Who Said It: Kanye West Or A First Wave Feminist
Interestingly, a lot of what Yeezy (ahem, excuse meezy) Yeezus said sounded fairly revolutionary…when early feminists were saying it a hundred or so years ago. So let’s play a quick game of Who Said It: Kanye West Or A First Wave Feminist?
Kanye West just gave this sprawling interview with the New York Times wherein he discussed music, fashion, the public, and (obviously) Kanye West. Kanye’s answers ranged from insightful and forward-thinking to inscrutable and self-aggrandizing. It was like reading the subtext of any Kanye West album as literal text.
Interestingly, a lot of what Yeezy (ahem, excuse meezy) Yeezus said sounded fairly revolutionary…when early feminists were saying it a hundred or so years ago. So let’s play a quick game of Who Said It: Kanye West Or A First Wave Feminist?
1. “I am so credible and influential and relevant that I will change things.”
2. “I want to break glass ceilings.”
3. “I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.”
4. “I don’t want them to rewrite history right in front of us. At least, not on my clock.”
5. “We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.”
6. “I declare to you that woman must not depend on the protection of man/
But must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”
7. “The passion is for humanity. The passion is for people.”
8. “Failure is impossible.”
9. “So when the next little girl wants to be, you know, a musician, and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent…that thing is more fair because I was there.”
10. “I shall not grow conservative with age.”
11. “If I don’t scream, if I don’t say something, then no one’s going to say anything.”
12. “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations…can never effect a reform.
13. “Maybe 90 percent of the time it looks like I’m not having a good time.”
A couple of these are pretty obvious, but a lot of them could go either way. So nice to see a rapper catch up to the gender politics of the early 1900’s, at least rhetorically!
Answer Key
1. Kanye (Duh.)
2. Yeezus (Which glass ceilings does he mean, again?)
3. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Swag.)
4. Kanye to the (Taking the expression “not on my watch” and making it bigger.)
5. Lucretia Mott (Laying the groundwork for “no one man should have all that power,” perhaps?)
6. Susan B. Anthony (Reformatted as an rhyming couplet for effect.)
7. Mr. West (The same guy who once said “My presence is a present…kiss my ass.”)
8. Susan B. Anthony again. (Double swag.)
9. Kanyeezy (You did it again!)
10. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (The “shall” seemed a little out of Ye’s wheelhouse, but not that far, right?)
11. Kanye (Too many contractions for a First Wave Feminist.)
12. Susan “Beezy” Anthony
13. Australian feminist Rose Scott (Psych! Kanye again!)
(Feminist quotations pulled from Brainy Quote.) 
