Jinete_AB Midterm

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Lauren Jinete

Dr. Pabon

Gender & Sexuality in Hip Hop

12 March 2018

Annotated Bibliography for Hip Hop Feminism Wikipedia Page

 

Creese, Gillian. Growing Up Where ‘No One Looked Like Me’: Gender, Race, Hip Hop and Identity in Vancouver.” Gender Issues, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2015, pp. 201-219.

This piece observed the stage of adolescence within a group of girls from Vancouver, and how popular images of Hip Hop become impressionable at this age, and in turn become influencers to young girls of what hip hop expects out of them. These girls face stereotypes of black women in the media with depictions of ‘white’ standards of beauty, as well as the misogynistic nature of hip hop culture. Overall, this piece highlights the prevalence of popular media and culture in the daily lives of young impressionable girls, and how they then define their own identity based on these factors. This study of young Black city girls is approached from a feminist point of view. This piece answers the question of what it’s like to grow up as a young Black girl viewing your future based on marketing and media depictions of Black women, and observes how self is identified in these girls. This piece was found useful as a component of defining hip hop feminism on Wikipedia because it noted the effects that commercialization of popular culture has on adolescents, and how these girls then interpret themselves in position to hip hop culture. Hip hop feminism believes that girls need better role models, a better understanding of gender dynamics, and a better understanding of their body and space in hip hop, and how much room they are given versus how much room they are able to take up.

 

Durham, Aisha, C. Cooper, Brittney, and M. Morris, Susana. “The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built: A New Directions Essay”. Signs, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2013, pp. 721-737.

The authors brief us on how female artists like Lauryn Hill have contributed to constructing a feminist agenda in hip hop culture. They mention modern day hip hop artists that perform their identity in a way that resonates with hip hop feminism, such as Frank Ocean and Nicki Minaj. Mentioning these artists relationship with their queer sexuality and feminist thought and action ties them to the hip hop feminist movement almost directly. These famous artists are cultivating and sending messages to the youth and to the fans about how they create and claim spaces in the hip hop industry to express sexuality and femininity in unconventional ways. This piece highlights the importance of accounting for multiple narratives and experiences of women. The authors acknowledge how being politically conscious is a way that many women and queer people perform gender and identity. The central argument aims to clarify the intentions of hip hop feminist work, and how it coincides with the movements of modern day hip hop artists who are working against the misogynistic nature of hip hop. This piece bears relevance to the definition of hip hop feminism because it lays out the intentions of the movement, and identifies how the movement finds a place in popular culture and modern day culture.

 

White, Theresa Renee. “Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott and Nicki Minaj: Fashionistin’ Black Female Sexuality in Hip-Hop Culture—Girl Power or Overpowered?” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6, 2013, pp. 607-626.

White frames the presence of female sexuality in the context of famous female hip hop artists, Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott by looking at characteristics of these women’s style choices, fashion and overall appearance. The argument at hand is how can women successfully claim spaces and own their bodies in a misogynistic industry. Both of these female artists claim their sexuality in their own opposite and unique ways, and become empowered by doing so. Missy sort of detaches herself from any sexualization, while Nicki expresses her sexuality through her clothes and fashion. Overall, White aims to stir up discussion around the idea of women embracing their sexuality in their own way as a means of ownership of space and body. Importantly, observing how these women utilize image, fashion, and identity to express and embrace sexuality solidifies the idea of hip hop being an engagement of fashion, music, and art. These female artists are creating spaces for fans to replicate similar feminist projections of self and identity. This piece resonates with defining hip hop feminism on the Wikipedia page because it offers examples of female hip hop artists that, whether intentional or not, express feminist ideals such as empowerment and body ownership. This goes to show how women are not afraid to challenge a misogynistic structure through their fashion and sexual identity.

 

Creating and Claiming Spaces for Women in Hip Hop

 

When deciding what to contribute to the Hip Hop Feminism page on Wikipedia, I deliberately decided to focus on the topic of creating and claiming spaces in Hip Hop. Particularly, how women and queer people create and claim space in a popular culture that often times overlooks their contributions. I aimed to research the most truthful elements of hip hop and where it intersects with feminism. I found that truth resonated in how oppressed people, such as women and queers, self-identified and performed their truth, how they identified with their bodies in a political and sexual way, and importantly how empowerment was derived from these expressions of self. I found that all three of my sources found common ground in relevance to self-expression, and claiming space. Combining these three sources gave an insightful perspective to the intersections of women of color in all class categories- from successful female rappers to young girls in the city. I hope that collaborating these three pieces together creates a valid narrative to define hip hop feminism, and how it is a platform for women and queer people to, on their own terms, cultivate identity in spaced they have claimed as their own. Sexuality is a subjective factor in expression of women’s identity because of the popular culture display of women’s sexuality. In these efforts to own sexuality, identity, and self in spaces designated to that, is a superior goal of the feminist movement. The experiences and expressions observed in the three above sources solidifies an understanding of how the hip hop feminist movement is working alongside modern movements in hip hop. These efforts and experiences add up to dispel the narrative of misogyny in hip hop, and bring to light the ideals of hip hop feminism. We see both the efforts of popular hip hop artists as well as hip hop feminists, making the spaces for women bigger and wider. I find that Creese’s piece ties together well with White’s in the sense that the complement each other. Creese’s piece observes the effects of commercialization of women in hip hop, while White’s piece observes the flip side- the female artists who participate in the industry. Though White gives us examples of proactive women in the industry. Female artists who work against the commercialization of Black women and gain empowerment through the use of their bodies and spaces around them by expressing sexuality in their own personal way. The piece by Durham, Cooper, and Morris complements White and Creese’s by creating the platform for feminist thought and action, and by showing how hip hop artists self-expression heavily resonates with the hip hop feminist agenda. I hope that these three pieces create a coherent narrative around what it means for women and queer people to claim space and body ownership, and how this is a significant element in the hip hop feminist platform for rejecting popular images of women based on misogyny and oversexualization. Overall, I find that these three sources accurately provide a place to start when discussing spaces and bodies of women in hip hop culture and feminism.