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What does pop culture have to do with the outdoors? Everything. It’s what we talk about when we’re out on the trail or on the chairlift. We don’t have these disparate identities where what's happening in society is separate from our outdoor experiences. As Walt Whitman said, we contain multitudes.
That’s why it seems apropos to talk about the song that has been at the number one position on The Hot 100 Billboard charts: Cardi B’s WAP. It also is the only nice thing we've got in 2020.
As far as we're concerned, it’s THE feminist anthem of 2020 (and perhaps beyond) because it challenges everything we’ve been taught about what is acceptable conversation and behavior by (Black) women in regards to their sexuality.
We all know who has defined what is considered crass and sexually deviant: cis-gendered straight white men. They concocted rules that solely served them, which in turn led to the creation of “civilized” behavior, a notion that exists to dehumanize people.
Whether or not you like WAP is neither here nor there. It can exist in the feminist canon without everyone’s approval because intersectional feminism by design challenges the status quo. It requires us to question every social construct, and examine them more closely through the lens of multiple identities. The end result is a complete re-imagination of what is “normal.”
This song is everything that feminism is supposed to be—women showing up, unapologetically, as their true selves. Women in charge of their narrative, framed entirely positively, and making fucking bank off of it. And as stated in this article by Popsugar, exploitation and fetishization of Black female bodies is rooted in colonialism, and WAP is free of both literal and metaphorical shackles. (Also check out this article from Bitch Magazine about WAP.)
And similarly to how Eve Ensler reclaimed the word cunt in her play The Vagina Monologues, Cardi B is reclaiming pussy. Do you remember how revolutionary The Vagina Monologues was when it first hit theaters in 1996 and white women lost their shit over it? Now it seems very pedestrian.
So we have that look forward to—wet ass pussies might just be mainstream in 20 years. And IDK about you, but we can’t wait to see what’s after this.