Be a Ride or Die Chick

Being a ride or die chick is a term that was popularized by Like Hip Hop, although it can have different meanings. It usually means a girl or woman who sticks by her partner through thick and thin, even at danger to herself. A ride or die chick is loyal to her partner at all costs.

Steps

Adopting the Ride or Die Chick’s Attitude

1. Show extreme loyalty to your partner. A ride or die chick is eternally devoted to her partner and his life choices, no matter what those might be. The term derived from rap music in the 1990s, and it’s often used to refer to African-American women and gangster culture, although not exclusively.
   • The term essentially means that the ride or die chick is willing to lay her life down in the battle for her partner, participating in all aspects of his life. That means she will lie for him, help him, and stick by him, even if he’s engaged in dangerous and unlawful behavior.
   • Sometimes, ride or die chicks are glamorized by the media, even though they have an outlaw connotation. For example, Bonnie in the robbery duo of Bonnie and Clyde is considered a ride or die chick. Indeed, some define the ride or die chick as a “hip hop spin” on Bonnie and Clyde mythology.
   • On the even more negative side of the equation, ride or die chicks sometimes become witting accomplices in their partner’s amoral activities. Some people consider Adolf Hitler’s wife, Eva Braun, to be a ride or die chick because she committed suicide with the man who murdered millions of people. Don’t forget that Bonnie and Clyde ended up dying in a hail of bullets.
2. Show your devotion to a community or cause, not just a person. Some people interpret the term ride or die chick to mean loyalty to more than just another person or love interest. The term can also mean loyalty to something bigger than yourself.
   • A ride or die chick in this context embraces a political movement or other social cause. For example, she is willing to risk anything for the cause, even if it means arrest or other problems. The cause comes first.
   • She sticks by her community no matter what, always defending it, and always being its champion when the community is under attack, real or perceived.
   • An example of a ride or die chick would be Jane Fonda, who took her opposition to the Vietnam War to an extreme and controversial degree, despite personal consequences to her own career.
3. Ride out the bad. A ride or die chick isn’t just at her husband or partner’s side when things are going great. She’s still there no matter what happens, even if he ends up incarcerated or broke.
   • The term can equally apply to males. When it does, it’s just called “ride or die.” The key point: These are women (or men) who stand by their partner no matter what he or she does, even if she or he is mistreated along the way.
   • Someone might say, “That’s my ride or die husband for life.”
   • The ride or die chick is the opposite of someone who just marries someone for their money or power and hits the road the second those things vanish.
4. Participate in his activities. The ride or die chick is down for whatever her partner needs her to do. She isn’t just a passive observer to his lifestyle; she’s ready to participate.
   • The ride or die chick doesn’t have strong boundaries with her partner, and she lets him set the terms of the game. Being mistreated, though, never feels good.
   • The ride or die chick doesn’t have the power in the relationship. Her partner generally sets the couple’s boundaries and the terms. At the same time, some people consider the ride or die chick to be a liberated woman because she's joining her man in rejecting the rules.
   • The ride or die chick’s role in the relationship is as the accomplice. The partner’s activities take precedence over everything, and he may reward her for her trouble with money, jewelry or other gifts.

Assessing the Risks of Being a Ride or Die Chick

1. Consider the negative implications. Although being a ride or die chick has a positive connotation in some communities and usages, it comes with negatives ramifications that you might want to think about.
   • For example, if your partner is engaged in illegal activities that put others, himself, you, or your family at peril, you would do him (or her) more of a favor by helping him find another way.
   • There’s a reason that a person’s ride or die chick isn’t always the person they choose to be their wife; the ride or die chick is part of the "bad girl/good girl" binary that some people think is unfair to women.
   • Although Hollywood and rap music have glamorized young death (in music as well as film), it’s really not glamorous at all to see a person you love lying in a casket. In real life, not the movies, this will come with decades of pain, endless jail visits, financial struggles, and fatherless children.
   • Being a ride or die chick could put your own personal safety at risk, and it could also land you in trouble with the law, depending on the activities your partner is engaging in. Consider whether that’s worth it. Isn’t there another way?
2. Turn the ride or die chick concept positive. Although often used to glorify women who help men engaged in gangster life or criminality, there are positive ways to embrace the ride or die chick’s liberating allure and steadfast loyalty without the danger.
   • For example, the term has been used to refer to a woman who stands by her man through a very difficult battle with terminal cancer. She doesn’t run away when things are painful.
   • In more general terms, the phrase means sticking it out when times get tough, whether because of finances or something else. If the struggle is something out of your partner’s control – they lost a job, they have a health problem – that’s different than staying with a man who actively mistreats you. Never stay with a man who puts your life in danger or subjects you to physical or emotional abuse, especially if there are children in the home.
   • In its most loving definition, the ride or die chick is just a play on the concept of endless love that is found in many marriage vows that say “until death do us part.” The ride or die chick sometimes comes from an impoverished and violent environment or background.
3. Study feminist interpretations of the concept. Although some people consider the ride or die chick to be a liberating and even empowering rejection of the rules, some people don’t perceive the concept so fondly.
   • Some theorists have argued that the ride or die chick is an exercise in masculinity and patriarchy because the male’s needs are dominant over the woman’s. Others, though, have argued that the term can evolve and even constitutes an act of political rebellion against a culture that has stigmatized African-American love by devaluing the worth of black women.
   • Some people believe the ride or die chick is setting herself up for a life of depression and pain, as she allows herself to be mistreated and drawn into a life of danger.
   • Some scholars have recognized the ride or die chick as one of the historic stereotypes of black females. They have argued that the concept objectifies and does not empower women, and that it has contributed to rising female prison populations.

