Misogyny in Hip Hop In the past few years the hip hop music industry has stereotyped women and exploited their sexual roles to society in a pessimistic light. Specifically African-American rap music degrades women and revoke them of any positive image in society. Videos, lyrics and many other aspects of hip hop all downgrade and victimize women. A lot of rap songs are about gangs and violence but “Content analyses have found that approximately 22% to 37% of rap lyrics contain some misogyny”(wikipedia). It all started in the 1990’s when sex, drugs and violence became very popular in hip hop rap music. Rappers like “Plies” and “Too Short” were known for there sexism toward women. Plies and Too short became very popular in the rap industry, which made a lot of the rap artist take up the misogynistic behavior and tendencies. For example, in Too Short’s song “Freaky Tales” he exposes all the women he has had sex with and calls them by their names, “When I freaked Michelle,I freaked her well,Her pussy got hotter than flames in hell”(rap- genius). “Freaky Tales” blossomed the sexist and misogynistic behavior in rap music and ultimately Hip Hop culture and African American society. African American males are the main source of this behavior, but women also partake in the exploitation of their body and sexual experiences. In the past year a song was released by Jay Z and Beyonce Knowles called “Drunk In Love”. This song is about the love the artist share outside of their careers. Beyonce said “Then I fill the tub up halfway then ride it with my surfboard, surfboard, surfboard” which is a pretty nasty sexual reference(rap-genius). Surfboard is a sexual position when the couple is in the bath tub and they are having sex while submerged in the water. The song is downright inappropriate and absurd but because hip hop has brainwashed people into believing that sex, drugs and violence is acceptable in rap music it doesn't seem to bother most people. Misogyny isn’t beneficial in any type of way to society. Sexism completely ruptures the common good and all that is stands for in today’s society. Back in BC times women didn’t have a meaning of the basic human rights. Women were mostly viewed upon as objects and not humans. Women basically did the maintenance of the house and were “were viewed as property” to their husbands(sojourners). Now women have an understanding of their basic humans rights and attempt to fulfill them. Since hip hop and rap music influences society, in theory it influences the common good because “the common good can often change” from person to person(wikipedia). If someone was taught to disrespect women and treat women unfairly their common good would differ from someone who was taught the opposite. For example, the basic requirements for staying alive is food, water and shelter and a person with a misogynistic background would solely believe those things are to be kept up by a woman not man. Those kind of people still exist because of the impact that rap music and hip hop have on society and its sexist background. The misogynistic acts of hip hop and rap music deeply effect its fans and society as a whole. It influences the fans because the fans support the sexist rapper or singer and typically fans relate to their favorite artist. Fans are fans because they like or agree to what a certain person is doing, and the more fans that certain person has, the more the views and ideas of that person is expressed in society. In this instance, rappers like Lil Wayne, Eminem and Chief Keef all have a pretty strong fan-base of about one-hundred million plus fans and all three of those rappers talk and rap about sexism and misogyny. Matured black women are widely effected because it degrades them beyond belief and it also makes them feel lesser than Show More
