"Rap music is so diverse in its themes, its style, its content but when it becomes a vehicle to be talked about in mainstream news, the rap that gets in national news is always the rap music that perpetuates misogyny that is most obscene in its lyrics and then this comes to stand for what rap is. Really its for me the perfect paradigm of colonialism, that is to say, we think of rap music as a little third-world country, that young white consumers are able to go to and take out of it whatever they want. We would have to acknowledge that what young white consumers, primarily male, oftentimes suburban, most got energized by in rap music was misogyny, obscenity, pugilistic eroticism and therefore that form of rap began to make the largest sums of money."
—
bell hooks
I blogged about this phenomenon earlier.
(via digital-femme)
(Source: ellesugars, via becauseiamawoman)
"Like, how can I be respectable and throw some guy against a wall and lick him from head to toe? I think it’s totally respectable. It’s where you’re coming from. What? That means you’re not an intelligent woman? That means you can’t, you know, read? Get over! … I would get really angry at this division because I think it makes us weak."
— Tori Amos
"It takes a tremendous amount of fortitude to live in this world as a woman, let alone a woman who wants things to change."
— Kathleen Hanna
(Source: twitter.com)
"OK! OK! Hold it!
I just want to say something.
You know, for every dollar a man makes
a woman makes 63 cents.
Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents.
So, with that kind of luck, it’ll be the year
3,888
before we make a buck. But hey, girls?"
—
Laurie Anderson, “Beautiful Red Dress”
i don’t really like the song, but this quote is so great.
(via cantwaittosee)
(via smalltowngrrrls)
"You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you’d say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell ‘em, “Enough!"
— Queen Latifah (via hopeinmotion)
(via lipsredasroses)
"I know when I first started, I said things like, “It’s really great to be beautiful and powerful and sexy,” and I take a little bit of that back now. What I was saying was that you don’t have look a certain way or have a certain hairstyle to be a feminist; that just because a girl wears lipstick that doesn’t mean she’s not a feminist. But now I realize that I wasn’t really challenging the standard of beauty. A friend said to me, “Why is it so subversive to be beautiful in the traditional sense? I think it’s much more subversive to create your own form of beauty and to set your own standards.” She’s right."
— Kathleen Hanna
"When I first heard the song, the scariest thing to me was the realization that people are getting into the music and grooving along to a song about a man who is butchering his wife. So half the world is dancing to this, oblivious, with blood on their sneakers. But when you talk about killing your wife, you don’t get to control whom she becomes friends with after she’s dead. She had to have a voice."
— Tori Amos, about her cover of Eminem’s “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde”, from her album Strange Little Girls (2001)
"Stop thief, you can’t steal the way I fuckin felt when I got up today.
Well I guess you’re the judge.
I guess you’re the king of the forever beauty pagent I’m always in.
My heart beats blue, beats red, beats mad.
Is this the only power that you really wanna have?
Count from one to nine, how high do I rate?
I guess feeling good was my first mistake"
— Le Tigre, from the track “On Guard”, off the album Feminist Sweepstakes (2002)
"and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past"
— Ani Difranco, from the song “32 Flavors”, off the album Not a Pretty Girl (1995)
"
There was a garden
in the beginning
Before the fall
Before Genesis
There was a tree there
A tree of knowledge
Sophia would insist
You must eat of this
"
— Tori Amos, from the song “Original Sinsuality”, off the album The Beekeeper.
"There is a sound
they don’t want you to own
arrest every word
that escapes from your throat
They hand you the world’s smallest microphone
It’s still too loud and you’re asked to go home"
— Sleater-Kinney, from the song “The Professional”, off the album All Hands on the Bad One (2000)
Don’t need you to say we’re cute
Don’t need you to say we’re alright
Don’t need your atti-fuckin-tude boy
Don’t need your kiss goodnight
We don’t need you, we don’t need you
Us girls don’t need you
Don’t need you to tell us we’re good
Don’t need you to say we suck
Don’t need your protection
Don’t need your dick to fuck
We don’t need you, we don’t need you
Us whores don’t need you
Does it scare you that we don’t need you?
Does it scare you boy that we don’t need you?
We don’t need you, we don’t need you
Us girls we don’t need you
Bikini Kill
