Singer and actress Janelle Monae has had enough misogyny in music and took to her Twitter account to put the industry on blast in a series of scathing tweets.
“I really only ever wanna hear women rapping. The amount of misogyny from most of men in rap and music is infuriating. We need to abolish that sh*t too,” she wrote.
“Women (black women [in] particular) have been betrayed by the majority of men for far too long. The systems that enable Patriarchy and abusers of power are burning. Either bring gasoline or burn with them.”
Monae continued, “Y’all can’t wait to call women every bitch, hoe, discuss violent acts against women, etc for clout in rap, rock, and through out music history. Misogny has NEVER been okay yet it has become normalized. Women didn’t create misogny, y’all did. SO YOU DO THE WORK to ABOLISH IT.”
She’s not wrong. The issue of misogyny within the music industry has been raised time and time again. But in 2020, as Black voices continue to be amplified — could a change be on the way?
Time will tell.
Monáe recently spoke out about the recent Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the nation during THR’s Drama Actresses Roundtable alongside to Jennifer Aniston, Zendaya, Rose Byrne, Helena Bonham Carter and Reese Witherspoon.
“For me, I’m trying to figure out how to channel my anger. That’s my emotion,” she said. “Black people make up the essential workers who are making sure that we have our packages and our food, and this is not a time for them to reflect in the ways that we, as artists, have the privilege to do. So, I’m checking my privilege and I’m also mourning with my people. One of the things that I learned about me is that I’m not settling for those who say that they’re allies. I’m not settling for lip service. If you want to show me that you’re an ally, it’s going to have to be rooted in acts of service.”
Monae added that she supports the defunding of police departments.
“The way that you’re hiring folks, who is on your board, how many Black people do you have there, what kind of films are we greenlighting, what kind of depictions of police are we greenlighting,” she added. “I’m team ‘Defund the Police’ — that’s very clear for me — and I want to put that money into our education and into our health care systems. I want to redistribute that money and put it into places that have oppressed us for far too long.”
