Music and Gender Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Music and Gender - Essay Example Music as a popular culture has the power to influence almost anyone. In hip-hop music, male dominance is a powerful tool, that appears to make the female entity more or less an object of fascination. One take on the subject of patriarchal power is defined by Bell Hooks in the following excerpt: "The sexist, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving that are glorified in gangsta rap are a reflection of the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy."(M.Dot, 2008). The essay written by pseudonym writer M.Dot relates how black hip-hop music tends to follow the 'white suprematist' ideals that men are above and beyond women and for that reason can be seen as objects of men's fantasy rather than having a voice and meaning of their own. The figures of Condoleza Rice and Hillary Clinton are thorns in the flesh of those trying desperately to maintain their place as masculine hegemonous figures. Two reasons for this may arise and one of which may be pure speculation but is however a valid reason. In Hip Hop and Rap, both music genre's make the women predominantly into 'boodies' and 'boobs', crudely arranging them with very little if any mental capacity. Sean Kingston recently released the album with the single "Beautiful Girl" where the featured girl was seen merely as a 'gold-digger' looking for a meal ticket in the form of a man. "You know you'll never work", denotes that because of her beauty she will never have to support herself, further making the man the power image to provide for the woman. 3. Liberal and radical feminism are quite obviously anti-patriarchal power. Country music exemplifies the ideals of the romantic cowboy sweeping the lady-love off her feet on his glittering steed. The hegemony displayed in this genre of music plays up the romantic ideal of masculinity, not the reality. "Since women are believed to factor centrally in human social relations, the male psyche seeks to subordinate women, and thus sustain the illusion of male centrality."(Robinson, 2006: 46). Robinson writes about the fact that in order to make the male the controller, the woman must make herself the controlled (Ibid). This makes for entertaining although unrealistic visions of societal norms. In a sense the modern hip-hop and gansta-rap as urban phenomena, are trying to reinforce something that is being contested, while the rural inspired country music is still hanging onto the romanticised idealism of when men were cowboys. It depends however very much n who is listening to the music. 4. Constantine hip-hop has had rather a bad image, being largely directed by sex in all its forms. It is by far the more popular of the hip-hop styles and centers around the inadequacies of femininity and tries to form the perception that women are all tending towards prostitution. One feminist website describes Constantine hip-hop as focussing on women, and black women in particular as sex objects with the camera's focussing on gyrating body parts (Ayanna, 2008). In this case we are talking Puff-Daddy and Snoop-Dogg rather than the more genteel Sean Kingston. Prophetic hip-hop is a genre more directed towards the future of the world. It often places great emphasis on the doom of modern society, painful break-ups and