mysoginy, homophobia, gender stereotypes in Hip Hip culture

Do you ever get frustruated about the images and words of popular culture songs? Do you ever wonder what messages this is sending to our young people? A new documentary exploring these issues has been made called Beyond Beats and Rhymes. Read more below.

BEYOND BEATS AND RHYMES:

HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes an in-depth look at representations of manhood, sexism and homophobia in hip-hop culture. This groundbreaking documentary is a “loving critique” of certain disturbing developments in rap music culture from the point of view of a fan who challenges the art form’s representations of masculinity.
Leading rap and hip-hop artists including Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, Russell Simmons are interviewed—and pressed—to answer some difficult questions about the violent and sexually explicit content of many hip-hop songs and videos.

You can click on one of the video images to the right of this screen and watch either a short part (the top video) to the full documentary (bottom video) This is scarey stuff and gets to the heart of masculinity as mysogeny.

What do you think??? Feel free to leave a comment.

If you want to read more about this documentary click here

Abstinance Only research shows woops!

Here is what associated press article said about this research

Abstinence students still having sex
Study tracked 2,057 young people in government-funded programs

WASHINGTON - Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.
Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.
The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

If you want to read more go here

What do YOU think about abstinance only education? Please post a comment.

Body image

If you havent already done so you may want to have a look at this website. It is called About Face. Here is thier mission statement.

about-face: a reversal of direction, attitude, behavior, or point of view (from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition) Everywhere girls and women look, they see messages about their bodies and their selves, telling them they must be tall, blonde, tan, and sexually available. In fact, a woman can rarely separate her feelings about her physical body from her self-worth, especially in our media-saturated society. And the messages even the youngest girls are seeing and hearing are skewed, sexualized, and sexist.These messages -- part of what About-Face calls the "toxic media environment" -- are contributing to a host of girls' and women's ills, including low self-esteem, depression, persistent anxiety over weight and appearance, extremely unhealthy diets and exercise regimens, and eating disorders. All of these problems interfere with a woman's ability to function to the best of her abilities. About-Face's mission is to equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist the harmful stereotypes of women the media disseminates. There are three components to About-Face's program, Education into Action: media-literacy workshops, action groups, and this resource-filled web site. About-Face is based in San Francisco, California. Our workshops and action groups reach throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Our web site, of course, is available the world over. Our ultimate goal, the About-Face vision, is to imbue girls and women with the power to free themselves from body-related oppression, so they will be capable of fulfilling their potential.The time for this change is now. Don't you agree?