Cardi B’s W.A.P. Highlights the Problem of Double Standards

Recently a song by Cardi B called W.A.P debuted and reached number 1. The song and accompanying video had generated worldwide attention with a mixture of different opinions on the video. Ben Shapiro and then later Sargon of Akkad did a reaction to the video with a breakdown. Many others including Russell Brand took to twitter with a video. Brand in his video said, “Do we achieve equality by aspiring to the values established by the forces or authors of the hierarchy and system itself? I.e. Do women achieve equality by aspiring and replicating the values that have been established by males? Let’s take this one simple example because that’s what this video is about. If male hip hop tropes are about the potency of male sexuality, which we sort of think, well these are reductive, it’s not in celebration of a traditional conventional male values such as duty, service, loyalty, bravery, courage. All traits of course that can exist across genders and sexes but I’m talking about traditional values. And then, the female video is a sort of celebration of sexual potency, or let’s just take the description that the Guardian offered, sexuality, sensuality, isn’t shy, coy, loud, articulation of female desire. Essentially it’s an emulation of a template that already exists and was established by males. Is it equality if the template has already been established by the former dominator. The answer is no. It’s an argument that I suppose is easy to make, but a lot less bloody sexy, when considering the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. Was Margaret Thatcher a feminist icon? No because values that she extolled, espoused, and conveyed were male values. She was a woman-man. She was a very, very, very powerful person, a brilliant politician but her premiership did not lead to more opportunities for women, more success for women, conventional female values such as nature, caring and equality. Now it’s a really interesting place to have a debate isn’t it?” The song in question by Cardi B, the lyrics are derogatory with the first line in the song being ‘Whores in this House,” and only gets progressively worse throughout with the N-word also appearing. I would say for starters it un-does thirty or more years of feminism, of this idea of women being above just the idea of being sexualised to please men. In the 80s and other older films there were films that were criticised as having sexualised characters, women with big breasts and being nothing more than to please men on screen without any kind of agency. The same can be said of older videogame characters and there has been a real push to make female characters de-sexualised, which isn’t a problem in its own right but it has also led to creating what Russel Brand highlighted as “Woman-Man” characters, which are branded as strong female characters and the most popular of these characters was Abby in the 2020 videogame, Last of Us 2. Abby was a female character but for all intense purposes written like a man character with all the femininity destroyed. The same people that have been pushing for less sexualised characters in films and videogames, are by and large the same crowd that are saying that this music video that degrades women back into sexual objects, with sentences like “spit in my mouth” and various other phrases that I will not repeat here, as being empowering and that men should not decide what feminism is or is not, yet has a problem with the more feminine qualities such as being a mother, a caregiver, being caring or kind, and rather just portraying the male qualities. It would not be so bad because adults certainly can make their own decisions in life, but the song as with all pop songs, as it has made number 1, appears on radio stations, in all the charts and with every new chart release it is downloaded and bought by children across the west as well as undoubtedly the rest of the world. Music itself has an impact on humans that transcends the other types of media such as films and videogames. Don’t get me wrong, those can impact people to a degree but not in the way music can. Music even if you don’t understand the words can hit you, while a film with a different language will just leave the viewer a loss for words. If you remember PSY’s Gangnam style a few years ago, it hit the charts from South Korea, yet nobody really knew what he was saying yet, it was a track that went viral and was a meme. Music can change the way in which think and act and in turn behaviour, especially if we’re hearing it over and over again. It’s not just Cardi B, but there’s plenty of songs that do the same. The best thing to do is if your kids are listening to it, you can simply ban songs like that from the house and have a sit-down chat with them why it is harmful and too explicit for your children. I do believe that having the conversation is the only way to do it, especially if you catch your kids, regurgitating the same phrases from that song, can do unknown, untold effects. We all want to strive to improve mental health and wellbeing amongst children not dampen their spirits and destroy their futures. References Russell Brand’s video https://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1294359385741950976