Young black women like the unrestrained sexuality

of hip-hop. It's a sort of antidote to repression

Hip-hop says it’s okay to be sexual. Celebrate your

black womanness. Anyway, what's wrong with sexual

aggression? That's the white man's hang-up

Lil' Kim lyrics such as "Hot-damn-ho here we go again,

light as a rock bitch (UH), hard as a cock bitch"

will have to go, if NY City Council has its way.

As for damaging effects of misogyny in hip-hop...

America’s the most misogynistic place in the world

If we want to talk about misogyny,

let’s talk about the beer companies

putting women in bikinis to sell their product

People are blaming America’s misogyny on young black men

The violence and sexism of hip-hop

are being judged by a hypocritical and racist standard

Everything that America crucifies young black men for

is what America was built on—slavery, murder, misogyny

This is America’s problem

Taking Aim at "Bitch" & "Ho"

Fresh off the symbolic ban of the word "nigger" in February, the City Council is looking to extend the ban to the words "bitch" and "ho." Like the n-word bill, the ban would be symbolic and not have the force of law.

The bill is an interesting cultural document for many reasons, one of which being its odd blend of legalese and curse words, and another its linguistic analysis.

Whereas, The Council believes that the repercussions of words can be constructive or can be insidious, and that words, when misused, can lay foundations to legitimize the illegitimate and codify the unthinkable, including, for example, the concept that it is acceptable to refer to women as animals or, worse, that women are these words used to describe them

Lest you think the Council is not down, the resolution displays a familiarity with the positive work of Queen Latifah, and name-checks "50-Cent, Eminem, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Juvenile, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, and Bow Wow, as well as the late Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G" as being responsible for the sort of "verbal assaults" that the symbolic legislation seeks to combat.

Defenders of the use of the word "nigger", often cited the distinction between "nigga" and "nigger." Is there such a defense for the words "bitch" and "ho?"

The distinction between "bitch" and "biyotch?" Does anybody think these bans do anything to stop the promulgation of hate? Is it necessary in this day and age?

"Bitch" - A Term of Endearment in the Gay Club Scene

A New York Times reporter used an encounter with Village Voice's Michael Musto to ask the famed columnist to weigh in on the controversy surrounding the word 'bitch.'

From the Times:

Half my conversation would be gone,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, whom a reporter encountered on his bicycle on Sunday night on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street.

Mr. Musto, widely known for his coverage of celebrity gossip, dismissed the idea as absurd.

On the downtown club scene,” [Musto] said, munching on an apple, the two terms are often used as terms of endearment.

“We divest any negative implication from the word and toss it around with love."

But what about 'ho?'

The article gave short-shrift to the other word that Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn seeks to ban. Is 'ho' more offensive than 'bitch?' Does it have less camp value?

We'll ask Musto if we see him in the halls. In the meantime, discuss, bi-, um, beautiful people.

The Bitch Ho Problem

It’s fair to say that most women feel subjected to impossible standards of beauty, and apart from their particular racial twist, hip-hop’s beauty issues closely mirror those in the media generally.

But the booty issue is another matter. Rap’s portrayal of sexuality is far more explicit, and more cold-blooded, than what’s usually found in the mainstream culture.

Party rap rarely refers to a woman as anything but a “bitch” or a “ho.” Only the ho has any value, and that’s solely as a sexual object who earns an equal measure of admiration and contempt for her sexual insatiability.

Her sexuality is not an expression of her desire—it’s a commodity for sale to the high bidder, to the alpha male who claims sexual rights by virtue of his power, wealth and prowess.

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting looks at this heartless portrayal of sexuality from a number of angles.

She provides sympathetic insight into what motivates the video vixens, writing that “many of these women are singers, professional models, dancers and aspiring actresses, earning their rent, tuition monies or commercial exposure for a day’s work on a shoot.”

Pimps Up, Ho’s Down attributes part of the problem to black strip clubs, which have become the main proving ground for new rap music.

It’s cheaper to plunk down a 10 dollar cover and tip a DJ than it is to pay for radio ads, and if the dancers and men go for a song, it’s on its way to being a hit.

“Strip clubs are to hip-hop what Zogby [polling] is to politics—an indicator of what moves the crowd.”

Obviously, what goes over well in the atmosphere of a strip club is more likely to be raunchy than respectful, and to perpetuate the image of women as sexual property.

But why would women who aren’t denizens of the strip club world be happy consumers of its music?

Sharpley-Whiting suggests history is at play. In racist cultures, African American women are seen as promiscuous, she says.

Indeed, when rape charges against the Duke lacrosse players topped the headlines last year, black women students at Vanderbilt were quoted in the national media about recurring sexual harassment from white men on campus, who seemed to assume they were sexually available because they were black.

In this persistent context, black women have sometimes reacted by moving to the opposite extreme—denying their own sexuality.

And yet reactive sexual conservatism within the African American community has also weighed heavily on young black women.

For some of them, the unrestrained sexuality of hip-hop, though it is deeply poisonous in its own way, can be a sort of antidote to repression. “Hip-hop says it’s okay to be sexual,” says Sharpley-Whiting. “Celebrate your black ‘womanness.’ ”

Rapper/actor David Banner complains about critics who don’t put their money where their mouths are.

He points out that artists are ultimately at the mercy of the music business. “Record companies find one type of music that sells, and they don’t do anything else.”

As for damaging effects of misogyny in hip-hop, he says, “America’s the most misogynistic place in the world.

"If we want to talk about misogyny, let’s talk about the beer companies putting women in bikinis to sell their product. People are blaming America’s misogyny on young black men.”

He argues that the violence and sexism of hip-hop are being judged by a hypocritical and racist standard.

“Everything that America crucifies young black men for is what America was built on—slavery, murder, misogyny. This is America’s problem.”

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting doesn’t disagree.

“The misogynistic aspects of hip-hop are pervasive in American culture,” she says.

“The idea that women today would rather starve themselves than eat in order to conform to a certain idea around beauty is just as damaging for me when I see it as some guy in a rap song saying ‘bitch, ho.’ I find it just as troubling.”

And she agrees with David Banner that black men are judged hypocritically, pointing out that their negative behavior is always treated as if it’s “the dirtiest of the dirty.”

Indeed, the frankness of hip-hop is apparently too much for the wider, whiter culture even when it’s attached to an intellectual critique: the title of her book shut her out of book signings at suburban bookstores.