Quoted: Andreana Clay on Queer Women of Color and Hip Hop Masculinity
Excerpted by Latoya Peterson
A variety of clubs cater to queer women of color in the San Francisco Bay area. Some are wall-to-wall women of color – Black, Latina, Asian and most play hip-hop music non-stop. In each club, there are all different kinds of women. For instance, there might be women over forty with long ‘locks, Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and Teva sandals in one corner of the room and younger, Butch, women wearing crisp, indigo-colored Levi’s with thick black belts, large belt buckles and perfectly gelled hair in another. There are also femme women in tight jeans or skirts, heels, and short T-shirts, some cut around the collar so that they slide down their shoulders. In every club I that I’ve been to, there is always a clearly designated dance floor, which is usually packed tight with sweaty bodies. Some clubs have elevated dance floors or stages with one or two go-go dancers dressed in hot pants and knee-high boots. Below them are women lined up with dollars. In the background, hip-hop music fills the room with beats and voices, sometimes the only male presence in the room. What type of male, and ultimately what type of masculinity depends on the club.
On Gay Pride weekend this year, I went out to several of these clubs. Two in particular stuck out in my mind because of their similarities and differences in relationship to queer sexuality and black masculinity. For instance, at one of the clubs I went to, the deejay played songs that characterize more of the nigga, or thug image in hip-hop- 2Pac, Biggie Smalls, the Game, and 50 Cent. At the second club, the music had much more of a playa or sexualized tone – the Ying Yang twins, David Banner, and Khia. While there are two different types of masculinity being played at each club, in a room full of women of color, the lyrics fall to the background as the performances take center stage. For instance, nigga masculinity in the first club is reflected in a particular style, stance, or code. It is more about an individual identity, one that each person can take on. Women throw up hand gestures as they dance, make eye contact with one another and mouth the words to the lyrics. Some women even had on T-shirts with the ultimate “nigga 4 life,” 2Pac. The tone set at this club is also about community. The mood isn’t so much about sex or domination sexually, but rather, a stance about who someone is or declares herself to be: being down, being able to take what comes in life, being loyal to this group, this identity, and this community.
In the second club, the playa image was much more prevalent. If you wanted someone to help you get your groove on, this was the place to be. Women would grind their bodies into one another, and move one another’s bodies around to the direction of the lyrics. Queer sexuality was much more on display, as a woman, you wanted to be looked at, have somebody notice you, and maybe take you home. For instance, at one point, I noticed two women on the stage, dancing with one another. One of the women, in baggy jeans and a baseball jersey picked up the wman she was dancing with who was wearing a short, silver skirt and tank top. She then lifted her up onto the bars surrounding the stage and then put her face into the woman’s skirt under the musical direction of “work that clit, cum girl.” I had to sit down.
Even though I was a little uncomfortable with this display, I didn’t leave the bar, which is probably what I would have done had I been in a straight club. In a mixed setting, the lyrics and sexual display denote a different power struggle for me: with women more clearly marked as objects and men as subjects. That expression of sexual desire is one that all women see in music videos, movies, and hear it played out in the music we listen to. Similar to Laura Mulvey’s definition of the male gaze in popular culture in which the female is the fetishized object and the men are the spectators, mixed clubs are assumed to be spaces where women are expected to take on the passive quality of “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Over a hip-hop beat, men then possess the ability to look, taking pleasure in looking at and dominating women. I am not suggesting that straight women have no power in these settings. Mulvey has been rightly critiqued for her failure to go beyond men as spectators and women as passive objects. She, and other feminists, forget that every once in a while, a woman might like to “pile [he]r phat ass into [he]r fave micromini [and] slip [he]r freshly manicured toes into four inch fuck me sandals” for her pleasure as well as his when she goes out to a club. However, I do suggest these are the expected and most displayed roles in hip-hop music. What I am interested in is what women do with these roles.
