.

Case in point for Maura: Superwoman Pt. II, which is on the Lil' Mo album, but is a fabolous joint if anything. Case not in point: Girls Dem Suga, which I think balances quite well. Also the Ja Rule/J. Lo mix of "I'm Real" where Ja Rule gives the hook and J. Lo gives the meat of the verses. Also, Ja Rule's "what would I do without my baby" song. Also, the Fugees. Also, City High's "What would you do". Even Jay Z's "Can I Get A" while dominated by his rap nonetheless has a dialogic chorus.

I'm curious what people think of "Girlfriend in a Coma" or "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (I know it's not explicitly addressed to a woman but).

Nitsuh :

I disagree with you aobut hair metal , Guns and Roses got alot of flak for here racism, homophobia and rape fantasies

What G'n'R song had rape fantasies? (I'm not very familiar w/ their catalog)

Aren't you thinking of Nick Cave?

I take it back about the City High song. The chorus is female, but the verse is all male, tho he deceptively sometimes repeats her words, and also he preaches to her -- the moral voice is the man & the song clearly sides with him. This complicates things, b/c at once it has a decent theme but it relies on the gender dynamic Maura spoke to to express it. So the focus is the woman, but the agency is all in the man.

Even Jay Z's "Can I Get A" while dominated by his rap nonetheless has a dialogic chorus

Actually, the rap verses are completely evenly split - 3 verses, 3 rappers. 1st verse: Jay-Z spitting venom at all the girls who suddenly want him because he's wealthy. 2nd verse: Amil trying to justify her money-grubbing to apparent paramour Jay-Z, going from "You don't have to be rich/but fuck that/how we gon' get around on a bus pass?" to "Nigga, I'm high maintenance" - serving to justify Jay-Z's anger towards her and her ilk. 3rd verse: Ja Rule tells Jay-Z to chill, cos quite frankly he ain't gonna complain as long as he's still getting what he wants, holla.

None of which makes this a very female-positive song, mind you, but the quotient of Jay-Z to Amil is completely, completely even.

I don't know why I'm pointing this out.

maura: on your last para: other exception = da brat. who is really offensive. 'let me get out your visa, so i can discover your mastercard'. it's like explicitly pragmatic sometimes, these male- female relationships. but there's something else she's grasping for too - 'the ball-all-night type, frontin screamin thug life, that's the type of nigga i like'. same type of guys who call her a ho prolly. complicated. or not?

Hm, are we veering more & more toward a class problem rather than misogyny per se? That's prob what I hear more and more of when I'm listening to hip hop, just how lucrative it is for the stars & maybe as the flaunting of $$ gets more ridiculous, the flipside is needing to emphasize more how real one is.. And consequently, perhaps, the schizo relation between 'em means both are exaggerated, if you come from poverty & get rich the need to prove yourself real means, well, painting it as violence, pathology. So anyone see the vid for that Bubba Sparxx tune, then? Let's all stare at the 'white trash' (why IS it socially acceptable to say this?) freak show, that means our guy's really real - it's Ok to be poor as long as it's a spectacle..