Can someone help me understand how these lyrics are being seen as female empowerment?

[QuentinQuarantino]

WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Lyrics.

The video, predictably, is surgically enhanced T&A with celebrity cameos providing additional surgically enhanced T&A.

It's being lauded as celebratory of female sexuality and empowerment by lib fems such as Lena Dunham.

I am only(?) 40 and don't consider myself an old fart by any means but I just can't accept that this song (lyrics and video) is anything other than women perpetuating a toxic male view of women as nothing more than receptacles for their dicks.

Hypersexualised, pornified, emphasis on attaining material goods based on how well you perform sex acts.

I know, I know I can just ignore and not be affected but I've always been a huge fan of pop music and seeing this shit so mainstream is just depressing. And as a mother of a daughter it makes me feel queasy.

As a neo-punk fan who listens almost exclusively to new releases, moral relativism can get to fuck.

I'll judge this song as I see fit. It's shit. The song is crap, and the lyrics are regressive. Plenty of 2020 new releases not either, across all genres. Strangely, they don't get the attention this song has.

@AlbusSirius

Yes, I worry for my sons that this is expected from them.

But I worry a heck of a lot more for my daughter, that it's expected of her, to be the one who will be hurt, choked, tied up and spat on. And then expected to loudly proclaim her enjoyment .

Yep

CheeryTreeBlossom

"To clarify I worry for my daughter not because I fear Cardi B would be bad a role model for her.

I fear her growing up in a misogynistic society where a women saying she wants to choke on a guy's dick is considered empowering, and women who don't go along with being choked and basically sex objects for men are accused of kink-shaming (see attached image in my previous post) or being prudes."

I want to give this a 👌👍.

I have to say though that I don't think any of these performers (Cardi B, MTS etc) are powerless in their situations. They're making millions knowing that they're exploiting young girls and they're happy with that. While I appreciate that the bigger fight is with the men who control the industry, I think to try to completely remove all awareness and culpability from women who willingly participate to earn fame/money is misguided.

@QuentinQuarantino

CheeryTreeBlossom

"To clarify I worry for my daughter not because I fear Cardi B would be bad a role model for her.

I fear her growing up in a misogynistic society where a women saying she wants to choke on a guy's dick is considered empowering, and women who don't go along with being choked and basically sex objects for men are accused of kink-shaming (see attached image in my previous post) or being prudes."

I want to give this a 👌👍.

I have to say though that I don't think any of these performers (Cardi B, MTS etc) are powerless in their situations. They're making millions knowing that they're exploiting young girls and they're happy with that. While I appreciate that the bigger fight is with the men who control the industry, I think to try to completely remove all awareness and culpability from women who willingly participate to earn fame/money is misguided.

Amen.

Everything that has already been said. And it's a crap song for both of them. Cardi B is never going to be Mary Poppins but she usually churns out way better music than this.

Oh it's a fucking abysmal song. That we can all agree on!

I’m not sure if I’m putting an argument across for the song (I don’t like it) but just the frustration that it’s a woman who is being shamed for what men have done for decades. And being shamed from every angle.

The people who are trying to portray is as female empowerment are doing so because she’s doing exactly what men have done, and that’s all.
That’s still a big deal. We’re entitled to be equally crap!

I don’t understand the argument that this is what men have been doing to women for years.

This is not a woman calling out men degrading them, or mimicking them. It’s a woman validating men in their degradation by saying they enjoy what men do.

Wow, what a bar. Let's celebrate women objectifying themselves as well as men objectify us! For the bucks! And then let's call it female empowerment!

Inspiring.

I hate that style of music. I've no idea who Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are (I've vaguely heard of Cardi B but know nothing about her)

The music is just so awful I barely noticed the lyrics. I do hope the big cats were computer generated.

It is a shit song. I understand that the lyrics are about control and consent - I'm letting you gag me not because you want me to but because I do. My objection to it is just fits into too neatly with male fantasies.

Women - humans who invite men to gag them.

That's where mainstream discourse is at.

It's a fucking nightmare.

I have to say though that I don't think any of these performers (Cardi B, MTS etc) are powerless in their situations. They're making millions knowing that they're exploiting young girls and they're happy with that. While I appreciate that the bigger fight is with the men who control the industry, I think to try to completely remove all awareness and culpability from women who willingly participate to earn fame/money is misguided

This is one of my pet peeves on here- namely that women in the music have to go along with this; no choice if they want a career; must not say anything bad about them as it's not their fault; it's all down to the patriarchy; blah,blah blah.

I really dislike the term "handmaiden" but if it is to be used it's appropriate here. These women are rich, successful and have agency.

I don’t understand the argument that this is what men have been doing to women for years.

This is not a woman calling out men degrading them, or mimicking them. It’s a woman validating men in their degradation by saying they enjoy what men do.

