Thoughts on “Thotting”: How Megan thee Stallion’s “B.I.T.C.H.” is a Feminist Masterpiece
In honor of Thee Stallion’s newest single, “Thot Shit” released this past Friday, the following is an excerpt from a longer case study essay of Megan thee Stallion’s career (specifically her music, public image, and 2020 assault) and impact in an era of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. This excerpt focuses explicitly on Megan’s phenomenal ability to reclaim words meant to bring women down to uplift them in her 2020 platinum hit “B.I.T.C.H.” through her lyrical storytelling.
Since she stole the spotlight with her sexually assertive lyrics and confidence in “The Houston Cypher” on Youtube in 2016, Megan thee Stallion now nabs spots on the music charts after the success of her fifth mixtape — Fever (2019). With Beyoncé’s blessing on her debut album with the “Savage Remix”, Megan made it clear that Thee Stallion will be in the rap game for a long time. Following the success of her singles “Big Ole Freak”, “Cash Shit", and “Hot Girl Summer” featuring no one other than rap icon Nicki Minaj, Megan notably used her platform as a rising artist to empower and raise awareness concerning the state of Black women in America. She has also become a symbol of sex positivity for all women and inspiration for her fellow stressed-out college “hotties” as she juggles her academic studies in healthcare administration and newfound fame. In just a little over a year and a half, Megan thee Stallion transcended into the mainstream and garnered well-earned success with new label signings, partnerships with big brands, and top spots on the Billboard top 100.
Along with her success, she has encountered a great deal of adversity. Right when she began to take off in March 2019, Megan lost her primary familial support system as her mother and grandmother died within two weeks of each other. When the rapper chose to grieve privately, Megan faced criticism for not “appearing sad” on social media. Rather than respecting her decision when she initially didn’t speak about her loss publicly, she faced harsh criticism from many for posting light-hearted posts on her social media during her grieving. Despite this rocky introduction to life in the public eye, Megan took the high road on many occasions and spoken out when she deemed it necessary to set the record straight. Nevertheless, Thee Stallion still receives disapproving comments for her sexually explicit lyrics and public persona and is commonly labeled a “bad example for women”. Yet, as a woman artist in the 21st century, Megan Thee Stallion remains steadfast and adamant about enjoying her body and making the music she chooses in a male-dominated industry.
B.I.T.C.H.
Megan thee Stallion set the mood for 2020 with her first single of the year, “B.I.T.C.H.”
Sampling and taking inspiration from rapper Tupac’s “N.I.G.G.A.,” Megan wanted her single to exude empowerment, dominance, and “big top energy” that her women listeners could relate to. She opened and closed the song with: “I’d rather be a B-I-T-C-H (I’d rather keep it real with ya)”. In an interview with Genius, the rapper revealed the lyrics referenced a type of romantic “relationship” that closely fit the criteria of a friends-with-benefits understanding. Choosing to avoid dealing with the demands of a serious commitment, she shares that she rather not have a relationship title and keeping her options open. She would prefer to remain more of just a “thing”/sexual partner “bitch” with whom she’s dating. Thee Stallion frequently mentions this dynamic in many of her verses, as seen in her song “Pull Up Late” and feature in Phony Ppl’s “Fkn Around”. To put it plainly, she doesn’t want to settle down so young, often asserting that she is only looking for a good time and sexual pleasure. While promiscuity is more socially acceptable, women still receive harsh criticism if they make similar promiscuous choices as men who enjoy their sexuality as responsible adults. Rappers like Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Missy Elliot, Trina, and Nicki Minaj have contributed to changing this narrative in the male-dominated rap space to claim women should be promiscuous and enjoy the sex they desire. They have set the stage for new rappers like Thee Stallion to freely and confidently make similar demands. Women, including Megan, seek to reclaim and redefine the gendered term “bitch” also to reflect pride, tenacity, and sexual power when a woman refers to herself as one. In “B.I.T.C.H.,” Megan pushes this boundary to diminish the derogatory power from men and reclaim the ability to empower herself and other women into her own hands.
While this is not a new attitude or approach to rap regardless of gender identification, Megan’s sex positivity in her music is still refreshing and vital. Women are regularly labeled as “sluts” and “whores’’ for the same promiscuous behavior and dominance that many men are encouraged to pursue. Research shows that there are significant social influences because of this double standard. Biosocial findings show that women are expected to be “sexually communal”, aka submissive and passive in sexual relationships. Women are not granted the same sexual agency as men in heterosexual relationships. For example, women’s sexual behaviors tend to be equated to not communicating their desires and consenting to unwanted sexual activities in relationships. Outside of rap, feminist movements are trying to change this social narrative by reclaiming formerly negative labels such as “slut” and “bitch” to be ones of women’s sexual liberation and empowerment to demand equality both in the streets and sheets. During a time of #MeToo discourse, slut-shaming has been used to degrade women with multiple sexual partners in attempts to justify disrespecting them. Half of all girls will experience slut-shaming in comparison to 20% of all boys. In a meta-analysis study concerning (hetero)sexual double standards, SDS, it was found that highly sexually active men were viewed more positively in comparison to highly sexually active women. Meanwhile, women who were sexually active on the lower end were viewed more positively than men who were also less sexually active. It appears that there are more negative connotations placed on women for being as sexually free as men.
