I have now reached my third installment of exclusive articles for WWETV. This topic is a heavy handed one that can be done in so many different ways, but I will speak on Joe Budden’s recent statement that “Women Empowerment” is an excuse for women for all things they do right or wrong. Does he have a point?
Just gonna leave this here and go. pic.twitter.com/gCicbB8SZK
— Joe Budden (@JoeBudden) October 28, 2018
There has been a lot of discussion about the “Me Too Movement” that is for empowering women in industries that are traditionally dominated by men. It was the “Me Too Movement” that help bring awareness to issues with some of the biggest celebrities in history such as Bill Cosby.
There is no denying that the history of entertainment at times has treated women as second class citizens. From the dawn of film woman have been treated as sex objects as an attraction to bring in movie goers and sell tickets.
Margaret Hughes (c. 1630 – 1 October 1719), also Peg Hughes or Margaret Hewes,
is often credited as the first professional actress on the English
stage. Hughes was also famous as the mistress of the English Civil War
general and later Restoration admiral, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
For women of African descent the rise of their stardom as an entity came post civil war era with the likes of Jayne Kennedy (Happy Birthday), Eartha Kitt and Freda Payne seen below in Jet Magazine July 1974. — with Makénok Vanier and Rico Swift.
Prior to these women was actress and radio performer Hattie McDaniel who became the first African American to win an Oscar in 1940, for her supporting role as Mammy in ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Worldwide Entertainment TV on Apple TV & Roku earlier this year had a poll that included some of the greatest female performers on the big and small screen of all-time with host TV actress Rolexis Delaney.
It showed the long history of women moving forward to be accepted in the artform. There has been a struggle to gain acceptance based on skill and not an old school concept known as the casting couch for ladies throughout the decades.
In 1945, Maureen O’Hara was quoted as saying, “I don’t let the producer and director kiss me every morning or let them paw me”.[12] In 2004, she repeated: “I wouldn’t throw myself on the casting couch, and I know that cost me parts.”[13]
Film mogul Harvey Weinstein, with several actresses accusing him taking
off his clothes and asking for a massage, among other things.
For things of this nature the “Me Too Movement” has been triumphant in bringing awareness to items that were traditionally swept under the rug.
Moving onto the music industry, there has been no difference since its inception either in comparison to Hollywood with the treatment of women and how some receive preferential treatment if they sometimes sacrifice themselves in ways that other women wouldn’t to advance their careers.
WWETV 6ix Talks on WWETV NETWORK with host Brooklyn spoke with three artists from her city CoCo Leah, Alicia Cinnamon, and Kandy K about women in the industry and women empowerment.
Going down memory lane if we go back to the Motown Era there was strife in the female group “The Supremes” when Diana Ross started to get star treatment over the other ladies. Some people believed her marketing and promotion was warranted, while others felt it wasn’t due to her relationship with Motown Records czar Berry Gordy. Diana Ross spoke with Oprah Winfrey about the issues she had with the other members of the iconic group.
In a recent interview Jamaica artist Dutty Dread made a remark that women sometimes are the worst against each other. Scottie Beam in her disagreement with Joe Budden above stated how men have been rapping about sexual overtones to women for years and now it’s okay for women to do the same. The problem I have with this statement is it lacks knowledge of music with women in African American history. Before there was a “Lil” Kim there was a blueprint that made some of today’s artist’s lane. Millie Jackson has been singing about women empowerment sexually all the way back in the 1970’s.
As you see above with “Hurts So Good” she is unapologetic about her feelings about lovemaking and doing so in full afro and natural African American mode without what some women of today appear on television with wigs and lace fronts or skin bleaching, but with today’s short attention span generation they would never know of these women who were truly moving the culture and womanhood forward without all the hashtags and social media attention grabbing tactics.
The co-host with Joe Budden in some ways is disregarding the woman of the past who definitely broke barriers and did so in their natural skin and with total mic skills. Roxanne Shante earlier this year made headlines with her biopic on Netflix that illustrated her struggle in becoming the artist who the term “female rapper” was coined. She stated in an interview with VladTV that she was deliberately robbed of a hip hop competition because the men judging didn’t want the best rapper in the world to be a female in fear that it would scare away the music industry movers and shakers that a little girl was the face of hip hop.
The first decade of hip hop saw women joining together to combat the problematic situation of males dominating the scene. Below is a tv segment with Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifah, and Toronto’s Michie Mee who was the first urban artist from her country to be signed to a major label.
The 90’s came in hip hop and saw the rise of the likes of Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Lauryn Hill, and more. WWETV The List also did a poll on who people felt was the Greatest Of All Time.
With Joe Budden being an elder statesmen of hip hop who saw the entertainment business before the advent of social media platforms such as twitter and Instagram feels that today there are women who are not of the ilk of yesteryear in their sincerity of women empowerment or just a buzzword and hashtag for behavior that would be normally questioned by society.
As I stated above this topic is a delicate one that has many layers and I wanted to basically strip apart the argument from both sides of the dispute with Joe Budden and Scottie Beam. Some people may at the surface scoff at what Joe Budden is saying, but from watching Budden over the years one would know he deals with women a certain way because he has attracted some of the most beautiful women that have even been topics with his beef with Drake.
Scottie Beam’s handling of the situation was perhaps a weak stance that if someone jumps off a cliff that gives another person the right to jump off a cliff to kill themselves. Two wrongs as they say don’t make a right. Joe Budden however, may be having Kanye type issues of not explaining himself clearly with this statement as the women empowerment movement is very real, but he needed to distinguish he was speaking about strictly females who use the movement for their own devices and not exactly for the betterment of their fellow women.
What their debate could have delved into more is asking questions such as the beef between Cardi B and Nicki Minaj is it good for women or not or can women hold better jobs in management in the music industry to help shape the image put out there by men in their lyrics? Of course, this now turns the debate into what the issue really is about. The infinite problem between male and female to co-exist in unity.
The issue Joe Budden has that wasn’t addressed was how social media shows a double standard in terms of people accepting their responsibilities for their actions. A recent music video by Tupac’s Outlawz member Young Noble addressed that today’s new drug is social media.
This topic is indeed one that can be talked about for days, so I’ll stop here and this has once again been “Venom” giving you that info straight with no filter.
