Recently, Brandeis’ Vagina Club put on its annual performance of “The Vagina Monologues,” an empowering play that shares the stories of different women’s experiences of womanhood through stories about their vaginas. The standout monologue “My Short Skirt,” performed by Gabriela Astaiza ’19 brought down the house with Astaiza’s proclamation that a short skirt is “not an invitation” and that a woman’s “short skirt” and “everything under it” is “mine, mine, mine.”

There seems to be a difference between our rhetoric and our reality as a student body. Just one month later, T-Pain, whose music contains misogynistic themes, will come to Springfest, a free concert put on by Brandeis Student Events and WBRS every spring. 

Many of T-Pain’s lyrics seem contradictory to the Brandeis community’s feminist beliefs. For example, in one of his most popular songs, “Booty Wurk (One Cheek At a Time),” he sings he can “see that thong” through a woman’s shorts and he is “trying to see them shorts spread apart” so that he can “get you out of this club” and “get you off in my bed.” Brandeis, what happened to rejecting the notion that clothing is an invitation?

T-Pain further paints women as disposable playthings and sings about them as if they were possessions that could be bought in “Up Down (Do This All Day).” 

He depicts a scene in which he wants two girls to kiss each other, even though one of them “don’t even like girls.” He goes on to mention his solution: “A stack will make her kiss her.” Using a stack of bills, T-Pain claims he can enjoy watching girls do things they do not want to do.

In “Buy You a Drank,” T-Pain boasts about his wealth and uses it as economic power over women. He sings that he wants to “buy you a drank” and goes on to attempt to impress a woman by saying “let’s talk money” so that he can “take you home with me” using his “money in the bank.” The message seems to be that T-Pain’s wealth leads directly to sex and that women can be bought. “When I whisper in your ear, your legs hit the chandelier,” he boasts, and goes on to sing, “Let’s get drunk, forget what we did.” If the sex were consensual, why would they want to forget it?

At a school where it is easy to spot a “Deis crushes the patriarchy” sticker anywhere, anytime, smeared onto a laptop, I struggle to wrap my mind around why we are bringing a misogynistic performer — someone who laments he has “200 bitches” but “ain’t none of them hot,” as T-Pain sings in “Bartender” — to the Brandeis campus.

That said, T-Pain has redeeming qualities. He has spoken out against homophobia directed toward Frank Ocean in the past, according to a Feb. 11, 2014 article in The Guardian. When the auto-tune is stripped away, his vocals are outstanding. T-Pain is an excellent performer. But none of those things diminishes or undoes the undertones of misogyny in his music.

T-Pain is part of a larger problem. According to a 2013 study from the Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications — republished in Student Pulse — at least half of all popular music in the past decade has medium to high levels of misogyny. As these things go, T-Pain is not that bad. Other popular performers, such as Lil Wayne and Eminem, have explicit references to violence and hatred toward women in their albums. 

And this is certainly not a problem specific to rap music. In “Animals” by pop band Maroon 5, for example, lead singer Adam Levine sings, “Baby I’m preying on you tonight, hunt you down, eat you alive.” 

In an interview with the Justice, Emma Curnin ’19, a Women, Gender and Sexuality studies major at Brandeis, offered a student perspective and said that when her peers listen to music, they are “listening to the beat but not really thinking about the words.” 

Emma, I hear you. It is easy to write off concerns about misogyny in music because it is so prevalent in our culture, but it does not make sense to support artists who sing about something so contradictory to our community’s fundamental beliefs.

It is sad that demeaning women is such a popular theme in music today, and I am tired of my peers’, as well as my own, ambivalence toward the music we listen to. People are aware that what they listen to might be demeaning to women, but they often choose to ignore their beliefs because the songs sound good and are commonly played on the radio and at parties.

The rest of the lineup for Springfest features The Internet and Metro Boomin, two solid choices. Both artists sing about women in respectful ways, and they have complex lyrics and soundscapes that make them fascinating to listen to. However, both The Internet and Metro Boomin are lesser-known artists. Is it because they don’t sing about what’s in? I find it hard to understand why some of my peers who are so adamantly for women’s rights listen to music with misogynistic themes so much of the time.

It is not impossible to find a less misogynistic performer. Boston College brought Dillon Francis to its fall concert, Plexapalooza, last semester. While Dillon Francis sings about drinking and partying, he does not demean women. Børns is expected to perform at Tufts for its Spring Fling concert in May. Børns features a woman as their lead vocalist, and their songs are upbeat, positive tunes about love and desire.

Brandeis can do this, too — and without switching to a different music genre. If students want rap and hip-hop next year, some artists to consider inviting might include B.O.B., Nas or Lupe Fiasco, who sing praise about women or just do not sing about them at all. 

On Lupe Fiasco’s album “Food and Liquor II,” he tackles his own struggle with misogyny in popular music with his song “Hurt Me Soul.” He raps that he “used to hate hip-hop” because “women [are] degraded.” This is progress, but there are many artists who never come to such an important realization over the course of their careers.

I will go to Springfest because I appreciate all the hard work my fellow students put in to make a concert like this happen. Springfest is a time for us to relax before finals, and T-Pain’s performance is sure to be lighthearted and fun. 

However, in the back of my mind, I will be thinking about all the girls and women we put down when we support people who reinforce misogynistic ideals in popular music.