blogpost7

Kristen Coyne

3-20-15

Blog post #7

            This week in class we started addressing African American women and their role in hip-hop and rap. In the article Black Women and Black Men in Hip Hop Music: Misogyny, Violence, and the Negotiation of (White-Owned) Space by Guillermo Rebollo-Gil and Amanda Moras, the gender divide between black men and women is discussed. Black men in rap music refer to black women in extremely negative and disrespectful ways. One way black rappers commonly refer to black women is as “baby mammas” and “golddiggers”. Using those words to describe colored women is extremely disrespectful and offensive because it suggests that a woman’s sole purpose in life is to be a mother, when in reality women have many roles in society.  Using the term golddigger to describe black women is also degrading because it diminishes the hard work and challenges that women face in society, especially single mothers.

            Another topic related to women that is often sung about in rap songs is about “shutting women up”. The rappers suggest through their lyrics that they are “trying to get [women] into bed or in some cases even condoning or bragging about sexual assault/rape which ultimately has the same silencing effect” (Rebollo-Gil 126). The way rappers talk about women is extremely degrading. Sexual assault and rape are topics that should never be discussed in a glorifying manner, and it’s a shame that they don’t use their platform and influence to raise awareness about these crimes. Although this article explains that not all things that are rapped about are actually true, casually rapping about rape and sexual assault of women, whether it actually happened or not, should never be discussed in the manner or tone it is. Similar to the way they are diminishing the hard work of single mothers, they are portraying rape to be a right of passage for men.