I am a Snoop Dogg fan. That doesn’t make me less of a feminist

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/snoop-dogg-feminist-sexist-lyrics

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When I first joined the women’s movement, in the late 1970s, I was sneered at for watching romcoms, for preferring dogs to cats, and – as time went on – refusing to go to Greenham Common. (I like a shower, the telly, and clean clothes. I don’t camp.)

Since then, my cultural choices haven’t become any more obviously feminist. If I were asked to describe my ideal evening at home it would involve cooking rabbit, watching The Godfather Part II, listening to the album Tha Doggfather by rap artist Snoop Dogg, while sinking a bucket of wine.

Snoop’s music has a clear strain of sexism, but that has never stopped me listening to it. In 2003, I watched as he showed up at the MTV awards with two women in dog collars and leashes. And in 2010 I went to the Glastonbury festival – my idea of hell (as I said, I really don’t like camping) – to see Snoop live on stage. I own no fewer than four of his CDs.

This week Snoop announced that, after years of calling women whores and bitches, he has changed his ways, and will from now on respect us. And while this might make it easier for me to enjoy his music, the truth is that, as a long-time fan, I have never really worried that my musical taste could end up with my feminist membership card being revoked. I have never subscribed to the orthodoxy of the left, and find stringent groupthink tedious.

How do I reconcile my feminism with the sexism in some of the pop culture I love? There are certainly some feminists who try to police what they watch and listen to quite carefully. When I interviewed the iconic feminist Shere Hite, for instance, she told me she only watched films by female directors. Now, there are some fantastic women making films, but because of sexism and discrimination the vast majority of films are still made by men. Cut all those out, and you’re left with a very limited selection.

When it comes to songs it’s not unusual for the beat and the artist’s voice to be brilliant, but the lyrics offensive, as with Snoop’s back catalogue. In recent years, some feminists have responded particularly strongly to this issue, with many British student unions banning the song Blurred Lines, on the grounds that it is “deeply offensive and dangerous”.

There are lines I do observe – when I notice them. I recall one embarrassing but hilarious moment while singing karaoke at my 30th birthday party. I was halfway through Tom Jones’s Delilah when I realised that it was a song about a jealous man killing his unfaithful wife. This was an all too real occurrence that I was actively campaigning against at the time.

To be a feminist is to live with daily contradictions and inconsistencies. In order to exist in the world, and consume pop culture, it’s difficult to avoid hardcore sexism. Hip-hop is one of my favourite music genres, but the dominant message is often about men being in control; being hateful to women; and throwing their guns and money around while posing with flash cars. As my friend Byron Hurt said, following the success of his film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, rich, white male music moguls promote African American rap artists with an image that perpetuates the racist stereotype of black men as pimps and gangsters. As a white woman who tries to be anti-racist, it is surely contradictory to my politics that I invest in a genre with this message. The women who feature as backing singers or dancers for male hip-hop artists are also often portrayed in a racist and sexist way. Stereotypes of black women are played out in the videos, in which they are framed as overly sexualised and animalistic.

To be clear, I do not subscribe to the neoliberal view that individual choices made by women who are at least a bit feminist are even vaguely feminist ones. I don’t think pole dancing or prostitution is liberating, despite the constant suggestions that feminism is all about personal “choice”. Tripping about in spike heels is not a feminist act, and nor is having cosmetic surgery, such as breast enlargement or having a toe removed to fit into the latest Blahniks.

So I don’t think that because a woman is a feminist all her actions are too; and I also don’t think that engaging occasionally in sexist pop culture makes someone less of a feminist. I do plenty of things that are not feminist, on a daily basis, such as watching reruns of Carry On films, and buying products from companies that pay women less than men.

The truth is that, if feminists – especially those of us who prioritise the campaign to end male violence against women – restricted themselves to entertainment that was perfectly non-sexist, perfectly pure, we would be pretty miserable, and have very little to watch or listen to. No football, because of the machismo and sexist chants. A ban on books and TV programmes that are based on violence against women. I would need to throw away all my crime novels, and never watch The Killing again.

As a feminist, under the system of patriarchy, to live a life without contradiction means I would have to wall myself off from the wider world of music, film and literature, something I’m not prepared to do. Life as an activist could be unremittingly hard if you chose to forego such genuine pleasures.

To attempt to be ideologically perfect would not only be boring, but probably impossible. I deflect my guilt by telling myself that I prioritise effecting real and sustainable change for women, because while I may occasionally listen to a sexist song, or watch a film which is miles from passing the Bechdel test, as a feminist activist I never, ever take time off. If judgmental moralists feel that listening to feminist folk music will bring about better change than direct campaigning to end violence against women, so be it. But I know what I would rather concentrate my efforts on.