Studying the Ride or Die Chick in Popular Culture

1. Analyze celebrity ride or die chicks. People have identified many famous celebrities as ride or die chicks. Study them to master the concept. To some degree, ride or die chicks are the “bad” girl, not the good.
   • For example, Shante Broadus, the wife of rapper Snoop Dogg, stood by him despite drug use, infidelity and divorce papers. Eudoxie stood by rapper Ludacris when he cheated on her. Gabrielle Union stood by Dwayne Wade even when he got another woman pregnant.
   • The actress Nia Long has been dubbed a repeated cinematic ride or die chick. In the movie Boyz in the Hood, she played a loyal girlfriend helping her man, who was living a life on the streets of LA. In Soul Food, she played Bird, who was holding down the house while trying to help her criminal boyfriend find a job.
   • You can also find ride or die chicks in politics. Hillary Clinton famously stood by Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Sometimes ride or die chicks stand by their man to the bitter end because they get something out of the relationship: Status, money, fame. But the phenomenon doesn’t only occur with the rich and famous.
2. Learn about ride or die chicks throughout popular culture. The ride or die chick concept was popularized by hip hop music and has made appearances in other forms of pop culture.
   • For example, in season 1 of Empire, Andre’s wife is a ride or die chick, when she accidentally killed a man who was about to tell the police that her husband had killed someone. “I’m ride or die,” she told her husband as she helped him bury the body.
   • "Ride or Die, Chick” is a song that was featured on The Lox’s second album, We are the Streets. A less clean version contains an expletive in the place of the word “chick.” The concept appears in many other songs, including those by artists Jay-Z, Ice Cube, DMX, Ja Rule, Method Man, The Game, and 2Pac. Sometimes the term is accompanied with the “B” word or replaced with the phrase, a “down ass bitch.”
   • The characters Carmela Soprano and Adriana La Cerva are ride or die chicks who are accomplices in their partner’s criminal Mafia lifestyles. However, Adriana loses her life in the end.
   • Author J.M. Benjamin has written a paperback novel series that features ride or die chicks. One book, Ride or Die Chick Three, features a criminal couple in Virginia.
3. Be fun to capture the personality of a true ride or die chick. Obviously if you're someone's ride or die chick, you're around them often. Nobody likes someone boring or who complains all the time. Stay positive.
   • Have confidence and have no fear of anyone. To some degree, the ride or die chicks glamorized by popular culture are fearless and courageous women.
   • Learn how to fight if you don't know how. Ride or die chicks are tough. They aren't just going to passively stand by.
   • Get some attitude. The ride or die chick will defend her partner when he is under attack by anyone and anything. She's a force to be reckoned with at all times.

Tips

• Be faithful and stick with your friends through the hard times you will have together.
• Be true to yourself, rather than trying to be what you think your peers expect.

Warnings

• If you are putting yourself in danger or others, get help and consider the consequences. It's not worth it!
• Engaging in criminal activity is wrong and should not be done. You could end up in jail.

Sources and Citations

See also

• Give a Girl Space
• Become the Most Popular Girl in Your Class
• Understand Teen Boys
• Become Better Friends
• Be a Good Friend
• Get Girls in Middle School
• Be Outgoing in High School
• Become a Trustworthy Person
• Apologize to a Teen Girl
• Make Your Friends Think You're Weird

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