How Do We Frame The Word “Hoe”
At first I thought maybe labeling men as “hoes” would do the trick but maybe its refraining from the word altogether?
When you hear the word “hoe,” what do you think? Most of us are conditioned to think it is a word for women who sleep around a lot. If you look on Urban Dictionary the definitions can be quite unsettling and often times sexist. But in our defense, it’s what we are conditioned to think. In pop culture and media it seems like the word “hoe” is only used to describe women. The word “hoe” is used so commonly in pop music and rap and 99 percent of those references are towards women. It’s also a popular scene in TV and film. A woman sleeps with someone, the guy is hurt, and automatically she is a hoe. We see this in Insecure, first during the season 2 finale when Lawrence calls Issa a hoe for cheating but doesn’t ever own up to his own actions. The show also portrays the “hoe phase” for both Issa and Lawrence now that they are single. During his hoe phase, Lawrence dishes out a couple of broken hearts as well as an STD. I wonder if he would consider himself a hoe or is that word just for the women who he felt betrayed by?
On the other hand, I feel like there is such a pressure to have a hoe phase when you are young or newly single. Immediately after I had broke up with my boyfriend of three years, often times people would ask me if I was going to have a hoe phase. That wasn’t the first thing on my mind. But feeling peer pressured as well as the messages I got from media of hoeing being a natural thing of your 20s, I attempted to take part in one. The “hoe phase” lasted about 4 months. In that time span, I had had one 1 night stand, slept with someone twice after a second date before sleeping with the same person for 7 months straight. Was this even considered a hoe phase? I never slept with more than one person at once so did that count? I thought I was supposed to feel liberated during this phase but I was more mad that men I had slept with either ghosted me or lied about things.
I think we don’t tell people that it’s also okay if a hoe phase isn’t for you. There is nothing wrong if you want to take part in one but it’s also okay if you want to opt out. Just because you are young and newly single its okay to also be celibate! Neither is better than the other. But it’s important to listen to yourself and not engage in activities because of peer pressure or what we see in media.
When I was embarking on the hoe phase and telling my friends, I felt slightly gross. I’m not sure if that was because I had associated so much negativity with the word or if I had some type of imposter syndrome. If felt odd that other people might have considered me a hoe and I would be in the same negative category as those in rap an TV. I didn’t think I was better than these women but the negative connotation didn’t sit well with me.
So what is the solution? At first, I thought maybe we should just normalize calling men hoes. That would make the word gender neutral and men could no longer put the negative connotation on it. So I started to just call men hoes that slept with a lot of women since that’s what they did to us. All the rappers and regular men who bragged about sleeping with women I started to call a hoe. But the problem with this is, men never seemed to take offense to this and it never caught on. Men also have this idea that they are magical and love to us the “lock vs. key” analogy. To them they are the key, and if a key can unlock all the locks it’s a master key that has value. But women are the lock, and if every key an unlock this one lock the lock has no value. How to your bring up logic with this a mindset? So the only other option I believe is for us to not automatically put a negative connotation to the word hoe if it only applies to women. People who choose to be sexually liberated are not hoes. And also, maybe we should all just mind our business on people’s sex lives. If it does not involve us or hurt us then it should not be our right to label women as hoes.
In this NSFW episode, the Oreos ask, what is the definition of a hoe? What is a hoe phase? Should we all have one? The discussion leads to the gender bias of the word “hoe,” personal stories of being called a hoe in school as well as the Oreos giving insight into their own “hoe phases.” The hosts also give encouragement into checking your mental health and societal pressure before you take part in a hoe phase. The question arises of why men make it difficult to even have a hoe phase and the rules on how not to get attached in hoe culture.
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