Adalfi Saldana 03/23/2016
Misogyny as violence in Hip Hop culture
When people think about hip-hop they often think just about listening to music that is enjoyable. What most don't realize is that this genre of music comes with a performance, a culture performance. The hip hop artists tend to engage in hypermasculinity, manhood then becomes about dominating women and the depiction of this culture becomes misogynistic. The lyrics in their verses talk about sexually objectifying and violence towards women or make it sound cool to call women "bitches". This kind of representation crosses over and just encourages others who look up to these artists or live up to the hip hop culture that this kind of behavior would be just about normal and the portrayal of women is that she is a subhuman.
Many artists recognize that the material in their music is a component of their life, anger and art. But their pride in the language of their lyrics can often have negative attitudes towards women and conveys exploitive messages. Groups like Beastie boys and Run DMC are being replaced by Eminem, Nelly, Snoop dog and Rick Ross who make it seem like a trend to physically and sexually exploit females. In music videos men are portrayed as positive, they use words like pimps to describe themselves and women are in the negative light shown in provocative clothing referring them as prostitutes. Some lyrics even promote rape like Rick Ross verse in this song, his rap is describing putting a drug in a woman’s drink and then taking her home to have sex without her knowledge or consent. Sending a woman into unconsciousness is offensive. These are the type of messages in the article Controversial rap themes, gender portrayals and skin tone distortion: a content analysis of rap music videos is referring to “these messages propagate a desire for wealth, while glamorizing sexual actions and violence as a means to obtain this affluence” (Conrad et al, 2009:135). The pride in the status of this artist justifies the acts of harm on women, it tells another man that they can do whatever they want with females and they have the control on women. Since hip-hop is associated with African American culture this kind of message in the media can expose this kind of genre to be a stereotypical quality for the person of color and perceives this culture in a certain approach. Even though there are few white rap artist today, black individuals connect more with other black individuals, therefore, it makes is harder for one to disconnected themselves from these generalize images.
"Using such lyrics allows the male artists to boost themselves while degrading their female counterparts" ( Adams & Fuller, 2006:948). In the Notorious B.I.G lyrics the acts of sexually degrading women quickly turn into a violent behavior. The woman is called a "ho" used as an object that is passed around from man to man to be sexually overused, she is ultimately overused until she is physically damaged. The loss of respect for women is in general to maintain their masculinity. In a culture where hypermasculinity is relative, men look to the powerless who happen to be women to throw their distress and aggression. Some do it to gain acceptance and make sales even though it doesn't describe their character, this kind of lyrical verses could be on trend. At the same time, this hatred towards women in this culture could be accepted for the sole purpose to amuse listeners at large.
In conclusion misogyny can be produced through the exaggeration of male behavior. This exaggeration is found in hip hop culture as normal but the normal can cause a negative assumption on a whole culture, not just the individual. The over behavior of being a man affects women even though it can be to impress others in the media. The imagery in some lyrics reflect women and categorizes them as less than human.
Work Cited
938-957. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40034353
Conrad, Kate., Dixon, Travis., Zhang Yuanyuan . (2009). Controversial rap themes, gender portrayals and skin tone distortion: a content analysis of rap music videos. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(1), 134-156
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