The Word ‘Bitch’
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
The Word ‘Bitch’
I really felt I had to address this issue.
As someone that listens to rap music, I often feel pretty disappointed at the way women are portrayed in hip-hop.
I have a mum, I have a sister, I have a wife and I have a daughter.
At no point would I ever like any of those women in my life to be referred to as ‘bitch’.
Most rappers have wives/girlfriends, sisters and definitely mothers. Yet they see it reasonable to refer to women as a bitch.
What got me stirred up was Jay-z’s rumoured statement that since his daughter had been born, he would cease to use the word in his lyrics.
This was then discovered to be a false claim.
The Word ‘Bitch’
However, it got me thinking, how can he or any rapper comfortably refer to the important women in their lives as bitches?
More importantly, how can a strong woman like his wife Beyonce, allow him to get away with that? I know my wife wouldn’t have even considered being with me if that was my regular confession over her!
Yet these rappers daily disprespect women with these low terms.
What is worse is that women who listen to hip-hop have not only come to accept this but seem to idolise the rappers that call them that.
Recently, Kanye West released a feed of comments on his twitter regarding the word ‘Bitch’.
In this feed he asks the question is it okay for a man to call a woman ‘bitch’ even if it is endearing? My question is, how can that term ever be endearing?
His feed goes on for a while discussing the issue, then the feed ends with this video:
Lupe Fiasco has addressed the issue in a great way in this video. When I saw it I felt really excited that somebody was finally standing up in hip-hop and challenging something that has become a cultural norm.
My hope is that this video stirs something in hip-hop and causes people to stop and think about the use of the word ‘bitch’ to refer to women.
To me this should never be an acceptable term. I will never call my wife a bitch, I will never call my mum a bitch and I would never call my daughter a bitch. That term will never become acceptable to me.
