“Let's get radical, let's get ratchet, let's twerk, let's use our voices and live our best lives as Cardi B says, but most importantly, let's engage with the sociology that centers women from the trap,” concluded Washington and Lee Professor Candice Robinson.

Robinson, assistant professor of sociology and a DeLaney Center faculty scholar, discussed these issues during her March 4 speech in Leyburn Library’s Harte Center Gallery. The speech borrowed the name of her 2024 book, The Sociology of Cardi B: A Trap Feminist Approach.

She told the approximately 25 attendees that “this book would be nothing without the women in and adjacent to the trap: the hood chicks, the ghetto girls, the ratchet women, those with the long nails and brightly colored hair who are twerking or talking too loud or whatever the case may be.” Robinson described these groups of people as “the women who survive and thrive in the face of structural inequalities.”