Abstract
Unexamined until now, Oware focuses on 170+ popular female emcees’ songs from 2005 to 2015. Paralleling men, women rappers also express misogynistic and violent lyrics in their music. However, Oware contends that women artists espouse a hip hop feminist approach, presenting their sexual needs and desires in their music and challenging the sexism of their male counterparts. This orientation subverts traditional gender norms regulating expressions of sexuality and propriety by women. Yet, Oware suggests women’s agency may simultaneously undercut and perpetuate the view of them as sex objects for male enjoyment. Hence, some feminist messages of empowerment and sexual liberation possibly reinforce stereotypical, caricatured, and overly sexualized images of women as a group.
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Oware, M. (2018). Bad Bitches?. In: I Got Something to Say. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90454-2_4
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