Whenever I feel a wavering sense of self-esteem, I reach for a book by and/or about fat women. Digging around at the library, I found Bad Fat Black Girl by Sesali Bowen, which wasn’t on my current TBR. I got the audiobook, read by Bowen, and started listening to it while traveling and doing chores.
I had no clue what I was in for. Bowen’s book describes her theory, “trap feminism.” You Google “trap,” and loads of scholarly works on trap music pop up. Bowen defines “trap” as the following:
Atlanta slang for the specific dwelling or neighborhood where drugs, guns, or other illicit products or services are sold. The term is multifaceted and flexible.
The music is typically male-dominated and sees women as objects, but Bowen makes the argument that there is a place for women in trap culture, especially when Black girls are given lessons on being moral, pure, and told “don’t mess it up.” In fact, female trap rappers were talking about sex being transactional (financially) because if that’s how it’s going to be, she’s going to be it and own it.
A trap feminist is often a “ratchet” girl, which Bowen says society defines as “ghetto” and “uncouth.” Throughout Bad Fat Black Girl, Bowen explores fatness, sex, independence, money, and sex work through the lens of both trap music and the way the scene can empower “ratchet” girls who survive in cities. So, what is trap feminism?
Trap feminism says that Black girls who have ever rocked bamboo earrings, dookie braids, Baby Phat, lace fronts, or those who have worked as hoes, scammers, call-center reps, at daycares, in retail, and those who sell waist trainers and mink lashes on Instagram are all worth the same dignity and respect we give Michelle Obama and Beyoncé.
Okay, so I am definitely not the audience for Bowen’s book. Yes, I taught Black Lit and read it frequently, but that doesn’t mean I’m even introduced to Black pop culture, or sub-cultures in Black America. Interestingly, trap music came from the American south, but Bowen was born and raised in Chicago, so it has cross country appeal. The book has loads of swearing, slang, and racial slurs, and it’s all I could do to keep up.
But I tried to keep up because Bowen describes a vitally important sub-culture in America, one we’re quick to look down on — the Black women who wear bonnets to the store or have long nails white people find unacceptable. The women who do sex work (which Bowen carefully distinguishes from sex trafficking) and get looked down on but are engaged in a service with lots of demand. In fact, Bowen notes that any financial exchange for physical intimacy is a form of sex work, so we’re too snobby about it anyway. I was quick to remember all the dinner dates I went on in college merely because I was hungry and didn’t want ramen (which is… weirdly popular in restaurants now).
Bowen prioritizes Black women, their success, their joy, and their agency. While I do think listening to Bowen read the book was a must-have experience, I want to re-read it in text so I can take my time and think while I hold my finger in the page, and to reevaluate my own impression of trap culture. If you were enamored (or appalled) by the song “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, then you should definitely read Bad Fat Black Girl.
Grab the Lapels 
Interesting. Thanks for such a thorough description about what trap feminism is! How di the book do on the bad and fat girl part?
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Bowen talked lots about her shape (one online troll described her as shaped like a wisdom tooth) and fatness and being “built bad.” Th describes how there is money to be made through men if you’re “built right,” but she rejects that because she has a rather active dating and sexual life; therefore, what people are saying is not in alignment with what they are doing. A “bad bitch” is someone who can make money off her looks and men (which, Bowen notes men use women anyway, so so when women say, “Damn straight, and now I want money for it, too,” they’re profiting on a system that already uses them).
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So interesting. It’s a whole culture I haven’t a clue about, but I’m glad it exists.
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My only exposure is through music and TV because I don’t think that this is a culture you walk into; you’re born into it, which is amazing. I’m glad Bowen found her voice and her strength and knew where she was from.
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I think I finally got the idea of “trap”. I had never heard of it before, but I’m seeing it as a kind of subversive feminism take on traditional feminism (whatever that may be). It’s somehow exciting reading about a culture that is so different to one’s own – like someone is generously sharing a secret with you. It can be confronting, but I like being made to work hard to understand something rather than straight out judge it because it’s now how I have come to think through my own processes.
I like that you now would like to read the text.
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Yes, I got a better sense of what “trap” means, too, especially how it starts with a group in the south in the U.S. being trapped in certain kinds of communities, and how the music, fashion, and stories of those communities have become profitable by speaking to people who can relate.
I’d like to read the text version, definitely; however, it has recently occured to me that I’ve promised to do more read-alongs that I can probably manage. I shall try my darndest!
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So easy to promise to read, but much harder to deliver isn’t it? I know the feeling – not with read-alongs but with reading in general.
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Well, I mention that I want to read a book, and then people email like “Are we starting now?” I need to think before I type, lol.
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Haha … Melanie. You clearly have too good a reputation as a read-along buddy!
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dang it, you’re right! 🤣
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I know I’ve said this before, but you really do read the most diverse group of books of any blogger I follow. I think this must make you a really open-minded person (or is it the other way around, you’re an open-minded person so you read many different kinds of books?) Either way, you are clearly fascinated by people and I enjoy reading your reviews to learn just a little about all kinds of people.
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To be fair, I sat there and felt all kinds of uncomfortable when I listened to a lot of this book, but just because my brain thinks it wants “better” for other people doesn’t change the reality, nor does it make what I think is “better” better. For instance, a lot of the stuff that is basically prostitution without all the stereotypes — the lyrics in WAP are about men paying for various things, like tuition, a ring, a car, and handing over credit cards. It makes me make a sound like Tina Belcher on Bob’s Burgers. BUT, it’s not my perspective that matters, and I’m curious about another woman’s perspective. So, here I am!
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Oh this sounds fascinating – I love reading about different cultures and subcultures and also ideas of women’s power and feminism (whether it’s called that or not) that’s not majority White middle-class. I wonder if I can get this here … yes, but quite expensive. Never know when it will pop up somewhere though.
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I love learning about this stuff, which is just one reason why I so appreciate your reviews. I can sort of ‘picture’ Trap culture in my mind, but this is a great explanation. It’s frustrating how people are so critical of women in these situations, because the name points out the double standard we are foisting upon these women; you need to ‘pull yourself up by your boot straps and work hard’ but when they do, someone is running after them telling them ‘but not like that!’. I can’t imagine what its like to feel so trapped, but criticized all at the same time. So their strength in re-writing this narrative to one of strength is one I really admire 🙂
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There is a strength to the women Bowen describes, too. I think you capture a lot of what makes subcultures interesting–they thrive, but then someone says, “Not like that!”
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I’ve heard some of these expressions before but it’s helpful to see them defined like this.
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I’d never even heard them before!
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[…] It was interesting to listen to an audiobook about a subculture I didn’t even know existed in the U.S. and then share that with you. I hope I always came off as an outsider, an observer, and not judgmental of Bat Fat Black Girl by Sesali Bowen. […]
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[…] her work unique from other books that read similarly (see Shrill, You Have the Right to Remain Fat, Bad Fat Black Girl, and Fat, Pretty, And Soon to Be Old), which bring their own conversations to the discussion. […]
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[…] Bad Fat Black Girl by Sesali Bowen […]
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