Ab-Soul's Double Standards

In Ab-Soul’s “Double Standards” he takes a progressive approach to female sexuality that is atypical in rap music. He opens up with the point of view of a man receiving peer pressure from a group of friends for remaining faithful to his girlfriend, even going so far as calling him a “queer” and saying if he was a real man he would have sex with her friend. He goes through with it hesitantly, but the girl mocks him: “She say ‘Why you push me? If you don’t get this pussy, then you a pussy.’” While the man is just as wrong as the woman, Ab-Soul points out that public perception would say “she a ho, he a pimp.” In “Double Standards” Ab-Soul recognizes the privilege men have in exploring sexual deviancy while women are talked down on for doing …show more content…
A video showing her performing oral sex on a classmate, whom she was trying to “win back,” went viral in 2011 (Gossip On This, 2011). Ab-Soul calls attention to the fact that her name has been widely publicized, but the boy that initiated the encounter remains nameless. On N.W.A’s track “One Less Bitch” Dr. Dre and MC Ren trade rhymes and death threats toward some “slutty ass ho’s.” On the track, Dr. Dre uses a woman for sexual exploitation and prostitution, and when she tries to steal from him he kills her, but not before gang-raping her first. Dr. Dre claims his actions make him a “real” because no one crosses him. Not only is Dr. Dre violent and misogynist, he is also hypocritical. In the next verse, he coincidently kills a woman he used for money, after just killing a woman he thinks used him for money. MC Ren later comes in on the fourth verse with the same dilemma; when a woman he is prostituting steal from him, he dumps her body in a river. These killings are a courtesy, as now there is “one less bitch you gotta worry about / She's outta here and that's how it turns …show more content…
From the use of the word “bitch” in a derogatory sense constantly, to the pimping, raping and violent killings of women, to Eazy-E’s outro, “In reality, a fool is one who believes that all women are ladies / A nigga is one who believes that all ladies are bitches…To me, all bitches are the same.” Theses lyrics are textbook misogyny, the kind of words that can lead to the characterization of an entire music genre as sexist and violent. The late ‘80s and early ‘90s saw many cases of violence against women; rapes, domestic abuse, and murders. Lisa Blanco, of Indiana, was an abused woman that after many attacks was finally able to have her ex-husband put in prison, just to end up murdered by him while on furlough (Pollitt, 1989). Increasing societal concern for violence against women became a regular topic during this period; the social climate is reflected in the music of the 2 Live Crews and the gangsta rappers of the late ‘80s and ‘90s, but it is unclear if the music caused those concerns in society, or if society caused the music of the