bitches and hos

The article “From Fly Girls to Bitches and Hos”, was written by Joan Morgan in the late 90s and explores the idea of being a black feminist and a fan of rap. With a self proclaimed “self destructive obsession” with rap, you might wonder how a feminist can like music that is often so profanely sexist. She explains the importance of rap in black culture and how it is also part of the problem. Her priority as a feminist isn’t to stop rappers from being sexist in their lyrics, but to protect the love between black men and woman. This is a love that’s survived slavery, segregation, poverty and racism for so long and it is in danger. There is a bigger set of problems plaguing communities and rap is a mirror into that life.

                        Joan Morgan has been a fan of rap for a long time; she recognizes the presence of it in pop culture and describes its ability to be “Alternately beautiful, poignant, powerful, strong, irreverent, visceral, and mesmerizing”. Rap is unlike anything else, it gives people so much freedom to express themselves in a way that is incredibly creative and unique. But behind all that, there is an underlying set of things that appear in these lyrics, the music reflects a lot of pain. She states “what passes for “40 and a blunt” good times in most of hip hop is really alcoholism, substance abuse, and chemical dependency”. They often speak of killing each other as if it’s nothing. What is the cause for this anger and hate? She points out that this hate is no longer coming from ‘The Man” or “Racist White power”, but from people living in the same community. She talks about the life of “Notorious B.I.G.” as an example and talks about his album “Ready to die”. He was an ‘urban soldier’ whose life was dysfunctional from the beginning. He sings about robbery, jail, murder, drug dealing, money, sex, parties, and sex as if he was always just living an amazing life. Underneath the lyrics you can see the inner struggle this man was having, it “divulged his inner hell” and the album ended in suicide. The leading cause of death for black males fifteen to twenty five is murder and most of them die at the hands of other black men. Joan Morgan’s position as a single black feminist really gives her an up close view of what’s going on. She sees the effect this lifestyle has on men and woman and she wants to make it better. She believes rap is essential to the struggle these men are having because it takes us “Straight to the battlefield”, she sees past the “Machoism” and uses rap to get to the root of the problem so everybody can start to heal. She says woman have to learn to love these men realistically and find a way to stay at a ‘safe’ emotional distance. They have to realize that a person that doesn’t really love themselves isn’t capable of loving someone else in the way they need. “Its frighteningly clear that many brothers see themselves as powerless, when it comes to when it comes to facing the evils of the larger society, accepting responsibility for their lives, or the lives of their children”

 She urges feminists to change their strategy for ending sexism in rap. You can’t keep going after the words themselves. You can’t deny the fact that there are plenty of actual ‘bitches and hos’ around. Men are angry because when they didn’t have money, none of these women wanted anything to do with them. You have to get angry at the women who allow themselves to be exploited in music videos and in real life, and women need to fid their self esteem. Women have to realize that a lot of hostility comes from other women as well and these women need to come together and stop sexism together.  She wants to create a ‘space’ for women to come and share their feelings. She says having this space is the first step to getting all the pain and hurt out there and beginning the healing process. She wants to use rap as an avenue for this, a way to share the feelings of the women that are suffering and hopes someday her ‘brothers’ will realize the need for change. Feminism has to get away from complaining about this music and start taking action. She takes part in hip hop feminism conferences and is a speaker on these types of issues to this day. Even more than ten years later all these issues are still present, and forever evolving.