When I first saw the Lawnparties announcement video, my initial reaction was, “What a tasteless and offensive early April fools joke.” When I found out that the man rapping about a “little stupid-ass bitch” would, in fact, be the headlining act in May, I was not shocked or horrified. I did not write to USG. I did not even discuss the event with my friends. I felt disappointed in Princeton’s choice and irritated that my tuition dollars would be sponsoring a performance that at best normalizes and at worst celebrates misogyny and homophobia — societal trends I hope to spend the rest of my life fighting. Still, my reaction can probably best be described as lukewarm resentment.
My feelings have since shifted dramatically toward the ‘angry’ end of the emotional spectrum. This development is not a result of some new knowledge or deeper insight into Big Sean’s background or his music. My growing irritation is prompted by the reactions of peers who condemn or denigrate the anti-Big Sean petition signers. Students shrug and say, “If you don’t like Big Sean, don’t go,” implying that this is nothing more complicated than a case of clashing subjective musical tastes. Others publish vicious ad hominem insults on Yik Yak targeting the petition’s organizers. Some assert that the signatories are hypocrites or racists.
There is a wide gap —just how wide is becoming clearer by the day —between those signing the petition and those calling out the petition signers. One of the reasons behind the growing breach is the substitution of code words and activist language for real explanations. Loaded phrases like “rape culture” and “misogyny” are useless when the people using them don’t unpack the load with logical arguments and emotional insight. Those who wish to effect change need to explain why they find certain lyrics offensive and why those who aren’t offended should care. Should the burden of explanation fall upon students rather than upon Princeton faculty and staff? Maybe not, although I think the very prevalence of this question —now so frequently posed rhetorically, when it’s formulated as a question at all —indicates a troubling abdication of responsibility on the part of the students who demand change.
This is what I hear when Big Sean mentions women in his songs:
At first, just contempt. Casual contempt. Catchy disrespect and lyrical scathe.
But, with growing unease, I understand that “woman” has been wholly transformed into “bitch.” She doesn’t even get the typical infantilizing label of “girl.” Her importance and her relationship with Big Sean are reduced to whether or not she sleeps with him, as is the importance of all the women he sings about.
When I listen to these lyrics, I recall the first time I heard myself called a bitch and the deep-seated derision for an entire gender that the word implies. I think of three male teenagers lounging on a pier, one raucously inviting me to sleep with him as I hurry past and his friends laugh. I think of a friend walking home who was followed for several blocks by a lecherous old man and I think of a high school girl I know who deals with severe psychological trauma because her neighbor attacked her and I think of a friend’s sister who was groped by a drunken stranger one night in an eating club because she was walking out of the bathroom and because it was nighttime and because he was drunk and because she was female. No — those reasons don’t make sense to me, either.
Again, my initial response to Big Sean’s music was nothing more potent than a shiver of disgust. But the limited extent of that reaction speaks volumes in and of itself. The level of inurement society persuades us to accept upon ourselves is as appalling as the refrain of IDFWU. In fact, that particular kind of inurement is intimately linked to the refrain of IDFWU. If you are a self-respecting, equality-loving feminist woman or man you will absolutely continue to be one after listening to any number of Big Sean’s songs, but will you call out your friends when they use similar slurs against women in casual conversations? Will you be as revolted by sexual objectification as you were when you first understood what that phrase meant? Maybe. But I’m not sure why we’re paying for the pleasure of testing our misogyny-toleration meters.
So go to Lawnparties. Have a good time. But when you’re finished dancing and parroting crude misogynistic song lyrics, remember the people who are not there. Try to understand why they did not attend. And try to cast off that little bit of acceptance, that tolerance for reducing women to “bitches” and fuckable objects that has almost inevitably infected the way you think each time you and the performer on stage sing the chorus of his most popular hit.
Tehila Wenger is a politics major from Columbus, Ohio. She can be reached at twenger@princeton.edu.
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