Jennifer Pemberton

Who is Sayin' She's a Gold Digger?: African American Femininities in Rap Music Lyrics Jennifer Pemberton

Representations of African American women in rap music and hip-hop culture are often negative, sexually objectifying and misogynistic. Jennifer Pemberton systematically explores the extent to which rap music lyrics reproduce or challenge socio-historical gendered and racialized ideologies of women and their sexuality through a qualitative content analysis of lyrics on platinum-selling rap albums. She is primarily interested in the gendered scripts, or gendering practices, made available to young women in the lyrics of rap music. Utilizing feminist theories of gender hegemony and the intersectionality of gender, race, social class, and sexuality, Pemberton explains that hegemonic femininity (as well as masculinity) in hip-hop culture both differs from and is similar to the qualities and characteristics of women (and men) assumed to be hegemonic for the broader social structure and/or mainstream culture. Rap music lyrics also contain scripts for women that can be considered pariah femininities. And, a few scripts for women resist or challenge the hegemonic gender order in hip-hop culture.