Gender Stereotypes In Rap Music

Women always face a strong challenge from hip-pop culture and male rappers. Men’s dominant position is very obvious in rap music in the early time of hip-hop music. In rap music, women always have a negative or derogatory image. Many rap music uses aggressive and abusive words to aim at women. In misogynistic songs, rappers often use “bitch” or “ho” to refer to a woman and describe her as a distrust figure (par. 12). Scholars have provides some reasons for the appearance of misogyny in rap music. For example, some experts have claimed that the surrounding environment has an influence on rap music, which will reflect rap artists’ attitudes towards women and that male rappers are often influenced by their personal prejudices against women. Other
Otherwise, there are many prominent female rappers playing a role of independent woman, to protest against the misogyny in rap music. For example, Yo-Yo, whose original name is Yolanda Whitaker, is an American female rapper. Her famous singles includes “You Can’t Play with My Yo-Yo”, “Black Pearl”, “West Side story” and “One for the Cuties”. She contributes to maintaining female rights and criticizing the hip-hop music with sexism (par. 1). In 1990, Ice Cube invited Yo-Yo as a guest on their album called AmeriKKKa's Most Wantedalb. In 1992, she published her own album “Black Pearl”, which received good comments from critics as a result of positive information and exciting themes. At that time, her album “Black Pearl” is completely different from the popular rap style which called gangsta rap style. However, her album didn’t have a big effect on mainstream hip-hop audiences and didn’t attract too many purchasers (par. 3). After three years, because of her rap “I Wanna Be Down”, she gained a MTV Video Music Reward nomination for best rap video. In addition, Salt-N-Pepa, Eve, Missy Elliott and Beyonce are representatives of women who oppose gender discrimination in the rap