Although Megan Thee Stallion has taken pride in being tall and curvaceous, proudly naming herself a Stallion, she has been mocked over the years for her height. After being shot by the artist Tory Lanez, people began to discredit Megan by drawing attention to the idea that larger women are aggressive and have a higher threshold of pain; therefore, they should be able to handle a gunshot wound. This is very problematic given the issue of the adultification of black women in society.
Megan, being tall and having features that are usually coded as masculine, has subjected her to a lot of hate and attacks. The concept of height doesn’t have the same negative implications for non-black women (like Iggy Azalea). So, in a nutshell, it seems as though black women must be small and petite to compensate for masculinization, on top of the already existing misogynoir.
Historically, anti-Black tropes have always honed in on exaggeration, and in blackface (1800s), we see how they exaggerated Black people’s features: ears, lips, and even feet, equating Black people’s features to monkey or beast-like features. For instance, we see posters about Michelle Obama vs. Melania Trump where Michelle was continuously hyper-masculinized, and Melania was presented as soft and girly-like. The same goes for newspapers, which depict Serena Williams as an angry, tall Black woman with immensely exaggerated features.
When looking at tall, cisgender women who are famous like Serena and Michelle, there have been rumors that they are transgender, and Megan has slipped into this list as she takes on these accusations. This is not only harmful as it further fuels the racist tropes about hyper-masculinity, but it also stigmatizes actual Black transwomen, which is most damaging.
With her latest track, “Hiss,” Megan has fallen into the hypermasculinization campaigns with her rap beef with Nicki Minaj. Unimpressively, Nicki raps, “She’s like six-foot, I call her bigfoot” in her latest “diss” track, likening a tall Black woman to a large beast. While Megan is 5’10”, many sources would reveal that her shoe size is average for American women. Therefore, Megan’s shoe size is appropriate for her height. While Nicki’s antics might be viewed as simply trolling, there are some things that have dangerously contributed to the culture of misogyny, making this rap beef far more insidious. I believe that it was lazy of Nicki to rely on tired racist tropes when she has proven to be such a talented lyricist time after time again.
Precious Adediran is a recent graduate from London exploring post graduation options within the media field. She is currently a part of the N’DIGO Experience Intern.
