Since going viral, the #MeToo movement has taken the entertainment industry by storm, shedding light on how prevalent sexual harassment, misconduct and abuse are in women’s everyday lives. For rapper Cardi B, the campaign seems to overlook the harassment claims of women within the hip-hop industry.
“A lot of video vixens have spoke about this and nobody gives a fuck.” Cardi tells Cosmopolitan in her April 2018 cover story. “When I was trying to be a vixen, people were like, ‘You want to be on the cover of this magazine?’ Then they pull their dicks out. I bet if one of these women stands up and talks about it, people are going to say, ‘So what? You’re a ho. It don’t matter.’”
Cardi B was never a person to hold her tongue and proves that by also calling out the motives behind many of the men who’ve publicly shown support for the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.
“These producers and directors,” she says, “they’re not woke, they’re scared.”
Although many are glad to see the public outcry over sexual harassment in Hollywood, Cardi isn’t the first to call out the #MeToo movement on their lack of inclusivity.
“Orange is the New Black” star Laverne Cox touched on the campaigns lack of inclusion last month during Katie Couric’s podcast.
“I think we can always be more intersectional,” Cox said of the movement. “We can always include more people, I don’t just experience the world as a trans woman. I experience the world as a black person. I have multiple identities.”
More recently, singer Kelela opens up about the same inclusion issues in an interview with GQ. “I would say that when it comes to the campaign against sexual harassment and sexism as a whole, it has historically been a white woman’s campaign.” She says. “In film, it’s harder to make the argument that it’s black people’s contributions [that] are driving consumption. But it’s really simple when it comes to music, and that’s why there hasn’t been a #TimesUp moment in music.”