Can we mend lack of women support in hip hop?
Once again it is that time of the year where everyone comes to the fore with their messages for the women of South Africa. The messages usually center around the themes of sympathising the plight of women in South Africa or encouraging a stronger approach to women's integration into areas of society where males have dominated not out of necessity but out of prejudice against women in the past.
This active drive to enhance the visibility of women in the goverment and business sectors has bore fruit, but more steps need to be taken. However the plight of the everyday women, mother or girl child is still having to face the difficulties that society will have them go through...usually because of societal expectations.
It is with greater sadness that I look at the hip hop movement and see that gender transformation is moving slower than snail-pace. Hip hop still seems fulfil the need for many males to dispense their testorone. Hip hop still serves as a space for heads to expand the male egos without being challenged.
I find it strange that a movement that prides itself with having revolutionary intentions and social commentary/social change as its modus operandi can turn around and snub the women who are eagerly knocking at its doors.
There have been few female icons in South African hip hop over the years. Up to this day it comes as a surprise to find a woman competing on the same level as her male counterparts. This is not due to lack of skill, but due the fact that women endure active (or unintentional) discouragement, by hip hop practioners, when they try to improve their art or establish themselves in the system.
Even now, Godessa is probably the most recognisable feminine presence in the hip hop scene. Godessa have been manoevered themselves to that position (with great difficulty) over a period of more than 10 years. So many others have tried over this same period to enter the inner circles of the hip hop scene. However they find themselves hitting brick walls because hip hop has already dictated their roles.... The options that seem to be readily available are: Consumer, spoken word poet, singer(especially on choruses), video 'chicks'(this would need another discussion to unpack) or at the very least they will be annointed as groupies.
There are very few women who are allowed to roll witht the crowd, make albums, and this usually requires effort that is at least twice the effort that their male counterparts are required to put in.
I do not wish to make any recommendations on how this problem can be tackled. I will have to rely on the collective consciousness of the movement i've grown to love and call 'home' to be able to rectify the way things stand.
Headwarmaz...doing it for the love of hip hop.