FEB 27, 2025 | OPINION | By Sofia Joucovsky (Staff Writer)
Disclaimer: The opinions represented in this section do not reflect those of anyone other than the author themselves. The Catalyst’s editorial staff may edit any article for form and/or length.
The past 24 hours, I went on an internet deep dive into the insanity that is Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) rampage on X, previously Twitter. Although his tweets seem like a basic, idiotic, internet tirade, many aspects of his 280-character or fewer diatribes underscore dark normalizations in society about the infantilization of female bodies, domestic violence and antisemitism.
I heard about his antisemitic tirade at a Shabbat dinner and decided I wouldn’t give in to my curiosity. But then I heard about his wife’s Grammy dress (or lack thereof) and that’s how the X-rated (pun intended) hyper-fixation began. I was lying in my bed, scrolling on my iPad, deciding whether or not wearing nothing under a sheer dress was “feminism,” as I so eloquently put it in a text to my friend.
When I asked the aforementioned friend about her thoughts on the dress — which was essentially a long camisole that looked like it was made out of sheer panty-hose — she responded with a screenshot of a tweet, where, from what I can gather from the sensical all-caps writing, Kanye West told X that the choice of Grammy wear was, in fact, not feminism. My understanding is his wife, Bianca Censori, only could have worn the sheer body stocking with his permission. He has “dominion” over her.
Those who regularly interact with me can attest that I frequently preach that you should do what brings you joy. Everybody should be able to choose what they wear, clothes or lack thereof, and should strive for internal joy. Whether it’s dressing for the Grammys or posting an X tirade, people should be able to display what they want. But I would be very unhappy if my partner decided I needed their go-ahead on what I wear. I’m not an expert on healthy relationships but that does not feel like a particularly healthy dynamic.
Analyzing the dress choice alone, the juxtaposition between wearing a fairly simple piece and being completely bare to the world could be interpreted as a statement on how celebrities will show as much skin as possible — with just enough ridiculously expensive and ostentatious clothing to be covered in a socially acceptable manner. I firmly believe that American society is made far too uncomfortable by bodies, specifically breasts and labia. Choosing to go nude can be liberating and we make far too big of a deal over ‘nip slips’ and body fat.
With a husband who declared on his X tirade that fat women should not wear lingerie and domestic violence is love, intentionally or inadvertently, Censori silently wearing that dress represents the docile, childlike femininity, where women are referred to as girls and perpetrate commonplace societal pedophilia. Sexualizing child-like behaviors is disturbing, and while I am a firm believer in dressing in whatever manner brings you joy, the sheer body stocking does not represent the liberation of bodies, but the tailoring of female bodies for a creepy male gaze.
Speaking of creepy men, West’s justification and defense of sexual assault offenders, domestic violence, and antisemitic tropes and stereotypes should be perturbing to most people. Sometimes things feel so ridiculous, you have to laugh. I may have guffawed a few times, but what keeps these tweets from being funny is that West has more X followers than the number of Jews on the planet, and I fear how much of his tirade people will take seriously.
I am a Jewish woman, who often jokes with fellow Jews about my lizard scales or control over the media and laments how the Jewish stereotypes I rise to only involve anxiety and stomach issues. Praising Hitler, defending Nazism, especially on the now anarchic X, is disturbing.
Furthermore, West said antisemitism was not real. My great-grandma had 12 siblings and two survived the Holocaust, including her. My great-grandpa escaped a concentration camp. My abuela spent the first few years of her life hidden in a convent in Southern France. After the war, they moved to Argentina. The Junta military in Argentina specifically targeted Jews and to escape detection, my dad grew up in extreme poverty in a small village. There is a lot more to these stories, of course, and my family’s trauma is not unique, but the story of how I came to be, on both sides of my family, are all cautionary recounts of the dangers of antisemitism.
With Musk’s new X, Ye feels he has “dominion” over what he can say. While there is a legal line between freedom of speech and hate speech that I don’t entirely understand, Ye is poking at it like he’s a drunk 15-year-old going camping and Musk has sedated the bear in an X cave nearby.
After I wrote this piece, he deleted his X, but regardless, please don’t go down the same rabbit hole I did. The tweets are manic lunacy, where West clarifies that he knows exactly what he is saying and how disturbing it is, but reiterates that he does not care.