From the beginning of intellectual existence, women have fought for a greater set of rights within their culture and community. In order to make a difference, one of them had to bravely step out of a socially determined mold. Women in Chicana and African American societies have done just that in order to assure their voices were heard among the masses. Through many means, including poetry, music, and political activism, women of Chicana and African American descent have certainly chosen the path least traveled by.
African American women specifically face a difficult history to battle in today's society. One area that African American women battle most is in the arena of sexual and psychological politics in opposition to both white America and their black male counterparts. In "Bad Sistas: Black Women Rappers and Sexual Politics in Rap Music," female rappers discuss the hardships they face opposing the commonly held belief that they are sexual objects, sexual predators, and subservient to black males. These "Bad Sistas" provide lyrical commentaries on the social and sexual power that women really have, deviating from those of black male rappers, a voice more readily heard.
However, this opposition to the common voice of male rappers is not an easy one to undertake. Tricia Rose states, "First, and most obviously, it places female rappers in totalizing oppositional relationship to male rappers." (Bad Sistas 149). Second, the idea that black women rappers oppose the politics presented by black male artists and are feminist can be immediately interpreted to be anti-black or anti-male, which is not the sentiment held by most black female rappers (Bad Sistas 181). Therefore, these female rappers are trapped between a rock and a hard place; do they defend their feminine ideals, or do they forget their female cause and fight for a more "black power" cause like the black rappers?.
