Kanye West's Monster Misogyny

[seabeyond]

I really wish I hadn't seen Kanye West's leaked music video for his hit song Monster. I was horrified, furious, livid, angry, and sad; I actually didn't even get through the whole video the first time I saw it. The sexualized, eroticized, fetishized violence against women and sexist and racist stereotypes is nothing other then blatant misogyny and anyone who thinks otherwise clearly doesn't understand what misogyny means

this video was a couple years ago. more, i love this young woman. looking awfully good for being a part of and speaking out in the radfem, 2nd wave manner. feminists need to get beyond thinking our young feminist do not recognize the sexist and misogyny that is happening in THEIR world today. and that they are not speaking out. they are speaking out. and their voice should be heard.

[cwydro]

1. I see a lot of misogyny in rap music.

I actually like rap music, including Eminem, but he had horrid songs about women.

Many men hate women...it's a sad fact.

[seabeyond]

2. i LOVE rap. i love beat and rythym. i can never hear the words and willingly

make up my own words as i dance and sing.

rap has always done it for me.

my boys listen to the words. i would be getting off on a song and they would tell me what it was saying

sigh... man, just wrong. lol

[seabeyond]

3. i was sitting in a convenient store and a truck pulls up with a white guy. rap blaring.

my son just got out the car to walk in. repetitive, nigga and mama a ho and gonna fuck your mama.

i looked at son, and then thought, he is older, he can handle and put it in its place. the young white man with his rap about nigga and mama being a ho left the truck running, the windows open, the music booming as he went into the store.

i look at the car next to me and there was a young black woman, with her older mom, and two girls 4, 6 ish.... in the back seat. i am watching them as i am listening to nigga, mama a ho, gonna fuck mama.... think

how totally fucked up is that.

how totally.... fucked up.... is that.

i would have been so pissed if that was my kids and my mom

i was so pissed.

i have to wonder about this....

[cwydro]

4. I don't understand why there is not more of a backlash

from black women...I don't get it.

[redqueen]

5. Same reason there's not much backlash from any other kind of woman.

We grow up hearing it's just the way things are.

[cwydro]

7. yeah, you have a point there

but I think if black women objected, it would have more of an impact.

[Number23]

14. Black women have been objecting for years

I'm not sure how you could have missed that.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-04-23-spelman-protest-rappers_x.htm
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/02/five_things_hip-hop_sites_can_learn_about_sexual_violence.html
http://www.zcommunications.org/hip-hop-and-rsquo-s-betrayal-of-black-women-by-jennifer-mclune
http://www.nysun.com/on-the-town/essence-defies-hip-hop-stereotypes/7604/

And that's just with a quick search.

[cwydro]

15. Well I've missed it

Thank you for the info

[seabeyond]

17. ah number 23

that is so very ugly and sad.

lol

depressing. and yea for the people speaking out. i believe it was the third article. that was so very good.

thank you for this.

[MadrasT]

18. Thank you Number23! n/t

[Number23]

19. You're very welcome!

It was a bit distressing to see the conversation turn to "why aren't black women saying anything" when I knew that wasn't the case. Everyone in this forum is intimately aware that the voices of women are often overlooked, and if you have melanin on top of that, that makes you even more invisible.

[redqueen]

21. Well said.

When I referred to the same apparent lack of response from other women, I was referring to the marginalization of those "radical" few who actually do speak out.

There are always women speaking against these things. Sadly its in numbers small enough to be ignored.

[seabeyond]

8. ya. that is my feel. nt

[sufrommich]

6. There was some backlash some years ago,

but I haven't seen any in awhile. I don't think the misogyny in rap music is aimed toward black women only though, it seems to be women in general to me.

[cwydro]

9. Oh no, I agree

It is not directed at black women only, but the "bitches, hos" thing seems to be rampant in black culture...and I don't think whites can change that. That will have to come from within.

There is plenty of misogyny in white culture too; it all disgusts me.

[redqueen]

10. I remember as a kid, listening to music

from the 50's, 60's and 70's, and wondering WTF.

Lightning is striking again, I'm a wanderer, etc. There are countless examples of this idea of women as disposable objects to be used.

By the time I was a teen, I'd accepted it. Just the way things are.


Edit to add, in the 90's, when I heard songs like short dick man, push it, etc, I embraced the backlash wholeheartedly.

