Vanderbilt Professor Challenges Stereotypical Ideas About Hip Hop and Women

A Vanderbilt University professor challenges stereotypical ideas about Hip Hop and Women. Written nearly a year before the Imus fiasco, in this fascinating and forceful book, Sharpley-Whiting, a feminist writer of the hip hop generation, interrogates the complexities of young black women's engagement with a culture that is masculinist, misogynistic and frequently mystifying.

Nashville, TN (PRWEB) May 14, 2007 -- Vanderbilt Professor Dr. Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting releases her important new book on women and hip hop, Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women. Published by New York University Press, this book pulls at the threads of the intricately knotted issues surrounding young women and hip hop culture. What unravels for Sharpley-Whiting is a new, and problematic, politics of gender.

"In the wake of the Imus affair, these issues are even more important to examine as women, as consumers of popular culture, as Americans who are concerned about how incivility has become a form of entertainment in our culture," Sharpley-Whiting notes.

Written nearly a year before the Imus fiasco, in this fascinating and forceful book, Sharpley-Whiting, a feminist writer who is a member of the hip hop generation, interrogates the complexities of young black women's engagement with a culture that is masculinist, misogynistic and frequently mystifying.

Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting (http://www.tracysharpleywhiting.com) is a Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, Women's and Gender Studies and French at Vanderbilt University. She has authored three other books and co-edited The Black Feminist Reader. Sharpley-Whiting has provided expert commentary in varied media venues such as "Ebony," "Essence", "The Village Voice", "Women's E-News", MSNBC, NPR, FOX News Live, CBS News, Oprah & Friends Satellite Radio, World Vision Radio and Culture Shock Radio.

Join her for a discussion and book signing for Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women, Thursday, May 10th at 7 p.m. at Borders Books-West End, Nashville, TN.

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