Where does it stop?

Sticking with the trend set by Colin and Manali, I also want to call into question issues of oppression in the music business. Manali wrote about misogynistic lyrics in “certain genres” of music. Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the rap and hip hop genres, in particular, tend to produce more songs that contain lyrics that are possibly offensive to women. I don’t profess to be any kind of expert on rap and hip hop; admittedly, I know very little about those genres. However, as an American consumer, I have been exposed to them and feel as though I can cite examples of sexism in those genres without assuming too much.

Let me invoke the example of hip hop’s golden couple, Jay-Z and Beyonce. A few years ago Jay-Z put out a song called “99 Problems.” While the song itself is actually about issues of racism, the most-repeated line is “I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one.” The message of the song itself is not sexist, but this line is unquestionably offensive. What woman is actually ok with a man referring to all women as “bitches”?

Well, clearly Beyonce is. Beyonce, who the public views as a strong, confident woman. Beyonce who has put out songs with (arguably) a positive message for women, such as “Irreplaceable,” “Single Ladies,” and, with Destiny’s Child, “Independent Woman.”

Jay-Z is definitely not the most misogynistic rapper, or musical artist, or man, out there. Far from it. But isn’t it just a little counter-intuitive for a woman—who has a mostly positive image and is considered by many a role model—to be with a man who refers so publicly to all of her gender as “bitch”? Why do any of us women love the men who, to different degrees, represent and embody the oppressive, patriarchal society?

I think Judith Butler gives us a possible answer to this enigma in her essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” On page 105 she says this:

“Performing [one’s gender] well provides the reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after all. That this reassurance is so easily displaced by anxiety, that culture so readily punishes or marginalizes those who fail to perform the illusion of gender essentialism should be sign enough that on some level there is social knowledge that the truth or falsity of gender is only socially compelled and in no sense ontologically necessitated.”

The gist of this, as I understand it, is that we recognize, on some level, the influence of society on the roles that we play, and we know that people are not born hardwired to think or act a certain way. We recognize the influence of “nurture” on our “nature.”

This relates all the way back to the second day of class and the debate over door-opening. If I truly believed that a man opened the door for me because he felt I was weak, I would protest; yet, it is much more likely that he opens the door for me because he has been taught that men should open the door for women—not because we are physically incapable, but because it’s respectful. He’s just performing what he’s been taught to do, what society expects him to do. Others who observe a man not opening a door for a woman might think him rude or disrespectful; thus the social punishment for not fulfilling his role. Maybe in the same way Beyonce recognizes that Jay-Z, by calling women “bitches,” is not denouncing our sex as the equivalent of a dog (as that word implies), but fulfilling a cultural imperative to put out a certain image.

Door-opening out of respect is relatively harmless. What about men who have been socialized to believe that women actually are physically and mentally inferior, even worse those who are taught to act accordingly? Is referring to all of womanhood as “bitch” in order to conform to a cultural stereotype crossing the line? At some point we have to take a stand and stop rewarding unacceptable behavior while explaining it away as the fulfillment of a socially constructed role.