Artigo Revisado por pares

Black feminist theory and the politics of irreverence: The case of women's rap

2015; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1464700115585705

ISSN

1741-2773

Autores

Valerie Chepp,

Tópico(s)

Race, History, and American Society

Resumo

Black feminist theory has shown how respectability politics shape cultural discourses about African American women's sexuality. Responding to ‘silent’ depictions resulting from racial uplift strategies among turn-of-the-century middle-class black women, subsequent work theorises alternative discourses that portray a desiring and agentic black female sexual subject. Locating these alternative discourses in a ‘politics of irreverence’, I argue that respectability/irreverence oppositional logic narrowly frames theorising of black female sexuality. Although recent work emphasises dialectical – rather than oppositional – dynamics, this analytic approach is unevenly applied. Binary frameworks continue to shape analyses of women's rap. Drawing upon lyrics of rappers Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, I highlight three discursive strategies whereby women rappers render the respectability/irreverence binary problematic: (1) using irreverence to claim respectability, (2) ‘claiming both’ or, embracing contradiction, and (3) beating to the punch. This analysis shows how dialectical approaches account for potential ‘third spaces’ where more complex representational politics are possible.

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