Moreover, the expression of sexual desire between two queer women of color is rare, if at all existent, in popular culture. In these all female, queer club spaces, the decoding of black male masculinity is exciting, normalized, and even “safe.” First, these displays can demonstrate what queer women do and whom we do it with. Second, there isn’t the fear of violence or being overpowered that may be associated with mixed, straight clubs. Popular discourse often warns women, gay or straight, about the dangers of going to clubs alone. We are all too familiar with the Dateline specials on GHB or “roofies” which capitalize on horrible stories of women who go to bars sober and end up being sexually assaulted. While these stories are used to make women fear and regulate our sexuality, I have never once been worried about these “dangers” when I have walked into queer clubs alone, freshly made up in tight jeans and revealing blouse.
All queer women of color spaces have been one of the most liberating places for me as a Black queer woman, and consequently, as a feminist. I feel validated as a woman of color living in the current context of the L-Word, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Queer as Folk where a majority of queer people are men and most of the lesbians are white. Scrambling to see images of myself and make connections with other women of color is an ongoing struggle in the twenty-first century. And it is always more than pleasurable to tell your homegirls that you like to throw lips to the shit and have them know the queer context I am speaking of. In these moments we engage in what Stuart Hall calls and oppositional reading of rap lyrics and hip-hop music. Queer women of color construct new meanings of the text and become active consumers who change the context of sexuality and masculinity.
In her research on drag kings of color, Halberstam points to this type of reading in her conclusion that “when a drag king lip synchs to rap, she takes sampling to another level and restages the sexual politics of the song and the active components of black masculinity by channeling them through the drag act for a female audience and through the queer space of a lesbian club. ” I argue that the same is true or lesbians and queer women in the clubs I have been to. For instance, some of the women in the clubs look and dress as hard as the men in rap videos. In these moments, black masculinity is changed in that these women are exploring their masculinity in relationship to the women they love and have sex with.
In this sense, there is a clear link between a Black queer or lesbian identity and the nigga identity. To clarify an earlier question, perhaps this is why Black queer women identify, at times, with the masculinity in hip-hop. In particular, the sense of outsider status in identities like the nigga. As Todd Boy suggests in Am I Black Enough for You, “the nigga is not interested in anything having to do with the mainstream, though his cultural products are clearly an integral part of mainstream popular culture. The nigga rejects the mainstream even though he has already been absorbed by it.” Here, Black male masculinity occupies a space both in and outside of heteronormativity through the rejection and absorption of it. Similarly, Black queer women reject heteronormativity in both their identity and desire at the same time that we embrace mainstream cultures like hip-hop. This happens not only in relationship to sex and sexuality, but with racial and ethnic identity as well. For instance, even though Gwen Stefani has colonized the culture, language, fashion, and stance of women of color from her use of Bindis, to dark eyeliner around her lips, her ska musical style (collaborations with Eve and Ladysaw) and, recently her “entourage” of Japanese girls, queer women of color run to the dance floor when her songs come on, singing louder than the music, perhaps reclaiming the identities that she has appropriated from us cause “ooh, this my shit.” The decoding of masculinity and race that happens in queer women’s spaces indicates that each identity is indeed performative. And what I find important in these performances of masculinity on the dance floor is the sense of legitimacy and dare I say “pride” that comes from watching Black women gyrate with one another to a hip-hop beat, one wanting the other to know she’s a hustler, baby. There is a celebration and declaration of same sex sex and sexuality in these moments that Black women and other women of color continue to be denied in popular discourse.
