Speakers

Dr. Tracy Sharpley-Whiting: NAWCHE Keynote Speaker

Dr. Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting is the Director of African American and Diaspora Studies and teaches courses in comparative diasporic literary and cultural movements, Francophone Studies, critical face studies, feminist theory, Jazz Age Paris, and film and hip hop culture at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of four books, Negritude Women, Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French, Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminism and her latest book geared towards a more modern popular culture audience entitled, Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women. This book is gaining widespread attention as it addresses the complex gender politics of the leading popular culture of today’s youth, hip hop culture.

In her own self-critique, Sharpley-Whiting would be the first to acknowledge that today hip hop is not solely applicable to today’s black youth. She recognizes that its popularity and dominance allows it to transcend race, however she decided to focus her book more specifically on what this experience means for black women. This consumed hypersexualization of black women challenges the notion that hip hop can be empowering to women of color. As a result of the undeniable mainstreaming of hip hop culture, Sharpley-Whiting finds it worrisome that younger black women will interpret these messages negatively and apply them to they way they experience their own sexuality. She would like to see hip hop become more gender inclusive rather than allowing it to continue as a culture where male domination is seen as limitless.

In most cases the portrayal of women as blatant sex objects is overtly obvious in hip hop videos and music lyrics. The female role in these scenes is what Sharpley-Whiting refers to as the “groupie.” Black women have historically been a big influence in the groupie scene of hip hop music and are for that reason viewed as willing participants in their own sexual degradation. In short, they are seen as convenient and disposables tools for male sexual satisfaction. This “sexploitation” of black women forces women to acknowledge the role they play in the male dominating system. As consumers of hip hop music, black women feed into the culture that degrades them. It is here that we find the most conflicting and complex argument of hip hop culture in a feminist standpoint.

While Sharpley-Whiting acknowledges the harsh gender politics of hip hop culture she does not suggest that black women remove themselves from this culture completely. As a huge hip hop fan and sex positive feminist, she is more concerned that women learn to express their sexuality in a healthy way. However for younger and more easily influenced women, hip hop is handing them their sexuality on a platter, an offensive, male dominant, and objectifying platter. It is her fear that if the discussion of the social construction behind this hyper-masculine and hyper-sexual portrayal of men and women is not addressed, women will begin to take on these cultural norms as a social reality of the way it should be.

Sharpley-Whiting acknowledges that this is a complicated and contradictory task but she is adamant that she does not support censorship. Her point is not that hip hop should be abolished but that changes need to be made in terms of how we look at it. She asks of black women that they refuse to allow the music that they dance to, to become the soundtrack of their lives. She admits that there is oppression against women in all aspects of life and that we constantly partake in without question. She asks however that black women use hip hop as a lens through which they analyze the social construction of the masculinity and femininity of our time. She realizes this is difficult for black women who are so ingrained in the hip hop culture because hip hop is not a music genre to them, it is a way of life. Here is where it becomes complex because it is so difficult to know where to draw the line. In a lecture at Simmons College, Sharpley-Whiting explains that, “the music need not be instructive in our lives.” While it can be appreciated as a form of art and a part of who we are, you must be aware of the gender inequality it perpetuates and be able to distinguish this from your own behavior and what you are willing to accept in your everyday life. Dr. Tracey D. Sharpley-Whiting addressed these issues further in her discussion of her latest book, Pimps Up, Ho’s Down, Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women at Boston College which was held on November 15th at 7:30 pm.

http://www.listeningtowords.com/person.php?id=1499

Susan Faludi

Known for her Pulitzer Prize winning work as a journalist, Susan Faludi is one of the most influential feminist writers of our time. As the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man it is clear that Faludi has the keen ability to view the distinct social phenomena of our nation in a gendered context. Through her own feminist lens she offers a unique look at some of the most socially significant aspects of American society. The understanding of the changing view on the position of women in our society, and the events throughout history, which have sparked these transitions, is essential to the development of our society as a whole. It seems that in the past, just as we begin to sing our own progressive praises on the gender equality we claim to have achieved, Faludi reminds us that we still have a long way to go. With her new book, Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in a Post 9/11 America she successfully reveals the effect that one of America’s greatest tragedies has had on the lives of American women.
In this book, Faludi examines the impact of 9/11 on American culture and discovers the myths we have been living in as a society since. Through her feminist reading of the world, Faludi is able to unpack the increased push of traditional domestic roles placed on women since the attack. She also explains the ways in which the response of the United States can be seen as degrading to women yet simultaneously in appraisal of men. The Bush administration’s use of feminist defense for the war in Afghanistan is one of the many understudied and
significant issues discussed in her book. She sees this defense as yet another example of how America continually perpetuates the myth that the American male hero will protect women everywhere in the world. To quote Faludi, “You know, liberation of women was never what it was about. It was about, we're going to show ourselves to be dominant and invincible by taking care of these helpless women.”

The Jessica Lynch incident only further helped to perpetuate this false notion of American masculinity and the desire and concern to protect women. Cont’d on page 13... Faludi’s biggest problem with the Jessica Lynch incident is that it was completely distorted by the media on little factual basis. The story broke in the United States almost immediately after it happened, essentially she was made to be a helpless victim, abused and mistreated in an Afghani hospital and needed American male troops to save her. In reality, she was taken care of by the Afghani workers and had experienced no abuse and was in no need of immediate rescue. This event was publicized in the U.S. to a ridiculous extent, books were written and articles were published that Jessica Lynch herself had reported were not based on correct factual information.

?More generally, however Faludi explains how the voices of women in the media rapidly diminished after the events of 9/11. Even women who had subcommittees of terrorism and would therefore have incredibly relevant things to say were not asked to speak on any major news networks. Op-ed pieces in all of the major newspapers were dominated by men and there was a 40% decrease in the representation of women guests on relevant and news based talk shows. What is most important in all of these examples is the underlying message they are promoting.

This message is “the myth” that Faludi sees being applied to various aspects of our Post 9/11 social and political lives. This is the myth of American invincibility based on domestic dramas that have shaped the history of our nation. While 9/11 was by far the most significant attack on American soil of our time, our country is no stranger to foreign attacks. It seems however that these attacks result in a socially constructed desire for domesticity and the need to create a male hero as an icon. There is a tendency in our culture to polarize the people who experience these attacks as the victims and the heroes, and it is all too often that these distinctions are strictly gender based. For example, as we refuse to acknowledge the men who died in the attacks of 9/11 as victims, we therefore deem them heroes, whereas their wives and families are the tragic victims in this case. Here we are giving a dominating, powerful, and praiseworthy title to strictly men involved. While feminists are keen to this tendency and are able to question it, they have become to be seen as unpatriotic. It is here that Faludi feels an imminent need to take a stand in exclaiming that patriarchy cannot enforce the death of feminism. In her knew book, Susan Flaudi demands that these feminist arguments be heard.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/04/1355237