Real Bad Bitches? Gender and Hip Hop Feminism in Women’s Rap

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 21. Race/Ethnicity and Media

Abstract

This study focuses on 170+ popular female emcees’ songs from 2005 to 2015. Using content analysis as a methodological approach, the author finds that women rappers express misogynistic and violent lyrics in their music, aspects identified as black female masculinity. However, the author contends that women artists espouse a hip hop feminist approach, presenting their sexual needs and desires in their music and challenging the sexism of their male counterparts. This orientation subverts traditional gender norms regulating expressions of sexuality and propriety by women. Yet, the author suggests women’s agency may simultaneously undercut and perpetuate the view of them as sex objects for male enjoyment. Hence, some feminist messages of empowerment and sexual liberation possibly reinforce stereotypical and caricatured sexualized images of women as a group.

Author

• Matthew Oware, DePauw University