[MadrasT]

11. I hear a show on the radio on NPR

Talking about a documentary about the AIDS epidemic in the black community.

The man being interviewed (Robert Fullilove) said this about why AIDS and STDs are so prevalent in that community:

The film also explores how the war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s affected the spread of HIV in communities where large percentages of African-American men were incarcerated.

"A large number of marriageable men were taken out of the community," Fullilove says. "When you have this kind of population imbalance, many of the rules that govern mating behavior in the community are simply going to go out the window. The competition for a man becomes so extreme ... all of the prevention measures [like condom usage] that we've been trying to create over the last 30 years go out the window."

He was saying that black men don't want to use condoms, and so if a black woman wants a man, she will have more success if she agrees to sex without condoms. Thus the spread of STDs.

I wonder if the "competition for a man" affects their willingness to speak out against this?

Here is a link to the show: AIDS in Black America: A Public Health Crisis

[seabeyond]

12. good point. reminds me of a conversation with a friend

an older black woman, 54 and the lack of men in her community to date. it was interesting. when talking to her, and i said something like, i would not put up with that sheeeit, she looked me in the eye and said

our community is different from yours.

pulled me up short, right quick. we do not live i the same world.

[Number23]

13. Howdy, sea

Having never seen the video before I checked it out and it's sad, disturbing and really fucking stupid all at the same time.

I do think that the young woman in the video raises some really good points. There is no question that the video is misogynistic. But she loses me with the racism angle. Many black women are portrayed as victims (the scene with the black woman on the table not moving and the man coming and closing the door while holding a chainsaw in his hand is easily the most disturbing scene in the video to me) so her contention that they are all portrayed as "animalistic demons" doesn't hold any water. It's two white women that appear to be eating a man's corpse so they get their fair share of animalistic portrayals as well.

Bottom line is, Kanye West is a middle class dude trying to do something that will keep his name in the papers. This is the best his tired little brain could come up with. It is sexist, it is horrible. But most disturbing to me, for someone who considers himself an "artist" there is nothing creative or even imaginative about this video. This is the Age of Twilight, after all. And apparently vampires, monsters, zombies and the undead are all the rage. He's just riding a wave that he didn't even have the creativity to start himself. Definitely an F effort.

[seabeyond]

16. hey 23.

honestly, i didnt watch the video. i am so tired of the garbage all the time. she said dont need to watch, i didnt.

my thing was the convenient store experience. that happened a year ago. and i still think about that. i sat next to a car with a couple little girls, listening to this garbage. having a conversation back and forth with myself.

i see you left some links. i am going to read that.

you have a couple little ones. how would you address it in that situation.

[Number23]

20. Hip hop is very much a cultural thing

There are as many different types of hip hop as there are different types of jazz music.

I am a HUGE hip hop fan and have been since I was a teenager. Unfortunately, I am stuck in the late 80's, early 90s when it comes to the music and probably couldn't even name you very many hip hop artists that are out right now. I am very familiar with Kanye West, not so much with Nicki Minaj but I have to say that she is an extremely pretty girl. My God, her skin is just magnificent.

I hope that hip hop becomes a huge part of my children's lives. It is a wildly creative and inventive black musical art form that is emulated and respected the world over. Yes, there are some really ugly components to it (and always have been) but just as there are some hideously ugly books, paintings, poems etc., I would never deny books and paintings to my children. I have no intention of doing the same with hip hop.

But yeah, I probably would have shot the @sshole blaring the music a couple of really nasty looks.

[seabeyond]

22. "But yeah," .... lmao, thank you. it is a balance and age appropriateness.

as i have said in other posts, i do like rap. i do not pay attention (not sure the difference between hip hop and rap, i just like music) to the words and i can hardly pick out the words when they are sung, i make up my own, as i let the music in and feel it. that is really what music is for me. my sons listen and sit there. i ask, how can you NOT move.... i do not get that. i have asked son for the artist that are not misogynistic, but he was not able to give me any. we spent time, a couple three four days, going thru different music. his period of music. he was finding things he thinks i would like.

i really feel that black women are marginalized to such an extent. yes, it is an issue that women talk about. but, i strongly feel it with black women. i just have to say.

i read the articles you gave us. they left such an impact for me in what is happening in their community, both the positive and not so positive. but.... ya know. lol. anyway. i appreciate what you gave us. thank you. i am going to more actively look at the music. if it was blues or reggea, my husband would be all over it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12557525