Popular Culture Review 30.1
leased by women seek to produce a broader dialogue concerning different ideologies , topics , and communities that are not spatially limited to urban areas . These include topics like domestic abuse , gender bias , sexual discrimination , and misogyny . Rose ( Black Noise : 147 ) supports these points by arguing that one tactic employed by female rappers of color is their desire to work “ within and against the existing dominant sexual and racial narratives ” in order to conceptualize and educate listeners on issues that are important to them . Furthermore , Rose (“ Black Noise ,” “ The Hip-Hop Wars ”) also posits that women rappers use their pulpit to speak to the importance of the female voice and sexual freedom . In other words , women in hip-hop educate their listeners on themes such as autonomy , the importance of gender unity , and the resistance to all types of violence and dominance affecting females across racial lines . Perhaps for some , rap music is not something that would consider as being inherently feminist . That said , female artists employ specific and simple generic qualities of the genre to promote themselves and their unique lyrical message . Because hip-hop music represents extreme self-promotion , women rappers are able to use this public platform to their advantage in order to express female power without being accused by critics as being self-centered feminist radicals who are anti-establishment , thereby dismissed by mainstream pop-culture outlets and being spatially limited to the academy .
Although women have influenced the rap genre stylistically and technically , their overall contributions are often downplayed or ignored in favor of men ( Layli , et al .). Since hiphop music is usually framed as being a representation of life as experienced by “ urban ” males of color , it has not always been easy for young females to create spaces outside of the pre-conceived sexual and misogynistic tropes and stereo-
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