I Want To Say a Little Something That's Long
Overdue
The Disrespect To Women Has Got To Be Through
To All The Mothers And Sisters A And The
Wives And Friends
I Want To Offer My Love And Respect To The
End
If only there were more musicians who felt this way instead of degrading women.
RIP MCA.
OK, there is something else I want to add to this.
This article. Like the woman here I am a long time Beastie Boys fan, since the early days. This article talks a lot about the feminism of the Beastie Boys, how they apologized for using slurs in their old songs, and the misogyny still in music today. I think it is well worth the read.
Once you’ve realized that you’re living in a world that believes women are “less than” in every imaginable way, one of the things that can be most frustrating is that very few men get it. You want the people in your life, the men you care about, to understand the awful toll it can take on you. Operating in a world that sees you as less than fully human can be soul crushing—but it’s also incredibly lonely.
When you speak up about any sense of unfairness or injustice, you’re told that you’re overreacting, you’re too angry, too silly—shut up already. It takes a tremendous amount of fortitude to be able to live in this world as a woman, let alone a woman who wants things to change.
And that’s what was so remarkable and emotional about the Beastie Boys’ feminist turnaround. Maybe your father says sexism doesn’t exist and your boyfriend disrespects you. Maybe you have to deal with assholes on the subway who rub up against you every day and laugh when you yell at them. But listening to this band that you love so much say that your pain is real, that the world is fucked up and that they are not going to participate in actions that hurt you anymore because they care about you—it was the overwhelming feeling of being made visible. They were sending a clear message to their female fans: This isn’t okay, we have your back, we’re sorry.
It was the apology we never got from the high school teacher who stared at our breasts, the acknowledgement of injustice that politicians and American culture dance around—and it was coming from people whom we cared about and respected, people with cultural power.
Hearing the Beastie Boys speak out against sexism made me feel like if these men who had once sung about getting girls to “do the laundry” and “clean up my room” could understand, maybe the rest of the world would follow suit. It made me hopeful in the best way.