Queer women of color flipping the script in dance clubs does not eliminate the rigid representations of Black masculinity and femininity in popular culture or how we internalize these images as Black men and women. As I have demonstrated through the actions and spaces I have described, queer engagement with hip-hop masculinity is mad full of complexity and contradiction. These complexities have a long history in the lesbian community long before girls told other girls they’d take you to the candy shop and let you lick the lollipop. By examining this queer space, I am in now way suggesting that the objectification of women is thrown out completely. Bending your girl over to the front and telling her to touch her toes and having her do so in high heels and a thong may not be the path to liberation. I also make no claims that queer women don’t engage in harmful acts upon one another. I was once at a party and heard a woman telling someone else that she and her friends pulled a train on “this bitch” that she picked up at a club one night. And, to my horror, one of her friends standing next to her asked her “why she didn’t invite her to that party.” The same objectification and violence towards women can happen regardless of the gender of the protagonist. And queer communities are similar to the hip-hop community in that they reflect popular culture and discourse. This is not to exclude these actions, but to point out what this ideology, which some of us have internalized, suggests about the value of Black female bodies in this culture. What does it mean to be in an all female loving space and question the sexist lyrics.
The contradictions in queer women’s spaces are similar to the complexities that Mark Anthony Neal aces as a Black feminist man who enjoys songs that are derogatory against women. As he states, “My affection for Mos Def’s ‘Ms. Fat Booty’ frames one of the contradictions in thinking oneself a black male feminist. For example, how does black male feminism deal with the reality of heterosexual desire?” I must end this essay with a similar question; how do black queer feminists who love hip hop deal with the reality that same sex desire and practice is sometimes played out over a sexist hip hop beat? How do we recognize and value ourselves as part of the hip-hop generation, many of whom gay or straight don’t identify as feminist?
— From Andreana Clay’s essay “I used to be scared of the dick”: Queer women of color and hip hop masculinity, originally published in Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Joan wrote:
I’d love to believe that all of this radical stuff happens at clubs for queer women of color, but I’m just not buying it. “Second, there isn’t the fear of violence or being overpowered that may be associated with mixed, straight clubs.” The author tries to protect herself with a disclaimer at the end of the article (”I also make no claims that queer women don’t engage in harmful acts upon one another”), but I don’t think that the club is a much safer space for women based on the all-woman presence. I see so much sexism in my queer community that goes un-critiqued because the players are both women. I’ve fallen into it myself: “Why is it OK for a random woman to grab my body at a club when men (I include gay men here – it has happened before) grabbing my body is not?” I don’t believe that the woman grabbing my body is doing something inherently radical. I don’t believe that it’s meant in some sort of “friendship” or play vs. dominance. I’ve watched a lot of power-plays happen between women at queer clubs that I don’t feel are inherently different from what happens at straight clubs. No penis does not = safe.
“What does it mean to be in an all female loving space and question the sexist lyrics.” Is everyone else questioning it?
I guess I just plain don’t believe in “safe spaces” based on identity. All queer women of color doesn’t make a space safe. It can lend comfort in the arena of being able to SEE other queer women of color, but I’m not sure that it does much more than that. All communities have their own fair share of ignorance. I’m not even sure that real “safe spaces” exist for anyone, but if they do, it has a lot more to do with self-awareness and willingness to deal with one’s own hatred and prejudice than one’s identity.
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
LaurynX wrote:
I have read this essay before. I liked what she had to say, though it left much to be desired in terms of deeper exploration into the topic.
@Joan
I always interpreted her stating the felt “safer” simply due to feelings and ingrained ideas about women being less threatening. I didn’t think she was actually claiming that relations between women can’t be as harmful as heterosexual ones, or that clubs were “safe spaces”:
“The same objectification and violence towards women can happen regardless of the gender of the protagonist.”
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 11:37 am ¶
gogojojo wrote:
I LOVE that essay. In fact I was reading it like two weeks ago and thinking of writing a post on it or at least the question she ask at the end. I guess this is the incentive I need to really get that post done.
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 1:34 pm ¶
[dave] wrote:
I think this reads like many essays that reify or celebrate everyday actions that just by their very practice or existence challenge mainstream paradigms. And by that I mean that there’s some optimism and some poetry and some sincere attention paid to the most idealized moments of a particular place. Just think of all those odes to rave culture community and ballads to postmodern signs-that-aren’t-the-signifier …. all they ever got us in the end were hipsters, right?
