Within the Seventies, “The Future Is Feminine” turned a rallying cry constructed to encourage and problem girls, to portend that they had been poised to surpass their male counterparts. Practically 5 a long time later, that prophecy rings more true than ever — particularly contained in the squared circle and in entrance of the mic.
The world of wrestling is birthing perennial WrestleMania main-eventers with names like Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Liv Morgan, Becky Lynch, Tiffany Stratton, Iyo Sky and Charlotte Aptitude headlining a stout girls’s division within the WWE. The identical may very well be mentioned within the hip-hop world, the place Billboard’s newly topped Best Female Rapper of All Time, Nicki Minaj, nonetheless reigns supreme. Whereas the Queen continues to lap adversaries along with her decades-long dominance, her competitors is fiercer than ever, as Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Latto, Doechii, GloRilla, Sexxy Redd proceed to push in the direction of pole place.
What makes this period of feminine wrestlers and rappers so compelling is the depth on each side. Within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, WWE relied on intercourse attraction and titillating theatrics to captivate the viewers. Lita and Trish Stratus dazzled with their ability and in-ring acrobatics, however the WWE leaned extra into their desirability to satiate their viewers’s cravings. In the course of the McMahon period, Bra and Panties matches had been thought of the premium for the feminine division, as a result of firm’s dearth of expertise. Even throughout The Divas period, when expertise elevated considerably with the arrival of The Bella Twins, Natalya, AJ Lee, Beth Phoenix, and others, the need to see these girls headline noteworthy premium dwell occasions like WrestleMania felt like a pipe dream.
The trajectory was a bit completely different for feminine rap. Within the late Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, pioneers corresponding to Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, and Queen Latifah made a big impression on the rap scene with their sharp lyrics and unflinching demeanor. Though the lads dominated the dialog, these marquee names went toe-to-toe with the males, twice as vigorous and swaggering. Within the mid-to-late ’90s, Lil Kim and Cunning Brown grew in fame and supplanted these stars with sex-laden bars. Different artists tried to copy the blueprint, however their tawdry makes an attempt didn’t pay any dividends; when Minaj detonated within the early 2010s, she had the feminine rap panorama in a bearhug, dominating radio and the Billboard Sizzling 100.
Quick ahead to the 2020s, and the occasions have modified. WrestleMania 37 included not solely a primary occasion headlined by two feminine superstars but in addition two Black girls: Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks. Liv Morgan turned the primary lady to win the inaugural WWE Crown Jewel Championship final 12 months. On the similar time, Tiffany Stratton was arguably the corporate’s prime rookie, profitable Cash within the Financial institution in 2024 and, inevitably, her first Girls’s Championship earlier this 12 months. With WWE’s developmental system, NXT, serving because the coaching floor for budding expertise, new stars are making their presence felt there earlier than stepping onto the primary roster. New stars are surging up the ranks, starting from Girls’s Champion Stephanie Vaquer to Jordynne Grace to newly-promoted acts Roxanne Perez and Guilia.
Although Minaj stays the highest lady on the throne, the battle for supremacy is extra brutal, as confirmed by Billboard’s Top 10 Hottest Female Rappers record final 12 months, which noticed GloRilla oust the Queens rapper from the highest slot. Megan Thee Stallion rocketed to superstardom in a single day when she nailed three Grammys on the 2021 ceremonies. Doechii’s genre-bending defiance has the music panorama salivating at her each transfer. And although Cardi has but to drop her sophomore album, her 2018 debut, Invasion of Privateness, stays a landmark second within the rap panorama.
In 2011, when Beyonce shouted out: “Who runs the world?,” the singer wasn’t merely predicting what was to come back. She issued a spoiler, and a decade later, we’re watching it unfold as predicted proper earlier than our eyes.