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By Root 566 0

women has caused a backlash in gender perception, Eminem has become the poster child for female-backlash fans, whether they are old enough to remember the sixties feminists, have just finished reading Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, or don’t remember a time when girls weren’t shown on MTV in bikini tops in sunny climes, seated on the shoulders of boys they’ve just met. Eminem has fans in suburbia with children of their own, who should in no way support songs about spousal homicide, mother hating, and free use of the word bitch. But Eminem embodies the handsome bad-boy fantasy that women love, the one that—despite the equality and capability they have to fend for themselves—they desire, whether it is for protection, for the eroticism of being dominated, or to have a focus for an object of maternal nurturing. The generation of young women who are now in their teens may have been attracted to nice guys in boy bands when they were younger, but the complexities of adolescence are the terrain Eminem speaks to. Boy bands don’t. Celebrations of maleness are nothing without female cheerleaders, even those who are conscious of their subordinate role, from girls flashing their breasts at Guns n’ Roses concerts in the eighties to those grinding onstage with R. Kelly, even after his child pornography troubles. To women in our feminist-backlash culture, Eminem elicits empathy, eros, and respect. The interesting questions are how and why.

“I think Eminem truly is rebellious,” Sia Michel says, “He really does do exactly what he wants to do and for the most part says what he wants to say, as long as it is not racially insensitive. But you can use antifemale feelings as a cheap form of rebellion and, if anything, that’s the conflict some women have, though mainstream culture is so misogynistic that the only way to avoid it would be to live completely apart from it. I think that is why some women are fine with it, but also because they grant Eminem a distance from his lyrics. Most people have violent fantasies or anger directed toward the opposite sex. They see him using them and shaping a story as a narrator, apart from the actual person. The era of women universally disliking anyone who says something that seems antifemale is very much early-nineties identity politics-driven. I don’t see that very much anymore. I’m not saying it’s better this way, it’s just generally the tenor of the times right now. Misogyny in lyrics was written about until it got boring. It doesn’t mean it’s not an issue anymore. In the same way, the racial diversity of bands used to be mentioned in a very positive way, how they were ‘multicultural.’ Now it’s just an accepted norm: D12 has a white guy, and Linkin Park has a Japanese-American rapper, and the best rock guitar player is Tom Morello [Rage Against the Machine], a black guy.”

“What a terrible time to be a young woman,” says critic Sasha Frere-Jones. “Who would you possibly look up to? Who would you possibly be inspired by? I want the female Eminem. We need the kind of woman who can create that kind of excitement.”

It is impossible not to see Eminem and his views, as well as the manner in which they are expressed, as the product of a single-parent, matriarchal home. If the antifeminist backlash is the result of men asserting their power, among them are a significant number of young men who probably spent their childhood answering to their mothers, the only obstacle to the top of the power pyramid. If society, particularly the hip-hop circles that Eminem aspired to, espoused a macho-male hierarchy, Eminem’s stormy days with his mother and his struggle for financial independence took on epic proportions to him, the very real depth of which can be heard in the music. In his most trying times, Eminem was emasculated by society, the hip-hop community that did not support him, his mother’s inconsistent behavior, the contempt of his girlfriend’s family, and his own self-loathing for being unable to properly provide for his daughter. The rage and tension in great Eminem songs such as “The Way I Am” or “Lose