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.

Russell brand just got blasted for talking about it but what he said was right.... they’re acting empowered but through a male gaze. Like “I am so empowered coz I’m a slag and I can twerk.” Wouldn’t it be more empowering to see more lesbians in the mainstream? Hairy armpits? Saggy boobs? Not this shite.

Anyway. Did anyone else think when they saw the title of this song in the endless media articles about it that it was a bit weird to be singing about Wireless Access Protocol-enabled phones in this day and age? Just me?

Russell Brand is right.

It's bizarre for anyone to claim that this is anything other than somebody selling a commodity. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with selling a commodity, it's just inaccurate to claim that this is anything more.

Just you deacon

Anyway. Did anyone else think when they saw the title of this song in the endless media articles about it that it was a bit weird to be singing about Wireless Access Protocol-enabled phones in this day and age? Just me?

Lol, no, I thought exactly the same!

Wireless Access Protocol-enabled phones in this day and age? Just me?

No - I was also confused - more so because I was only vaguely aware that 'WAP' is some techy thing that I hadn't heard for a while.

It's not 'empowering' it's Stockhausen syndrome.

I agree with RB. This is nothing more than a commodity, sexing up to sell music. As he says, the feelings he gets from watching this video are not too dissimilar to the feelings he gets when watching porn.
I’m not offended by the song per se, but the message that sex will get a man to buy you things is 1950s bullshit. Have we really not advanced further as women?
Be more Beyonce, I’ll be telling my kids.

The shoes on my feet, I've bought it
The clothes I'm wearing, I've bought it
The rock I'm rockin', I've bought it
'Cause I depend on me if I want it
The watch I'm wearin', I've bought it
The house I live in, I've bought it
The car I'm driving, I've bought it
I depend on me, I depend on me

If I recall correctly, Cardi B used to be a stripper............

@Imnobody4

It's not 'empowering' it's Stockhausen syndrome.

"Stockhausen Syndrome: Falling in love with avant-garde music."

Not what springs to mind when I think of avant-garde music, but I suppose I can see it...

Deacon same here!

As for the song, yes as many pp have said, if you're saying you're empowered to take your kit off and gag and choke it's toxic misogynistic shite isn't it? Buying into your own sexual degradation. And it's actually dangerous to other women. Women are DYING as a consequence of violent sex. If you contribute to that, glamourise it, you are a danger to others.

Singing about making a bloke gag with a dildo and him loving it would be the female sexual equivalent, not this (not that I recommend that line of lyric either).

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.

Absolutely.

I think the 'empowering, this celebrates sexuality' gloss is the problem.

It's pretty sexist to see women being sexual as a replication or submission to men. If women like a bit of filth they must be pandering to men? Or maybe they are also equally sexual beings who have their own sexual agency? Why are women always deemed as pandering to males if they sexualised themselves? Women can be sexual just because they enjoy it, they enjoy sex, they enjoy being sexual... It's fine for men, but if a woman does it they are lowering themselves. Hah.

The background to the song is “there’s some hoes in this house”. Nope this isn’t feminist . What , so women who like sex are “hoes” now? It’s just the same old dull, dull sexism and objectification. It’s boring.

Women caring themselves hoes is the same as black men calling themselves N words, butch lesbian calling themselves dyke. They are reclaimed in that sense and don't have the same negative connotation.

Feminism is now doing exactly what men want you to do but pretending it’s your choice.

Do you not see that this statement implies NO woman could ever want what is described in the lryics without being a slave to the patriarchy? Pretty big claim

If women like a bit of filth they must be pandering to men?

Have you heard the lyrics?

"I wanna gag, I wanna choke"

Have you noticed the news recently?

This is not equal.

If you want to say its just a pop song that isn't trying to make any kind of point, fine. Just please don't pretend that it promotes equality.

I wanna gag, I wanna choke

I have the song on my Spotify, of course I've heard it. Some women enjoy that and it's not up to you to tell them they shouldn't or shame them for it.

So the only way women can be equal is to... Not be into anything kinky because its all for men? That doesn't sound a bit sexist to you?

I have the song on my Spotify, of course I've heard it.

Expect you enjoyed the video too.

Sorry, I must have missed something - where are the pop songs about men choking? Where are the Guardian think pieces about men being empowered by choking? Where are the court cases where women use 'rough sex' as a defence for murder.

Expect you enjoyed the video too.

The video isn't bad? They are clothed and doing some sexual dancing... That's it.

I was at a friend's house last night and she showed me this video asking whether I agreed with her that it's empowering/sexually liberating for women.

3 seconds into watching it:
Me: "What are they saying? There's some whores in this house?"
Her: "...er...yeah"

I don’t know if I’m empowered.

I’ll go check with a man.

To be clear, I can't get that excited about Cardi B singing about how much she enjoys being choked. I don't think that in itself will make much difference to anything.

My problem is the claim that she is somehow empowering other women.

Also when analysing whether they are handmaids submitting to the patriarchy remember to take into account their race. Black women's sexuality has always been defined/interpreted and judged by the dominant culture

I did consider the issue of hypersexualisation of black women.

Is this video putting 2 fingers up to that trope and saying "this is what we, 2 black women choose to do and we don't care what you think" or is it just pandering to and reinforcing the trope of the hyper-sexualised black women?