I wanted to like #WAP . I adore Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. But it’s bleak that two talented, powerful female artists at the top of their game still have to frame themselves as sex objects and cater to the male gaze in order to achieve commercial success.

Two of the most celebrated Black female artists in the world did a collab. And throughout the track there was a constant refrain of “there’s some hoes in this house.” Which says so little for how Black women are valued in the music industry or wider society. #WAP

I don’t believe it’s empowering for women to describe themselves with misogynistic slurs. If there really was power to be found in this language, men would be calling themselves hoes and bitches in every single music video. But men’s careers don’t depend on objectification. #WAP

It’s patriarchy that divides women into ‘hoes’ & ‘good women’. And both categories are ultimately oppression because they reduce women to our sexual worth and perceived value in the eyes of men. We need to scrap both labels and celebrate women’s creativity in its own right. #WAP

The charge levelled against women criticising the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism is ‘sex negative’. But I dream of a world where women can fully explore and express our sexualities without it being a condition of our success - in the arts or anywhere else.