My days of being a hootchie mama started probably in the eighth or ninth grade. Those are the days that I was friskin’ around and trying to get the attention of other guys, but mostly B. From me watching those music videos, I could see what all girls at that age see—to get a man you have to be sexy and being sexy meant taking off your clothes, or wearing as few clothes a as possible. I was fourteen and watching those videos instead of listening to my mama. I was seeing those handsome, well-dressed, cool men on the TV and wishing that they were real. I was wishing that they lived in High Point, so I could see them and experience them. I was feelin’ frisky and wished for them or anyone who looked like them. Every teenage girl has the same problem. The magazines and the TV shows are always promoting sex—even down to the commercials. When you see a commercial for acne cream, they show the girl with acne and they show that she is home alone and doesn’t have a date. Then they show that the acne cream has taken all the acne away and then the next couple of seconds the girl has dates and a bunch of cute guys around her. What message is this sending—that you have be attractive and perfect to get dates and to get men to pay attention to you?
The term “hootchie mama” started in the ghetto with R&B and hip-hop music, but it is a mainstream idea. It is the physical presentation of women and our deep need for attention from men.
When I was fourteen years old, I started being more daring with my clothes. I was buying my tops a little tighter and wearing my skirts a little shorter. When I would buy jeans, I would buy jeans one or two sizes too small. I remember being in the store with my friends and overhearing all kinds of conversations with mothers and daughters about how tight the jeans were and I could hear the mothers saying you can’t wear those, they are too tight. The girls were desperate to get those tight jeans so they could wear them to school. What is so funny to me is that you never hear a conversation like that in a store for men. Men for some reason are not trying so hard to get our attention. Why is that?
Because I was always shoppin’ with my friends when I would get a few extra dollars from singin’, I didn’t have those disputes. Because I spent so much time away from home, my mother was always shocked when she saw me, but there was nothing that she could say. Those too-tight jeans would hug my butt and make it look so much bigger than it was. Remember that song by Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Baby Got Back”? Well, that is how girls like us started cravin’ a bigger butt. That song, which was a top-selling song, is how I learned what to wear to make my butt look bigger than it was. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one who got some tips about what to do to get their men.
I knew I was successful when I started getting looks from men when I walked past those guys who hang out at the corner gas station or those guys driving through the projects. They were checkin’ me out and that is what I wanted.
When I think back on it, I used to think I wanted attention, but what I really wanted was love and acceptance. I wanted to be loved by the boys because that’s what those videos promised. I thought that if I looked like those girls, the men who I liked would like me too. What I really wanted was all the love that my boyfriend was not givin’ to me. When you spend your whole day watchin’ music videos, your world gets real small and all you can think about is gettin’ a man or losin’ your man and everything in between that. That’s the case for girls all over the world. Those videos are such a constant companion, and you can get really sucked into them. And that’s what I see when I’m on the road. I see little girls with clothes that are too small, too tight, and too short. I see T-shirts that say things like “My boyfriend is away,” which suggests that it is OK for her to be with someone else in her boyfriend’s absence. Young women seem to think this kind of attitude is good and gives them freedom, but what it really does is further bad relationships between men and women, and that is goin’ on all over the world, not just in the ghetto.
Another reason that I became a hootchie mama when I was younger was that all of my friends looked like that. I was tired of not being accepted. Dressing like a hootchie mama made me feel included. I looked like the girls in the video and the ones down the street:finally I felt like everyone else. I’m sure that happens to a lot of young girls who don’t quite know how to fit in. It’s the girls who are getting attention from men that make the other girls want to be like them andthat is why there are more hootchie mamas around than we can count!
When I was being a hootchie mama, I was goin’ against the voice inside my head that kept telling me I was different from everyone else and didn’t need to try to be like everyone else. It was God’s voice telling
