Being a fan of hip hop has always required a willingness to grapple with misogynistic messages -- a fact not lost on writer Roxane Gay, an internet must-read, essayist, and associate professor of English and creative writing at Purdue University. When her book Bad Feminist came out in August, she galvanized a whole slew of women -- and a healthy number of men -- to reclaim the term with pride. From Gay's takedowns of the regressive depictions of race in The Help to the despicable treatment of women on the internet, she puts a raw and thoughtful voice to topics pop culture continues to be happy to gloss over.

In Bad Feminist, Gay has a lot to say about hip hop. And the way she writes about it, it's clear Gay is a lifelong fan, but she's also conflicted about being a self-respecting woman who still listens to "Salt Shaker" in her headphones at the gym. I can relate.

I wanted to talk to her -- hip-hop fan to hip-hop fan -- about the inherent contradiction of being a woman who embraces hip hop, if not everything that comes along with it. From dissecting "Blurred Lines" to finding modern-day poets who still insist on casually using the term bitch, Gay reflects on where she draws the line, and why when it comes to misogyny in music, hip hop isn't the only musical genre with a problem.

Caitlin Thompson: You've said that if you're not willing to relax your politics, there's not a lot of pop culture that you can enjoy in good conscience. How would you describe your relationship to hip hop?

RG: It's really difficult. You hear some hip hop, and it's just such great music, or great lyrics, or a great beat, and it grabs your interest. Then you pause and you listen to the lyrics, and they're really damaging, or unnecessarily misogynistic. And you're like, "What do you do?"

If you're so principled that you decide that I'm going to have a zero-tolerance policy, the reality is that you're not going to be listening to anything. I don't necessarily want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because I also think that there's a lot of important messages that are being conveyed through hip hop.

CT: As a woman, have you ever found yourself identifying with the protagonist of a song, even if it is misogynist?

RG: I don't find myself relating to the protagonist in these songs, but I definitely understand when people do. For me, I hear the protagonist and what they're hearing in these songs and I think, "Okay, I want to be as far away from these people as possible." There's just very little about it that I find enticing.

The hip hop artist that comes to mind right now where I do identify with him is Kendrick Lamarr, who has such thoughtful lyrics and this is what makes it even more frustrating. Take the song "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe." It's a great song, but why do you have to use the word bitch? It's not necessary. He's such a clever lyricist, and he can't do any better than use the word bitch? It's so frustrating.

I should also say that Kendrick Lamar is not egregious in his use of the word. But the older I get, and the more I hear this in popular culture, the less tolerance I have for it, and the more willing I am to say, "You know what, maybe we should draw a line in the sand and say, ‘I am not going to consume what you produce any more until you do better.'"

CT: Are some forms of misogyny better than others? Is there a scale?

RG: I don't think the scale should exist, but of course there is one. There's a song like Blurred Lines that's actively encouraging the blurring of lines of consent, and I definitely think that's infinitely more harmful than "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe."

At the same time, I think what's pernicious about a choice like "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" is that we just take it for granted. We hear it so often that it becomes part of the vernacular. And then we think, "Oh, that bitch is crazy." It becomes part of our vernacular as women, as men, as human beings where because we're so immune to it because it's so constant, that we don't even notice it anymore, and I think that's equally dangerous. So it's really hard to decide if we have to which one is worse, but if we have to choose a scale, we'll start with ignoring consent at the top of being horrible.

When you have a song like "Blurred Lines." It was so damn catchy. It was infuriating. "Everybody get up!" Okay, I wanna get up! And then you listen to the music and you're like, "Oh god."

That's why music is such a powerful force, and powerful art form -- the music, the rhythm and the beat pulls us in and then there are these lyrics. And we could do better. And I don't think that everything has to be all about social change or creating good. I listen to music all the time. I love music and I don't need it to be a didactic experience every time I sit down and put on my headphones. But once in a while I would like it to be a less degrading experience.  

CT: A lot of male artist say they trust that women are intelligent to know they're playing a character -- or it's an exaggeration. You want to give everyone artistic license, but in the end, is that a cop out?

RG: I think it's a cop out. It says, I'm putting the responsibility on you that I'm unwilling to take on myself. And the reality is, at times women don't know. We know, because we're grown. But a 16-year-old doesn't necessarily know.

I write about this in Bad Feminist. After Chris Brown beat Rihanna, there were countless young women who went on social media and said, "Oh he can beat me any day of the week. I'll take a punch, I'll take a fist." And part of the reason they had that attitude is that the ground had already been softened. It's also disingenuous to suggest this is only hip hop. Rock and roll, country music, every form of music - including gospel - has misogyny in much of the songbook. And one of the the things I think is frustrating is that we point to hip hop and the demon. Ah no. Let's back that up.

CT: The feminist author Bell Hooks gets into this when she says that it's easy to blame music largely created by black males; that's an easy representation of things that we find being scary. But in reality, it's a larger pattern of hostility toward women.

RG: It's a convenient scapegoat because we have a lot of dismal ideas about black men, and their role in our culture. It's easy to say this is a hip hop problem because, "Oh, it's black men getting out of line again." That's a very convenient fantasy, and one that is not even remotely grounded in reality. Sexism and misogyny and the shoddy treatment of women is something that's endemic to our culture, and it's certainly not unique to any one race or ethnicity or class. It's something that unites us all. 

CT: Something else that happens in hip hop that doesn't necessarily in other places is this idea of being a "Real Bitch." Or "Ride or Die." A lot of hip-hop families tend to have a woman in the group who effectively endorses or is complicit in these messages. She's the mistress, not the wifey, and there's a difference.

RG:  I believe psychologists call that Stockholm Syndrome. We've become inculcated in this culture of misogyny and so just to survive, you play along. "You know what? Yes, I'll be the Bonnie to your Clyde, I'll be your 'ride-or-die bitch', I'll be your side piece." 

Right now we're seeing this sort of elevation of the side piece, the side chick and it's being glorified in music. "Oh yes, let's praise this woman who doesn't demand too much from me and allows me to be married and wifed up." It's appalling. "Look at this woman who's willing to settle for my shady ass." No, sir. No.