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Hip Hop Feminist Analysis

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Black women theorists and writers created the studies of Hip Hop feminism because Black feminism did not include the hip-hop generation. Joan Morgan, who started as a hip-hop journalist when there was ‘no’ such thing as a ‘hip-hop journalist,’ coined the term in her influential works: "When Chicken Heads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down” and “fuckin’ with the grays” (1999). She started her career as a journalist writing about trials, such as the Central Park jogger case and the Mike Tyson trial (Carpenter & Morgan, 2006). After writing about music, which she originally did not have interest in and would avoid, she realized it “could be a way for [her] to write about the experiences of [her] generation” (Carpenter & Morgan, …show more content…

Media literacy, the ability to critically engage with media through processes of deconstruction or contextualization, is critical within hip hop feminist studies (Durham, 2010). Media studies if inefficient in this context, for Black women and girls are not centered in media studies, and this warrants a ‘hip hop feminist media studies’ to develop this framework (Durham, 2010). Representation of women and girls is a common theme and takes the form of both underrepresentation and overrepresentation (Durham, 2010). The female body is overrepresented as the media exploits it through sexual objectification. Many mainstream music videos and rap lyrics portray Black women as oversexualized and objectified in the form of referring to them as ‘bitches’ or them being scantily dressed. Durham highlights the importance of three concepts to include in a hip-hop feminist media studies, which includes awareness, analysis, and …show more content…

The contributions and experiences of ‘homegirls’ as well as the experiences of the group characterize the hip-hop generation. Furthermore, an essential part of the hip-hop generation is the appropriation of Black youth culture. It is a new form of racism in the sense that many White people, notably White college age males, appropriate the culture, by listening to the music and adopting the style meanwhile ignoring or discrediting the people who created it. There is an ‘illusion of inclusion’ in the sense that people accept and like the culture, but do not aid in the fight against discrimination and instead use it as a fashion (Lindsey, 2015). Also, to be aware is to connect the past with the present and view media within a historical context and question who is included and who is not within the narrative. For example, queer and feminist rap music is underrepresented in the

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