Yesterday, Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg, real name Calvin Broadus) had been granted a visa to perform at this year’s Big Day Out festival. This was despite of the efforts of Collective Shout, an activist group against the objectification and sexualisation of women which petitioned to have his visa refused on the basis of lyrics' misogyny, his criminal history and his previous work as a pimp. 

This is not the first time the organisation has protested against an artist on the basis of them glorifying violence against women. In 2013, Collective Shout called on the Australia government to revoke the visa of rapper Tyler the Creator. His music is relatively well known outside his fan base due to its graphic depictions of rape and murder (though it has been noted that he has toned his lyrics down on his latest album). In 2011, the organisation co-sponsored a petition against another rapper, Kanye West, to block his music video for Monster due to its eroticised violence.

Indeed, despite the growing number of female rappers and conscious hip hop artists, the genre still struggles with a misogyny problem. Rick Ross was rightly punished last year for rapping about drugging and raping a woman. Likewise Beyonce’s husband (aka Jay Z) who, for no clear reason, controversially spat “I'm Ike Turner … Baby no I don't play / Now eat the cake, Anna Mae / Said eat the cake, Anna Mae” on her recently released song Drunk in Love.

However, it is a mistake to view hip hop as a homogenous style of music that is inherently anti-women. As bell hooks stated:

Without a doubt black males, young and old, must be held politically accountable for their sexism. Yet this critique must always be contextualised or we risk making it appear that the behaviours this thinking supports and condones – rape, male violence against women, etc – is a black male thing. And this is what is happening. Young black males are forced to take the 'heat' for encouraging, via their music, the hatred of and violence against women that is a central core of patriarchy.

Collective Shout’s petition to revoke Snoop Lion’s visa states, “as a society which claims to be serious about eradicating violence against women, there should be no place for recording artists who glorify misogyny and degrade women for entertainment”.

So if we agree with this statement, then not only would there be no place for the rappers mentioned above, but also:

• Multi-platinum artists Matchbox 20: “I wanna push you around, well I will, I will … I wanna take you for granted” (Push);
• Pink Floyd: “Don’t leave me now / How could you go? / When you know how I need you / To beat to a pulp on a Saturday night” (Don’t Leave Me Now);
• Indie band Alt-J: “She may contain the urge to run away / But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks” (Breezeblocks);
• Rock legends the Rolling Stones: “Under my thumb / She's the sweetest pet in the world … It's down to me / The way she talks when she's spoken to” (Under my Thumb);
• Alt darling band Death Cab For Cutie: "You reject my advances and desperate pleas / I won’t let you, let me down so easily, so easily"(I Will Possess Your Heart)
• Crooner Tom Jones: “At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting … She stood there laughing / I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more” (Delilah)
• Legendary punk band the Misfits: “Inside your feeble brain there’s probably a whore / If you don’t shut your mouth you’re gonna feel the floor” (Attitude);
• Indie folk band the Decemberists: “I lay you down in the grass of a clearing / You wept, but your soul was willing” (We Both Go Down Together);
• Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Nick Cave who have all performed murder ballads featuring women as the victim (Delia's Gone, Lily of the West, and Where the Wild Roses Grow respectively); and
• John Lennon, considered to be one of music’s most important figures, who was largely responsible for the Beatles’ song Run for Your Life (“Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl / Than to be with another man / You better keep your head, little girl / Or I won't know where I am”) and was physically violent in his relationships.

On that note, many artists that have been arrested for abusive behaviour have toured Australia in recent years with little to no mention of their violent past:

• Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee served four months in prison after pleading no contest to spousal battery of his then-wife Pamela Anderson in 1998. The singer for Mötley Crüe, Vince Neil, was arrested for domestic violence in 1984 and 2011. The band last toured Australia in 2013.
• Ozzy Osbourne was arrested for domestic violence in 1989. 
• In the early 1990s, Axl Rose of Guns ‘n’ Roses and his ex-wife Stephanie Seymour sued each other, both on claims of domestic violence. The case was settled out of court with Rose reportedly paying Seymour $400,000. Guns ‘n’ Roses last toured Australia in 2013.
• Former singer for the Stone Temple Pilots (who were last here in 2011), Scott Weiland, was arrested for domestic violence in 2001. He last toured with the band in 2013.

This collection is only a small sample of the sexism, and sexists, present in other, traditionally whiter genres of music. However, with the exception of pop, these styles do not attract the same level of criticism that hip hop does.

I am not excusing the misogyny present in a fair chunk of rap music, nor am I hoping that organisations like Collective Shout protest the entry of every artist with a criminal history or dodgy back catalogue. Instead, I am questioning why the behaviour and lyrics of artists like Snoop Lion, Tyler the Creator, and Kanye West are held to account while others appear to get a free pass.

If perpetrating and glorifying violence against women is unacceptable, then it should be without caveats. If one group of people or style of music is being scrutinised more heavily than another, perhaps it is not only an issue of gender but also an issue of race.