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Director discusses respect

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Also by Katelyn Price:

Director discusses respect (September 19, 2007)
Overture makes classics accessible (August 31, 2007)
Sights, sounds of summer (August 6, 2007)

by Katelyn Price

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The Memorial Union Theater saw a relatively large and diverse crowd pass through its doors Monday evening. Students and members of the community came to hear filmmaker and activist Byron Hurt speak about racism and sexism in America, as well as his own work on preventing violence against women. The event was free and open to the public, and it featured Hurt as the keynote speaker for a two-day conference on sexual violence sponsored by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the University of Wisconsin System and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Subcommittee on Sexual Assault and Dating Violence.

Director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center, Kelly Anderson, noted in her introductory comments that the victims of sexual assault include nearly one-third of all girls and one in four adult women, statistics attributed to what she termed "a culture of rape" in the United States. In the lecture that followed, Byron Hurt examined the cultural flaws that feed this serious societal problem. He touched briefly on his documentary film, "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" when discussing the role of hip-hop culture in promoting the degradation and even violent treatment of women. Hurt said he wants to "change the way people consume patriarchy," and stressed the need to look at hip-hop within the larger culture of sexism, racism and consumerism.

Although he made excellent points concerning the "narrow construction of manhood" perpetrated by hip-hop culture and the need for men to reach out to other men on issues of sexism, some of his ideas required more development and discussion. He shared how feminism and feminist writers greatly influenced his work and development as a person but failed to discuss the stigma that the "f-word" still holds, especially for men. He also failed to make the obvious connection between sexism and homophobia when discussing the degrading comments and jokes that take place in male circles. However, one of the most striking moments was when he reminded the audience of all the measures women take to protect themselves against sexual assault when, for example, going out at night, versus the feeling of relative safety that men enjoy — which begs the desperate question: Why is our society not yet safe for women?

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