Misogynoir Is Alive & Well In Hip-Hop

“What’s happening right now is that it’s going to be a truly ladies first era,” says Iandoli. Today’s hip-hop landscape is ushering in a new era where men are present, but women are at the forefront. We are now in a moment where pioneers like Roxanne Shanté are vindicated. We’re finally seeing a shift from the male-centered mindset that dominated hip-hop for the past fifty years, but the overwhelming amount of women rappers does not overshadow the ways in which men are still very much in control of the genre. Yes, there is cause for celebration about the influx of diverse, wide ranging women rappers but the culture has yet to fully orient itself around them. The new era of women in hip-hop has a lot to work on, but thankfully a lot of elder women have paved the way about what hip-hop should be about.