As a proud “bitch”, Megan comments in her Genius interview that she has not had an instance where a man called her one to her face. However, she adds that she is well aware that women are called bitches behind their back. “Cause that’s what you gon call me when I’m trippin’ anyway” in the chorus speaks to this in a common situation many women find themselves in when arguing with a man. In this scenario Megan speaks of, when women vocalize their frustrations and concerns backed with information, they are gaslighted by a man pretending to not understand or misinterpreting what was clearly communicated. While Megan just accepts this to be a fact of life in her lyrics, it highlights an important issue of men dismissing women as “too emotional” or “naggy” when women are trying to establish a healthy and honest line of communication in a relationship. carla bergman and Nick Montgomery speak of this reality in their collaborative book Joyful Militancy. They describe the feminist origins of the term “gaslighting,” stating it was meant to define a common patriarchal dynamic that undermines women and femmes’ self-perceptions by second-guessing, explaining away, and denying their experiences. This psychological game undermines women’s trust in their own capabilities, forcing them to question themselves and whether their experiences are real or made up in their minds. Though she doesn’t go as deeply to identify her lyrical bar as a reference to gaslighting in her interview, Megan does describe this phenomenon of psychological manipulation:
“You think I’m being a bitch, but I think I’m making a lotta sense with what I’m saying to you. A woman will be in a full argument with a man, and be like ‘this is point A of why I’m upset, point B is what you did, point C is how you did it, how I found out, and why I’m upset.’ And a man will still text and be like, ‘watchu mean?’”
All in all, a woman can say precisely what is on her mind, how she is feeling, and provide a detailed explanation behind her reasoning; but because a man lacks the emotional intelligence and/or is in denial, he will intentionally or unintentionally gaslight her into believing she is making no sense to avoid accountability for his actions.
The hostility towards women’s communication only worsens when rightly upset women who speak up for themselves are dismissively labeled as “bitches”. This is a complete disregard of the situation and feelings that have surfaced. For Black women, this can quickly lead to their being identified as “angry” and too “outspoken” when responding to disrespectful people. In the study conducted for this paper, participants also used the terms angry, outspoken, and loud when asked to describe Megan Thee Stallion, which highlights the struggle that continues in fighting negative stereotypes placed on women. The “angry Black woman” is a well-known stereotype rooted in the degrading, one-sided Jim Crow Sapphire caricature of Black women. The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University describes this portrayal of Black women as rude, loud, malicious, stubborn, and overbearing. This caricature was popularized in early cinema as Black women characters would emasculate men of any race with a sharp, sassy mouth. These characters were unendingly mean-spirited, bitter, and abusive in their habitual complaining about how they seemingly hated everything and everyone. This harsh portrayal made the women appear hypersensitive and made it appear as though they were shrill and had an irrational amount of anger. The Sapphire woman was always unhappy and wished to make everyone else feel the same.
The Museum determined this parody to be a “social control mechanism” to designate Black women who violated those passive, nonaggressive, and submissive gender and race hierarchical norms as horrible people. In the 1930s, Hattie McDaniel played this quick-tempered mammy character in a multitude of movies such as Music is Magic, Saratoga, and most famously Gone With the Wind. The villainization of Black women in this caricature worked so well, it eventually infiltrated Black entertainment and was integrated into predominantly Black-cast shows such as TV sitcom Sanford and Son. LaWanda Page played the aggressive, angry, Christian woman Aunt Esther who would harshly threaten her husband and lead character Redd Foxx. This caricature has evolved and remains present in even “woke” television, but in slightly modified renditions. It can be seen in Erika Alexander’s role in Living Single as powerful, feminist, “90s woman” attorney Maxine Shaw who was a very sharp-witted, masculine, and sometimes outright rude character who was emasculating towards men. This somewhat static portrayal only changed when she “found her femininity and womanhood”, finally “softening up” at the sitcom’s end to prove she was worthy of committed love. Over the years, the demonization of Black women in this manner in the media, and even in real life, is still extremely common and has normalized dismissing Black women who stand up for themselves as the hypersensitive, angry “bitches” Megan speaks of in “B.I.T.C.H.”