On the other hand I have been in the club on those nights where gender really is performative and felt revolutionary, and I’ve been in queer spaces that felt like a safe place just by being what they were because they held some every day oppressions at bay, even if in reality they had their own dangers.
And I actually liked her disclaimer at the end. I felt like it was a nod in the direction of “Yeah, I know I’m idealizing part of this, and it might not be real for you because there’s some effed up stuff people gothrough.”
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 1:51 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
I looooooved this essay. You know what I wanna see? A documentary on this. I know that someone out there is doing it/has done it. This kind of trope-play (i.e., notions of the “thug”) is fascinating, I think, for the same reasons that the trope-play in films like the groundbreaking “Paris is Burning” is. I love the subversive nature of gender play, and I love explorations of gender-as-performance, so I would be the first in line to see something like this.
@Joan: I agree with some of the points you made here. The author describes situations that sound like mutual, consensual engagement. I think that’s the difference; male entitlement is an umbrella under which a WHOLE LOT of nasty behavior falls, and anyone who has ever rejected a man knows that, a lot of the time, they really just do not take it well. (The last time I went to NYC’s Latin Quarters, I actually saw a guy first grab, then slap a woman because she refused to dance with him. I don’t “club” any more…) And while I feel that it is impossible for a woman to actually “be” sexist (because IMO sexism, like racism, is an institution and as such no girl or woman, regardless of her viewpoint/behavior, can ever truly be a sexist per se), women can certainly engage in sexist oppression. Case in point: last week, I happened to look at the blog of a queer WoC that featured pics (think high-heeled T&A) “celebrating the beauty” of various WoC. Ironically, I found said blog after reading through some comments the poster had made regarding sexism and the (masculine) objectification of Black women within the Black community. Now, I know that a lot of people will protest that “It’s not the same!” Just like a lotta Black men were disturbingly silent when D.L. Hughley nastily and repeatedly seconded Don Imus’ racist and sexist “nappy-headed hos” comment, I guess there’s a tacit understanding here that having a vagina gives one license to do some sideways oppression if desired.
SIGH. And this is why the world won’t get no better, kids.
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 5:05 pm ¶
LaurynX wrote:
“I happened to look at the blog of a queer WoC that featured pics (think high-heeled T&A) “celebrating the beauty” of various WoC. Ironically, I found said blog after reading through some comments the poster had made regarding sexism and the (masculine) objectification of Black women within the Black community.”
Asking a genuine question here: what would be the proper way to celebrate beauty if one were to do a post? Because honestly I’m not seeing the logic that just because flesh is exposed in a picture somehow it’s automatically “engaging in sexist oppression.”
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 5:23 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@LaurynX: That’s a really good question. I agree that female nudity per se does not sexist oppression make. Nudity is not something I have a problem with AT ALL.
However, seeing as how the person in question was objecting to hyper-sexualized T&A imagery as presented/exploited by some Black male artists in cover art and music videos, I was a little surprised at the photos. If a man posted said photos, more than one person would deem them sexist. And I’m going to hesitantly make that my litmus test in this particular situation. It just seems more than little bit hypocritical to be opposed to MALE objectification of the female body; shouldn’t the issue be the objectification, period?
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 6:08 pm ¶
LaurynX wrote:
“If a man posted said photos, more than one person would deem them sexist. And I’m going to hesitantly make that my litmus test in this particular situation.”
Well I think that’s just it. Men have the power to be sexist, women do not (per your above comment). Thus the litmus test of using straight men as the “standard” erases the dynamics between lesbian women, and the fact that women do not have the power men do. Lesbian women are not straight men; they’re sexuality is not validated by society.
While said blogger may have been hypocritical, I think it speaks to the complexities that exist between desire and politics. I still think we are back at the question of what is appreciation and what is objectification.
