While many consider hip-hop the latest and the "hippest" music genre, for Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, director of African-American studies at Vanderbilt University, who came to speak to Boston College students about popular culture, "Hip-hop is a race-transcending culture. These issues affect other women besides black women."
Speaking to students in Merkert 127, Sharpley-Whiting, author of four books including Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women, discussed the degradation of women in popular culture, focusing on black women in the hip-hop culture.
As black women are degraded in hip-hop videos, so too are the predominantly white waitresses at Hooters restaurants, Sharpley-Whiting said.
Sharlene Hesse-Biber, a professor in the sociology department, introduced Sharpley-Whiting at the lecture sponsored by the National Association for Women in Catholic Higher Education (NAWCHE). Hesse-Biber is the founder and director of NAWCHE, a grassroots organization in its 16th year at BC that works to promote social justice.
Dr. Zine Magubane, sociology professor, has done work on the image of African-Americans in contemporary culture. Like Sharpley-Whiting, Magubane's work in part examines rap music's cultural influences.
"Rap has penetrated all aspects of culture. It's where a lot of people get model images and messages on how to behave and think about things," Magubane said. Sharpley-Whiting described the transformation of the music industry from one that makes music to one that just concentrates on selling it.
"This selling of music is very much dependent on the sexualization of women," she said. "This formula transcends genres. It's indispensable to the mass media appeal. It cultivates consumers' already existing tastes and panders to them."
Carly DeFilippo, A&S '09, said in an e-mail, "Often, because of the omnipresence of the media, people become ignorant to the deeper issues implicit in pop culture, and one feels that he or she cannot affect positive change upon a situation." DeFilippo also works for the Women's Resource Center.
2008 Woodie Awards