Building from the opening chorus, Megan raps the following bar in her first verse: “You say you want respect? Well, treat me how you wanna be treated. You told me to keep it real, but you don’t practice what you preachin”. She explains that the story behind these lyrics retell instances where a man demanded respect from her he hadn’t even earned yet. As someone who identifies as independent and not needing a man, she mentions in her interview this attitude tends to be read as disrespectful and emasculating to the man she is with. To Megan, just because a man is a man doesn’t mean he automatically is worthy of her respect. Instead, he has to show confidence, honesty, realness, masculinity, and respect towards others to get Thee Stallion’s approval. She says, “It’s not that I don’t respect you, it’s just that you know, you got to give respect to get respect…if he acting like he don’t respect himself or he don’t respect the people around him, How could you expect me to give you that energy?” During the fourth wave of feminism and the rise of the #MeToo movement, more women are demanding the same respect most men are regularly given. While this is not a new concept in the long battle for gender equality, the internet has made it easier to share stories about misogynistic experiences and injustice on the whole. This accessibility has encouraged radicalization. There has been a call for systemic change and possibly overthrowing a system as younger generations join in the action to end the disrespect towards women and other oppressed gender identities.
Malcolm X’s famous words classifying Black women as America’s most disrespected, unprotected, and neglected are especially relevant in this discourse. However, disrespecting Black women isn’t limited to the act of name-calling and stereotyping. It is any and all violence towards them. The CDC reports that alongside Native women, Black women experience the highest rates of homicide, and from 2003–2014, Black women had the highest rate of death via homicide. More disturbingly, approximately 40% of these homicides occurred to young women between the ages of 18–29. Furthermore, Black women are especially likely to be targeted by intimate partner violence and are the most likely to be raped of all the racial groups. By age 18, 60% of all Black girls will have experienced some form of sexual assault, and just under a quarter of all Black women will be raped at some point in their lives. Nevertheless, only one out of every fifteen rapes that occur to Black women will be reported. This data shows that Black women are not only constantly living under the threat of violence and trauma, but many also live under this threat in silence due to misogynoir.
Women like Megan thee Stallion fight to end this cycle of racialized and gendered harm by being authentically themselves and publicly displaying genuine love for themselves. This is a pertinent attitude that pushes back against the norms of a society that conditions women to hate themselves and not love their bodies. Megan utilizes sex-positivity and confidence in her music to both demand respect from others and herself. This is seen in a majority of her songs such as “Cocky AF”, “Realer”, and “Running Up Freestyle”. In B.I.T.C.H., the rapper iterates, “Man you knew I was a player’ fore you met me, need to relax. You know that you gon’ hate me if I get to playin’ get-back. I ain’t turn into no bad bitch when you met me, boy, I been that. You tryna make me somethin’ that I ain’t, and I ain’t with that (Nah) “. In “feeling herself”, Megan has made it clear that she doesn’t need a man to make her feel good or respect herself. She refuses to let any man attempt to define her change her into something she is not. Just because he holds power in a patriarchal system doesn’t mean he automatically has a say in how Thee Stallion leads her life. More women are coming to recognize this, challenging and shaking the very core of millennia of hetero-patriarchy.
A final lyric that stands out from B.I.T.C.H. is Megan’s quick-witted one-liner, “But it’s 2020, I ain’t finna argue ’bout twerkin’”. If there’s one thing besides her rap skills and curvy body thee Stallion is especially famous for, it’s for her twerking abilities. At the onset of her Genius interview, she made it clear by stating, “I don’t know when it happened, that sometimes people get offended by twerking. But that shit is crazy, I love to throw my ass! I love to shake my ass, that is like one of my favorite things to do.” There are dozens of videos and footage showing her immaculate knee strength she claims are sourced from H-Town (Houston) and flexibility. Her naturally curvaceous body is hard to miss, and it’s obvious she’s always been proud of it, from her newest single “Body” to her remix of Chris Brown’s “Poppin” from her days on Soundcloud. Twerking is often attributed to Black culture, and rightly so due to the natural “assets” and physiological differences of the Black woman’s body. However, it has long been a source of controversy predating well before Megan’s time in the rap game. The dance technique is often dismissed as hypersexual and virtually promotes “sex with clothes on”. Subsequently, Black women rappers have endured criticism for their twerking and sexuality. Some women rappers care, but many don’t take it to heart and practice the dance form. Megan’s “B.I.T.C.H.” joins the fight against white supremacist and sexist social norms that criticize the cultural art of twerking. Proud and excited by her own sexual freedom and fluidity, Megan and other women rappers like her continue to stir up controversy as hate streaming their music still pays and raises awareness of the absurd standards set to police women for having fun.
Megan thee Stallion is the product of the sacrifices women rappers, including her rapper mother Holly Thomas, have made for her to be the icon-in-the-making that she is. She continues this legacy by paving the way for future rappers of marginalized gender identities by contributing to “pleasure politics”. Her unapologetic confidence, sexuality, and commitment to her values set a precedent of not needing permission from a society that would never grant her to go ahead. Megan thee Stallion allows herself to be whomever she wants to be, no matter what.
Megan’s newest single “Thot Shit” is out everywhere now.
