In this chapter, women in hip hop are categorized into 4 main categories, Queen Mothers, Fly Girls, Sistas with Attitude, and The Lesbians. Some of these categories relate more to what we have discussed in lecture and to the music scene at the time they were made, but they are all important to the past and present roles of women in hip hop. Some of the categories rely heavily on the sexuality of women, such as the Fly Girl, Sista with Attitude, and Lesbian categories, while others were more focused on their intelligence, such as the Queen Mother category. Categorizing women based on their sex lives and objectification seems fitting for how women have been treated in music, but it is incredibly disrespectful to them. Unfortunately, the categorization of women rappers due to their sexuality is often still done today. The categories are definitely less defined as they used to be, as many rappers bounce between categories; however, the categorization of women based on their appearance is still prominent.
Queen Mothers are women “rappers who view themselves as African-centered icons, which is often evoked by their dress” (Keyes 189). Women in this category were often seen as intellectual and cultural. This category became prominent
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This category was popularized in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The women of this category were often seen as “bitches” and even embraced this term themselves in some of their songs such as in Roxanne Shante’s “Bitch is Back.” This category is useful when trying to understand women’s roles in hip hop at the time, as women were often seen as “bitches” if they were unwilling to be sexually active with someone and “hoes” when they were overly sexual (Orejuela 150). This category puts women into a hard category of being labeled as “bitches,” which is disrespectful to women, even if some of them embraced the