Music & Sexuality

3 Pages 834 Words

Rock and Sexuality
24, 34, 46, good and thick, and once you get it she’ll work wit it.
Put a face and some cute lips, earring and a tongue and she’ll know what to do wit it / Make a name for herself, and she do her shit well, and know how to keep her business to herself / Come over anytime a nigga call chick, 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, ding dong, and she right there / And she know why she came here and she know where her clothes suppose to be (off and over there)
(Petey Pablo, “Freek-A-Leek”, lines 1-5)
And so the story goes - Sexism in popular music is alive and well! Simon Firth contends “punks opened the possibility that rock could be against sexism” (83), but he apparently gave that genre too much credit. Popular music, as a form of expression, has only gotten worse in its objectification of women.
The most overused definition of sexism is “discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women”, but the most blatant forms of sexism are really comprised of “attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender” (“Sexism”). Sexism has long been a part of the music world, but it seems the majority of us didn’t take notice until Rap music burst onto the scene. Some Rap music actually takes sexism to whole new level – “misogyny” or the hatred of women (“Misogyny”).
The Rap genre is the most often criticized form for its treatment of women, but this is because it lends itself to having lyrics easily distinguished, whereas the lyrics in a classic rock & roll song are drowned out in the beat of the drums, the screech of the electric guitar, or just the singer’s delivery. Long before Rap music was enveloping America, Mick Jagger was singing,
The way she does just what she’s told
Down to me, the change has come
She’s under my thumb
She’s the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world
(“Under My Thumb”, 15-22)
It’s likely...