“I got 99 problems but a rather difficult and frustrating woman isn’t one of them.”
Reimagining Jay-Z’s lyrics without the word “bitch” is a ridiculous enterprise, one that fans relished when news emerged that the rapper would stop using the derogatory term following the birth of his daughter, Blue Ivy, earlier this month.
A poem initially attributed to the hip-hop mogul but later credited to blogger Renee Gardner announced that Jay-Z’s little bundle had brought on an epiphany about the slur: “I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it.”
The flap pitched feminists against misogynists and fans against fans, leaving cultural critics grappling over the current state of the b-word in Western culture: Who can use it, and how? Have women – including Jay-Z’s rabid female fans, women from all socio-economic backgrounds – reclaimed the term, or simply become habituated to it?
“Hip-hop culture is no longer an isolated subcategory of culture. It is American culture now, and so it’s a much larger question of how are women represented,” Samhita Mukhopadhyay said from Brooklyn.
The executive editor of Feministing.com has had trouble justifying her love for Jay-Z because of his lyrics: “I was a feminist first and a hip-hop fan second. I ultimately have never been fully able to reconcile some of the really violent misogyny.”
What originated as an uncomplicated agricultural term for “female dog” now has myriad meanings in as many contexts: a scheming, controlling woman; a term of endearment among partying girlfriends; a cheeky compliment for someone who’s succeeded; a misogynist putdown between straight men. Gay men use it too, lovingly and scathingly.
In certain strains of hip hop, the word connotes a “money-hungry, scandalous, manipulating, and demanding woman,” according to a 2006 paper published in the Journal of Black Studies. Problematically, the term is often used to describe women as a group – not one particular gold digger.
“More than in any other genre in the history of black music, commercially celebrated hip-hop swagger depends on a brand of manhood that consistently defines black women as disrespected objects,” Tricia Rose, professor at Brown University and author of The Hip Hop Wars, wrote in The Guardian on Tuesday.
“And fans of all racial backgrounds, but especially young white males, who make up the bulk of U.S. consumers, eat it up.”
A tally by Time magazine found that 109 of Jay-Z’s 217 songs contain the word, making up 50.2 per cent of his entire output.
Ms. Mukhopadhyay noted that critics who ballyhooed the rapper’s remorseful turn (before it was attributed to Ms. Gardner) felt he’d gone soft.
“There’s an idea that being politically correct ruins art. You don’t want something raw like the lyrical mastery of Jay-Z to be diluted by these PC notions – that women are humans too. ... But if we think of the basic reality that women are humans as ‘politically correct,’ we’ve got a major problem.”
Beyond hip hop, recent U.S. presidential campaigns have seen the term routinely lobbed at female candidates, most notably in 2008, when critics used the profanity “10 ways from Sunday” for Hillary Clinton, said Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch magazine.
“It’s inherently gendered. You don’t hear female politicians being called ‘jerks’ or ‘a-holes,’” Ms. Zeisler said.
Last November, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon issued an apology to U.S. Republican Michele Bachmann after his house band, the Roots, played on the politician with a 1985 Fishbone song that used the slur in its title.
“I’m honored that @MicheleBachmann was on our show yesterday and I’m so sorry about the intro mess. I really hope she comes back,” a sheepish Mr. Fallon tweeted the next day.
