While reading an article on Jezebel about Seth MacFarlane’s sexist jokes at the Oscars, I came across this quote by the article’s writer, Lindy West,
“My struggle as a feminist and a critic isn’t to contain my outrage—it’s to remind myself to feel anything at all.”
This sentence explains a feminist’s dilemma in one condensed package.
It reminded me of how mainstream sexism has become in entertainment–particularly in music. Much of current popular music is derogatory toward women, yet it’s hard not to listen to it anyway. No one wants to hear your complaints about how a rapper called someone his “bitch,” and you’re ruining the fun if you won’t dance to a song because he said “suck my dick”. This makes it nearly impossible to have fun out at night without silently accepting sexism, which in turn makes women numb to sexist remarks.
However, I recently found myself cringing while listening to Aesop Rocky, a rapper that has been recently becoming more popular. The lyrics to his song “Goldie” are as follows:
“Tell that bitch, hop up on my dick, rolled up on her quick
In a six, told her suck the dick, motorboat her tits
I’m the shit”
I told my friend that usually I can deal with sexist lyrics, but this is just too much. When I was in high school, I’d listen to Lil Wayne, like everyone else. His lyrics didn’t bother me, because I was able to separate myself from the women he was talking about, whom he sometimes described as gold diggers—but the sexism doesn’t actually stop at targeting gold diggers.
Many women swoon at the relationship between Jay-Z and Beyonce—Jay-Z being a rapper yet still with a successful woman…
This is how Jay-Z talks about Beyonce in the song, “That’s my Bitch.”
“Back to my Beyonce….
Stop looking at her tits
Get ya own dog, ya heard
That’s my bitch.”
It’s exhausting.
Photo credit: