Why do we sit back and allow the misogyny that saturates almost every existing form of media we have to seep in and infiltrate our minds with bullshit theories about male hegemony and female objectification.
It's a topic that pisses me off so much, I lose the ability to express my sentiments in a truly coherent way so excuse the probable lack of eloquence here but the shit just pisses me the hell off!! I am totally sick of it and I am yearning to see a change in these attitudes.
Let's start with the rap music. Siting some insight from an article regarding misogyny in rap music (http://www.uga.edu/~womanist/rhym2.1.htm) - it got me thinking about this, I mean big time. What is it with mainstream and gangsta rappers anyway? Things may have toned down quite sufficiently since the days of NWA but man, it doesn't mean the war is over. The most overt versions of it come in the form of a video pitch, story line - opening sequence: rapper climbs out of Rolls Royce Phantom in slow motion, sequence two: rapper pops crystal, tosses money etc etc blah blah bullshit nevertheless. And in between all the exhibitionist bravado and "Look at me I'm rich" we've got the 'hoes' climbing all over the guy, pulling faces to the camera, scantily clad and dancing a little too suggestively.
I refuse to be apologetic in my stance and I remain objective. It seems necessary to perpetuate in this fashion of portraying women in an overtly sexualized manner, women are there to be used as instruments to convey a man's social ranking, objects upon which a man's pleasure princiople is projected and not subjects, humans with utilitarian intellects.
Now, I want to delve deeper. Is the portrayal of women in such a hypersexualized light a form of evoke forth some kind of suppressed male fantasy in which women submit to sexual servitude, admire and thus validate a very thirsty ego. Made dry by the notion of being born into the world a lesser member of society, a second class citizen, by default a member of an underclass. Could it be that all of this is simply a machismo attempt to fill the torn gaps in the black man's self image brought about by a half-life of deprivation poverty and uh...female rejection. Are these sad little boys just mad at the fact that there was a time that their broke asses couldn't get "play".
The roots of misogyny are mysterious nonetheless. But simply because it is a phenomenon that can not be easily understood because of its very complex psychological implications, I stand firm in my annoyance at the prominence it carries in the mainstream media.
I just wish these video chicks could go out and delve into some feminist literatue. Perhaps then they'll realise how foolish they are, how they're acquiescence is the reason misogyny 'aint going no fucking where, how men will continue use their presence to justify the notion that women are brainless hoes out to get your money, how women will continue to be underrepresented in politics and science because the next generation of females is being conditioned into these submissive roles, how women will continue to be seen as sexual objects and not what they really are.
I know this because women are often only categorized into two subdivisions according to whether or not they are ready to willingly submit sexually i.e. 'available' or 'unavailable' and the synonyms are numerous of course. If you happen to be streamlined into the latter division, guess what, you're a bitch. Ego-shutdown if I ever saw it. It all boils down to the ego honey!
Something else that gets me irate. Your skills are overlooked in the consideration of your credibility for a particular job because if your employer is a male, the ma'f***er is more than likely going to hire you by some subconscious or conscious evaluation of your looks.
Just evaluating the situation, referencing real life examples of it and trying to keep my perspective objective is maddening. I am DISGUSTED by the way the media takes light of such issues as violence against women, sexual assault when these incidents happen to be one of the biggest killers of my sisters all over the world. Sisters are dying yet movies, television and music will continue to defame our integrity, reduce us to nothing more than a degraded biological underclass. On the topic of death, there's the AIDS. Women that are unwillingly infected through cultural subjugation, rape and sexual assault. It's a tragedy. You know, Eazy E died of AIDS after all his boasting bout the women he'd been with - his life terminated with immense shame. That's when I get scared, that's when things really start to disturb me. How sick have we become. That we glorify the same attitudes that are unecessarily killing lives daily. We protest against violence against women but when a rapper talks bout pimpin' and beatin' the sh*t out of his hoes, we buy the record. Women still continue to be objectified from the most explicit to the most subtle of ways. Even simply aacknowldeging to the statement that women are the weaker sex is chauvinism. A state of euqality needs to be affirmed. Contrasts are poison. If enough people get up and take a stand, things can transform. But that's all just wishful thinking. Within a scoiety that is anti-intellectual and sometimes just so stubbornely traditional about gender roles that this whole shit about times are changing is crap, preaching this kind of message is just talking to a mass of unthinking zombies lulled into passivity by the beelzebub of mainstream media.
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