(FINAL) Rap Lyrics, Broadcasting and the Objectification of Women

A couple weeks ago, pre-Virginia Tech tragedy and, presumably, during a lull in controversial new stories, Don Imus made a rude comment about the Rutgers' Women's Basketball Team. Because I'm certain that almost every person in America has heard about this story, I won't go into detail. Suffice to say, Don Imus made a racially and sexually offensive comment directed at a specific group of black women who had recently triumphed over hardship to play in the NCAA championship basketball game.

The comment was then broadcasted over all forms of possible media communication -- the radio, the internet, the television. Friends showed friends, the news repeated the story ad nauseum and we even spent an entire class at school discussing the issue. Don Imus is a radio personality that has been broadcasting every morning for the past twenty years on CBS radio. He has made derogatory comments directed towards specific races, genders and sexual preferences for years. It's no secret to anyone who is entertained by his show that he aims for a certain shock factor in order to gain an audience. He seems to have little to actually say, which has not been a problem previously since there is not exactly a huge audience listening to his show. So, why was this comment so widely blown up, up and away?

Rap singers, such as more recent stars Nelly and Akon, have been calling women "hos," "bitches," "sluts," "n*ppy-headed," and many, many more derogatory comments since they began their careers. Some may even say that without these terms, their careers wouldn't exist. As an example, the most popular rap song downloaded off of iTunes is "Give it to Me" (Timbaland ft. Nelly and Justin Timberlake). Both the men and women speak of women's promiscuity and sexual desire in explicit language. Women are sexual objects, as seen in numerous rap and hip-hop music videos where women are nude and gyrating on each other and men.

While I do not condone Don Imus' comments, I feel there is an unjust double-standard in our society. Black men can call all women "hos," but when a white man calls a black woman a "n*ppy-headed ho," it is absolutely inexcusable. Why are more women not outraged as the Rutgers' women were? If a statement like that is cause enough to fire a radio personality, it's cause enough to take rappers off the air.

Popular rap and hip-hop is much more widely available and publicized than Don Imus ever would have been had the media not grabbed the story and run with it. Children are exposed to sex, drugs and explicit language earlier than ever. If parents don't censor it, they can be seriously negatively influenced. As an article in the Harvard Political Review states, children are becoming desensitized to this type of language in a dangerous way. They are more likely to participate in violent acts and women are more likely to engage in promiscuous and demeaning relationships.

Do musicians not bear any responsibility as role models? Should women stand up for themselves as the Rutgers' women did? Have these terms simply infiltrated our vocabulary to the point of now being meaningless? If so, where is the line? And who determines where it is?

It's hard to determine if women have moved forward or backward since radical feminism of the 1970's. With a mother who participated actively, I have been raised with a strong sense of female self. I feel unaffected by rappers' comments and scantily clad female singers because I choose to ignore them. I don't relate to the music, so I don't feel the lyrics apply to me.

Unfortunately, young girls don't necessarily have the capability or guidance to analyze this for themselves. They are following a fad. In a journal article from Popular Music and Society, Melanie Lowe discusses the impact of Britney Spears' provocative performance on young girls. She states that moms raised in the '60s and '70s are rightly nervous about the direct correlation between image and audience. Young girls are clearly not decoding the image as one used to, but rather taking it at face value. (Article available here on USC's server).

Looking to the future, it is difficult to hypothesize where music trends will go. It is certainly true that digital media has and will continue to have a tremendous impact on the youth of America. It will make popular music much more easily accessible to young kids without necessarily the right parental supervision. Interestingly, though, an article on tolerance.org points out that rap and hip-hop have historically not been the only genres to denigrate women -- the Rolling Stones and Kid Rock have done it for years. Regardless of whether it has worsened, popular music has always had an element of female objectification. If history is any indication, it will certainly continue to.

For feminists and women alike, perhaps this common vernacular of derogatory comments toward women will begin to die out. Women could decide to take a stand or continue to passively ignore it. Either way through total attention or total lack thereof, the popularity of such vocabulary and treatment of women could fade into the background as simply another garish, laughable trend.

On the other hand, the next generation could have been so influenced by the media of today that they treat women as the singers portray them. Feminism could backslide rapidly. The overexposure of explicit videos and obscene lyrics could cause the younger generation, girls and boys alike, to deem this behavior normal.

The fact of the matter is that Don Imus should not have, under any circumstances, said what he did. However, for the media to react the way it did is unbelievably hypocritical given the content played on a daily basis. As Matt Taibbi of RollingStone.com put it, the Imus scandal was a media blitz -- designed to use one man as an example instead of looking to seriously revise content.

If we take Imus off the air, we should reprimand popular musicians as well. If you hold one person accountable, hold all persons accountable -- particularly those that have the most influence on the generations of tomorrow.