The literature on Black youth culture, especially hip-hop culture, has focused primarily on the experiences of young men, with the experiences of Black girls being all but ignored. However, the recent appearance of Black women performers, songwriters, and producers in Black popular culture has called attention to the ways in which young Black women use popular culture to negotiate social existence and attempt to express independence, self-reliance, and agency. This article is an exploration of the representations of Black womanhood as expressed in the music videos of Black women performers. The author first identifies themes that reflect controlling images of Black womanhood, then those that exemplify an expression of agency, and finally those appearing ambivalent and contradictory. Overall, the music videos express how young Black women must negotiate sexuality and womanhood in their everyday lives.

This article explores four thematic areas in feminist media criticism. First, it considers how gender informs norms and values that pattern industry production practices and conventions. Next, it explores how feminist criticism has influenced one of the emergent areas in media scholarship: reception studies. This particular subgenre of media studies examines how audiences actively engage the mediascape around them. Third, the focus shifts to the rising influence of black feminist criticism, which has identified many of the tensions within feminism and also has pointed toward new modes of media criticism and practice. Fourth, the article examines how feminism has informed the study of masculinity. The final section of the article identifies and briefly discusses two areas that will forge new directions in feminist media studies: the burgeoning sex industry and globalization.

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