Why men hate SZA and Cardi B

Illustration by Kaylyn Dunn

“I had sex with your friend after you cheated on me multiple times,” said a female rapper. She’s disgusting, her stuff is garbage, she’s a— insert word that rhymes with row— and I won’t listen to this.

“I get money, I get girls, no one can touch me, she —insert any degrading lyrics about women—, then I did that with her friend too and I don’t even like her,” said some male rapper. That was so dope, it was so raw, and yeah it’s a little disrespectful, but hey, at least he’s being honest, because some men are really like that.

Here’s the difference between the two lyrics I made up. I know, hard to believe they’re made up in a period of music like the one we’re in now. While one becomes at least a year-long anthem and ringtone for men, women are shamed for the other.

We can call that patriarchy, double standards or anything else that equates to an inequality of acceptance in lyricism between men and women.

Up until this point, in a society growing more conscious and more self-aware, we all, women included, would have agreed that the first lyric is somewhat okay, because that’s how some men are and that’s apparently acceptable. The second one, even though it doesn’t degrade men and has far fewer details, it would have been too explicit. Keywords: would have been.

SZA made an entire album showing vulnerability, growth and switching the norms between roles of men and women. How come when women feel empowered, men are distraught? Men listened to this album like they were trying to answer a never-before-solved science problem, confused, frustrated and out of options.

It was like SZA laid out an entire blueprint of how to love yourself, how to successfully do something that men are given a pass for and how to not care about any of it. This left some men unable to sleep at night, distrusting their girlfriends, whenever they played "CTRL," SZA’s five-time Grammy nominated album — but it wasn’t good right — and boycotting the letters S, Z and A.

The crazy part of it all, SZA was just the tip of the iceberg. Cardi B is sinking the whole patriarchy Titanic. SZA left a neatly wrapped box of letters of women’s equality on your porch. Cardi B jumped out of the bushes and onto your back when you left your house for work. And I’m here for both.

Cardi B is an incredibly unapologetic artist when it comes to her music and who she is. Her music is sometimes referred to as ratchet, ghetto and too sexually explicit, any number of names pertaining to those categories that are used to attack black women.

Take someone like The Migos, arguably Cardi B’s male counterpart, compare the simplicity of their lyrics and the quantity their fan base. They rap essentially about the same aspects, however, the negative phrases I’ve mentioned above are only used to describe her.

So, why do we treat our women like this?

Some countries are structured on a matriarchal society, where women set the standards and the men of that country do whatever they need to make them happy. For example, the Akan people in Ghana, Africa follow precedents set by a matriarchal lineage. They don’t completely ignore patriarchal ideas when it comes to certain aspects of their culture, but they don’t disregard or degrade their women either, according to Buzz Ghana.

With that being said, why can’t we do the same?

This article was originally published on Jackcentral.org