The first observation I made about the genre was the ratio of male to female rappers. Male rappers seem to outnumber female rappers at least two to one; women are more likely to sing rather than use the spoken-word stylings that typify rap. When a woman does rap, she seems to emulate the aggressiveness of her male counterparts (there are exceptions to this, which I’ll touch on later). Rap, as a rule, is exceedingly aggressive; the aggression is often sexualized, violent, or a combination of the two. When the aggression is sexual in nature, it’s a heteronormative sexuality, often with the woman in the passive, or receiving, role in the relationship. Men tend to be the aggressors, though women seem to be just as aggressive if the relationship in the song is established. Men are expected to pursue sex, while women are expected to wait for a man to approach her.
The violent aggression in rap seemed confined to songs by male rappers. In “It’s All About the Benjamins”, by Puff Daddy & The Family (1997), sexual prowess and material wealth are extolled as masculine virtues. The rapper asks the listener “Wanna be ballers? Shot-callers?/Brawlers -- who be dippin in the Benz wit the spoilers.” To be a “real man,” according to this song, one must gain social status through money and violence. “It’s All About the Benjamins” reinforces the stereotype that men must be financial providers, and aggressively violent and sexual. The song also uses violent imagery with sexual overtones: “German Luger for your ass bitch, deep throated”. This quote reinforces the idea that men should use sex to dominate others, and that men should strive to be aggressively dominant in relation to the other men in their life.
In contrast to the violent sexuality in “It’s All About the Benjamins,” the song “The Jump Off” by Lil’ Kim (2002) reinforces the stereotype of women as sexual objects. The song features both a female and a male rapper in a back and forth style. The female rapper makes reference to oral sex, which reinforces the idea of women as passive receivers of sexual acts, even though she seems to also pursue sex, which does not fit gender stereotypes for women. The female rapper is also materialistic, though her materialism seems to be limited to interest in what others own. In other songs, however, a more explicit mention is made of women as consumers of fashion--such as the line in Trina’s “B R Right”: “My girls be shopping hard/These girls be shopping hard.” In this song, the rapper also makes reference to the expectation that men will be the breadwinners in a relationship, an unfortunate stereotype which places the burden of financial responsibility on the men in a relationship. Female rappers, like their male rapper counterparts, are explicitly heterosexist--the sexual and romantic references they make presume that heterosexuality is the only sexuality. It’s a specific heterosexuality, in that women are hyper-feminine and men are hyper-masculine.
As I mentioned previously, there are rap artists who shirk gender stereotypes in their music and their music videos. Although it wasn’t technically in the scope of this assignment, I chose to watch a few rap videos on YouTube. It was while watching these videos that it struck me how different an artist like Missy Elliot presented herself versus how an artist like Nicki Minaj presented herself. In several of Nicki Minaj’s videos, she’s hyper-sexualized, wearing tight, revealing clothing and affecting postures which imply sex acts--the most prevalent gender stereotype in how the artist performs in these videos is her feminized appearance. Like many female artists (rap and beyond), Nicki Minaj performs within a certain feminine ideal; she wears make-up to enhance her appearance, and she wears clothing which emphasizes her femaleness. In contrast to this feminine ideal, the artist Missy Elliot appears in her videos wearing various outfit types--most common seemed to be clothing which would typically be considered “masculine”: jeans and a sports team jersey, with a baseball cap more often than not. Missy Elliot does wear make-up in her videos, but the effect seems to be less about emphasizing her femaleness and more about looking good. Missy Elliot videos seemed far less likely to feature sexual objectification of women; in fact, in the “Work It” video, there is a scene in which Missy Elliot is hitting on a man sitting in a car, which is a reversal of the traditional “men pursue women” narrative so prevalent in the media.
When I asked a few of my friends to express their thoughts on how prevalent sexism and gender stereotypes are in rap music, there seemed to be a pretty clear consensus that rap music has a problem with both. There was a split consensus, though, on whether that problem was unique to rap, or was simply more easily marked in rap music because of the sub-culture status of the genre--although it has gained in popularity in the last couple of decades, rap still remains a niche genre, and hardly breaks into the pop music charts. It’s my feeling that the sexism and gender stereotyping is more noticeable in rap, not because there is more sexism or gender stereotyping in rap as compared to more mainstream pop music, but because of the aggressive nature of the music. Because of the aggressiveness of the genre, the sexism and gender stereotyping seem more overt, even though such stereotypes as “men as breadwinners” and “women as sexual objects” are present in most pop music. Rap does not seem exceptional in it’s treatment of men and women when compared to other music genres.
Works Cited:
Daddy, Puff & The Family. “It’s All About the Benjamins.” Sean Combs, et al. No Way Out. Bad Boy Records, 1997, Web.
Kim, Lil’. “The Jump Off.” Kimberley Jones and Timothy Mosley. La Bella Mafia. Atlantic/ Queen Bee Entertainment, 2003, Web.
Trina. “B R Right.” Katrina Taylor, et al. Diamond Princess. Slip-N-Slide, Atlantic, 2002, Web. Elliot, Missy. “Work It.” David Meyers. 2002. Web.
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