In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Cardi B singled out male directors and producers for exploiting women over the years.
Her fear is that these women’s complaints of being harassed would not be taken seriously. “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,’” she told the magazine.
The clear power imbalance between rappers, producers, directors and dancers is immense and easy to exploit. Few women who started out as video vixens have been able to make sustainable careers out of dancing in music videos.
A handful of dancers, like Amber Rose and Melyssa Ford, have been able to surpass the stigma associated with dancing in music videos.
Video vixens join a growing list of groups that haven’t had their #MeToo moment yet. Some of these professions are sex work-related or in adult entertainment. The people who work in these fields feel like their concerns and complaints are not being heard by the movement at large.
Celebrities like Cardi B are helping start these conversations and help break the stigma around certain professions.
In her interview, Cardi B. did not shy away from her pole-dancing past and insists it’s for a reason.
“People say, ‘Why do you always got to say that you used to be a stripper?’” she said. “Because y’all don’t respect me because of it, and y’all going to respect these strippers from now on.”