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 8:20 pm ¶
Tracey wrote:
@ Fiqah:
http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/Movies/2005/11/aggressives.html
It’s called The Aggressives and I think this may be the type of movie you are looking for. It basically follows the experiences of six women of color who identify as aggressives
Posted 14 Apr 2009 at 10:55 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:
i saw aggressives a while back, and it is a great movie. highly recommended, fiqah, if you are interested. i especially thought the segment following the asian american aggressive woman was interesting bc she idenitified more with the black and latino community…so not only was she exhibiting behavior completely in opposition to society’s norms for femininity, but she also sort of broke the code of asian femininity, which she considers highly restrictive. good stuff.
this article made me reflect on the argument i often hear from straight males who say, “why would a woman go be with a woman who is just as masculine and sexist as a dude?” i obviously have to respond that it’s a matter of sexuality…but in some ways, it makes one wonder if sexism within the lesbian community is more accepted bc they are both women…sort of like racism within communities of color…
Posted 15 Apr 2009 at 3:09 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
A third vote for The Aggressives. It is well worth seeing, especially for lesbians and transmen.
Posted 16 Apr 2009 at 4:12 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
Gosh, thanks you guys! I think I remember – vaguely – seeing something about it on Logo some time back? Anyway, I got the information now.
Y’all are so awesome. I love this site.
Posted 16 Apr 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶
livininphilly wrote:
Purchasing that book rigt now.
In regards to the safe space comments I would actually tend to agree with the author. I don’t feel threatened the way that I do when I go to straight clubs. I say this b/c when I go to the QWOC clubs or just Queer clubs in particular my sexuality is on display on my own terms whereas I feel when I go to straight clubs a lot of the power is taken from me. I have experienced more ass grabbing, leering and downright hositility at straight clubs form men than I have ever felt at my queer clubs. Furthermore, when I go to a straight club with a woman I want to “grind on” it becomes a spectator moment as the men flock around my girlfriend and I. This public display at a queer club wouldn’t even be noted as out of the ordinary.
QWOC clubs feel safer b/c they are spaces where i don’t have to explain or defend my gender, race or sexuality. It’s a hostile world and while I have a certain level of privelege b/c I pass as straight, i still have to contend with homophobia, sexism and racism daily.
As far as movies and recommendations go Fiqah I also suggest a new film that my friend Tionna M. completed about 1 1/2 years ago called black/womyn dialogues. The film is currently making it’s rounds at film festivals and on campuses. There is a facebook group. The film interview black leabians about all sorts of things and is really, really amazing.
Another would be the film/music video entitled U People by Hanifah Walidah. Again there is dialogue about lots of topics inclduign gender performance v. performativity.
The aggressives is good, but can leave something to be desired when viewed more than once. Several really important issues aren’t really explored like the issue of transmen. Several of the aggressives actually idenitfied as men but were lumped into this category that generally is used to describe cisgendered women.
Posted 20 Apr 2009 at 3:47 pm ¶
LoryL wrote:
I love this article. As a queer woman of color (latina) who has questioned and denounced the “bitch, ho, this and that” of hip hop, I take notice on the dance floor what I’m grindin’ to. And I w i l l sit this one out if it doesn’t feel right.
I just can’t vibe bein’ degrated in the very music I’m tryin’ to let go with.
Also, about representaion: We are our own; and if feels damn good to step into a club, bar, lounge, event with women of color vibin’ and flowin’, smilin’ at one another, grindin’, lookin’ good..yow!
I stopped lookin for movies with me in it , and the women I really want to see, unfortunatly.
As women, & even for men, we must all take into account how we treat one another. We (women) especially should not mimic the degradation of women that we have had to encounter, and many times survive.
Same sex loving should be just that- loving.
I do understand it is easier said than done with our history as it is,but that is why we should awaken to these truths, aknowledge them, and always be trying to better ourselves, healing our minds and hearts form the opression that surrounds us in music, television, advertising, literature, you name it. Wouln’t you say.
Thank you sista for this article!
Posted 04 Jun 2009 at 8:33 pm ¶