Television producer Mona Scott-Young is known worldwide for her reality television success, but during a recent interview, she opened up about the unfavorable comparisons between her and her male counterparts.
“You look at Andy Cohen, you look at Carlos King — Carlos actually worked on the Love and Hip Hop franchise. But they’ve never been pinpointed in the same way. But I think it’s a little bit of the cross that we bear as women in any business we’re in,” she said in an interview with MadameNoire.
Scott-Young’s shows include the “Love & Hip Hop” franchise, “K. Michelle: My Life,” “The Gossip Game,” “Tamar Braxton: Get Ya Life!” and a slew of others.
Time and time again, she has faced heavy criticism, as people blamed her for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Black women.
Some of her breakout stars, Cardi B, Rah Ali and K. Michelle, have all, at some point, been labeled as problematic. But Scott-Young objects to the claims. She wants people to acknowledge her accomplishments– which are plenty.
“We’re held to a different standard. We’re scrutinized very differently. I don’t think anyone stops to think about how difficult it is to be competitive in this space. I’m one of the few Black women who own a physical production company,” she asserts.
“That in itself is an accomplishment I don’t think many people stop to credit and understand that it isn’t easy. And the whole idea that there’s something wrong with what we do by showcasing the lives of the women in this culture for me is something I’ll defend every single day because I feel like we should have the opportunity to tell all the stories, right?”
She added: “And hip-hop and the story of women in hip-hop is one set of stories of Black women and that story has as much of a reason to be told as any of the other stories that should, and will, and are being told. But yes, I definitely think there’s a different standard. It’s hard sometimes to listen to the things that people who don’t know me are saying, but for the most part, I have to be clear about what my intentions are. I have to be clear about who I am and not allow those things to distract me.”
Click here to read the entire interview.