Exactly. If this were women doing it too, Cardi B would be sitting on a throne in jeans and t-shirt, surrounded by well-oiled half naked black men.

@ContentiousOne

Women - humans who invite men to gag them.

That's where mainstream discourse is at.

It's a fucking nightmare.

I think that says more about your interpretation that you feel she is some kind of spokes person for women.

It’s drummed into us from Adam and Eve that we’re always going to be held to account. More culpable, more evil, more disgusting, more responsible.

Young women are getting the message from certain elements of the subculture that it’s way out of line and disrespectful when they’ve never objected to the tone from male rappers. While also getting the mainstream backlash of disgust at female sexuality because it doesn’t suit their agenda.

Thing is the lyrics aren't exactly a role reversal.
Some of them yes,
"This pussy is wet, come take a dive" is a parallel of a male rapper "this dick is hard, come take a ride" and I can see how you can argue for it to be considered empowering.

But there are lyrics which I can probably guarantee no male rapper would parallel
"Tie me up like I'm surprised"
"I wanna choke"
"Pay my tuition just to kiss this [] pussy"
"I don't cook, I don't clean
But let me tell you how I got this ring"

Here the woman is being subjugated and her body is bought by men, the same as a male rapper would sing. Tbf I don't listen to a huge amount of rap so if there are songs where men sing about women paying for their bodies and dominating them then I'll agree there's double standards.

I still won't like how pornified it all is. I'm sure when I was 8 and thought spice girl's "girl power" was the height of feminism the grown up feminists rolled their eyes at me. But I don't think it was as damaging to girls (and boys) as the current culture.

Yes women are entitled to use as crass language as men, I'm not saying they need to be nice to counteract the sexist attitudes. But reducing ourselves to crude sex objects in an attempt to reclaim our agency isn't going to liberate women from those attitudes.

I almost can't be bothered, but the comment about what woman is considered to be is less about someone's favourite singer, and more about the general state of discourse. As was stated.

Woman has been untethered from female. It's been tethered to 'feminine', with the feminine given a superficial update from 50's style misogyny to 21st C pornified misogyny.

This song and all its friends play into this by proclaiming it as empowerment.

God, how tedious to have to explain this.

I don’t think she is doing ‘what men have done’.
This would be the case if she sang about being given multiple orgasms, hours of cunnilingus and pleasures in every way.
She’s not - she’s talking about: choking on a dick - degrading
being spat on - degrading
having cum drip down her face - degrading

My ex had a porn addiction - he liked to choke me with his penis until saliva was dripping from my chin. He liked to see me in a humiliating position. It’s not pleasurable for the vast number of women who have it done to them.
Luckily I am out of that now and I can recognise this as abusive. If this had been my experience of sex from my teen years I am less certain I would think it was less than acceptable.

Sexism dressed up as sex positivity. Buying into a misogynistic culture. It’s awful. I’m old school. Feminism isn’t this.

Apparently being sexually humiliated is empowering if you kid yourself 'you chose it'.

@Spanielmadness

I don’t think she is doing ‘what men have done’. This would be the case if she sang about being given multiple orgasms, hours of cunnilingus and pleasures in every way. She’s not - she’s talking about: choking on a dick - degrading being spat on - degrading having cum drip down her face - degrading

My ex had a porn addiction - he liked to choke me with his penis until saliva was dripping from my chin. He liked to see me in a humiliating position. It’s not pleasurable for the vast number of women who have it done to them.
Luckily I am out of that now and I can recognise this as abusive. If this had been my experience of sex from my teen years I am less certain I would think it was less than acceptable.

Exactly. It's porn culture. And I hate these women for saying it's fun and enjoyable. They are the worst kind of handmaidens

The problem for me (apart from everything that has already been said) is that the women are still being done unto. The only difference is that they’re describing their own sexual subjugation rather than men describing it. But that is not the same thing as controlling the narrative.

I miss really good female sexual empowerment pop songs like early Madonna (‘keep on pushing my love over the borderline’ - one of the best songs about female orgasm ever), or ‘Justify My Love’ (I wanna hold your hand in Paris, I wanna kiss you in Rome, love me, that’s right, love me).

A truly empowering song about female desire would go something along the lines of: ‘ooh baby, could you set the dishwasher going and put the bins out, then finger me to climax while I’m lying on my side with one eye on Netflix? Once I’ve come you can stick it in as long as I don’t have to go on top or do any bending, (ad lib to fade...)’

Ha! I like that song idea.

I might have led a very sheltered life, but I was quite surprised to read (in Red magazine’s 12 ways to orgasm feature) of a mouth orgasm that seemed to be achievable by ‘deep throat’, aka gagging on a penis. I couldn’t work out whether it’s something I’ve somehow missed or just another way of getting women to give men what they’ve been porn-trained to want.

The latter.