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And That’s How You Rap Yo Yo: Girl Blows Apart Pop Music’s Derogatory Portrayal Of Women

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Delhi Poetry Slam is an artists’ association that strives to encourage professional as well as budding poets, storytellers, musicians, mimics as well as comedians to bring to the city their take on the world around them.

Performed by Rene Sharanya Verma, watch a female rapper’s response to how rap music defines women in narrow and derogatory ways. Take that, Honey Singh!

To know more about what I think of this performance, follow me on Twitter at @Akhil1490

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  1. Ducard

    No one is forcing you, her or anyone to listen to someone you don’t like, just as no one forces people to listen to female singers and their nonsensical lyrics. Also, at least Honey Singh doesn’t feel the need to take his clothes off to sell his music, unlike his female counterparts.

    1. Shreya

      No female singers are objectifying menfolk via their songs, so obviously their lyrics are less of a concern. Criticism is the foundation for laying a healthy and civilized society, but according to you if women don’t like being objectified, they should just ignore it, instead of raising their voices against it. This kind of advice can only come from a man, who obviously does not know what it feels like being a woman and being objectified every day of their lives. It can only come from a sick man who obviously has no problem with objectification of women, because of course, it is your birthright, no?
      Also, at the cost of sounding repetitive, Honey Singh knows that his female fans are not interested in objectifying him, and his body holds really no value, hence he knows shedding his clothes is of no use!

    2. Ducard

      “Honey Singh knows that his female fans are not interested in objectifying him, and his body holds really no value, hence he knows shedding his clothes is of no use!”

      So women shed their clothes when they know that male fans are interested in objectifying them, their body holds a lot of value, and they know that shedding clothes is very useful?

  2. TheSeeker

    That chick’s cool. 🙂 :O

  3. Surabhe

    You rock girl! You got it right! Rap on.

  4. Pranav

    And then the same people will dance to Ludacris,Snoop Dogg(Lion) etc because that shiz is so cool coz the artiste is rapping in English. Woah! African Americans are so cool. So what if it’s far more demeaning and chauvinist to women? Players gonna play, haters gonna hate. How dare you Honey Singh sing like this? How dare you sing in Punjabi and Hindi? So gavaar! ghati! OMG! It’s f***ing cool to swear in English and talk about booty and pussycats but Hindi? Aw! Hell no homie!

    1. Parul Bhatia

      I agree.

  5. TempleTwins

    The objectification argument can be easily refuted. If we took their advice and put a ban on all item numbers, ads and any images of scantly clad women in media. You know what will happen? They will hold placards and say it is their right to dress however they want and earn money and the ban is patriarchal oppression against women telling them how to dress and how to earn money. These people are eternal complainers, the best is to ignore them and not to take them seriously. The day objectification will stop when women stop putting value on their bodies and their woman card, I doubt otherwise as there will be demand and women would be ready to supply, to make a quick buck.

    1. Parul Bhatia

      Women would be ready to supply to make a buck ? Are you educated ? Show some respect. If you don’t have the knowledge, do not comment

    2. Templetwins

      Women would be ready to supply to make a buck ? Are you educated ? Show some respect. If you don’t have the knowledge, do not comment

      Women had been cashing in on their vagina for eons now ie their baby making abilities and their sexual prowess. In fact I see marriage as a legalized prostitution only with unfair transaction as you have to pay even when there is no copulation. So if you feel it is disrespectful, fight the laws which obligates men to be your providers, but your silence only shows that you have no shame as long as it benefits some women. So earn your respect, being educated doesn’t make one passive or naive. Cheers.

  6. buzz pickers

    this is called the heaviest slap on honey singh’s face, i hate him too much.

    1. Parul Bhatia

      You hate honey singh ? Because of his lyrics? You must hate all the lyricists in the music industry for that matter. Their songs are no less. right?

  7. Parul Bhatia

    Hypocrisy. Please ask your friends to stop listening to his songs . He will do what the public demands . Stop criticizing him and start criticizing the public if his songs bother you so much.

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An ambassador and trained facilitator under Eco Femme (a social enterprise working towards menstrual health in south India), Sanjina is also an active member of the MHM Collective- India and Menstrual Health Alliance- India. She has conducted Menstrual Health sessions in multiple government schools adopted by Rotary District 3240 as part of their WinS project in rural Bengal. She has also delivered training of trainers on SRHR, gender, sexuality and Menstruation for Tomorrow’s Foundation, Vikramshila Education Resource Society, Nirdhan trust and Micro Finance, Tollygunj Women In Need, Paint It Red in Kolkata.

Now as an MH Fellow with YKA, she’s expanding her impressive scope of work further by launching a campaign to facilitate the process of ensuring better menstrual health and SRH services for women residing in correctional homes in West Bengal. The campaign will entail an independent study to take stalk of the present conditions of MHM in correctional homes across the state and use its findings to build public support and political will to take the necessary action.

Saurabh has been associated with YKA as a user and has consistently been writing on the issue MHM and its intersectionality with other issues in the society. Now as an MHM Fellow with YKA, he’s launched the Right to Period campaign, which aims to ensure proper execution of MHM guidelines in Delhi’s schools.

The long-term aim of the campaign is to develop an open culture where menstruation is not treated as a taboo. The campaign also seeks to hold the schools accountable for their responsibilities as an important component in the implementation of MHM policies by making adequate sanitation infrastructure and knowledge of MHM available in school premises.

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Harshita is a psychologist and works to support people with mental health issues, particularly adolescents who are survivors of violence. Associated with the Azadi Foundation in UP, Harshita became an MHM Fellow with YKA, with the aim of promoting better menstrual health.

Her campaign #MeriMarzi aims to promote menstrual health and wellness, hygiene and facilities for female sex workers in UP. She says, “Knowledge about natural body processes is a very basic human right. And for individuals whose occupation is providing sexual services, it becomes even more important.”

Meri Marzi aims to ensure sensitised, non-discriminatory health workers for the needs of female sex workers in the Suraksha Clinics under the UPSACS (Uttar Pradesh State AIDS Control Society) program by creating more dialogues and garnering public support for the cause of sex workers’ menstrual rights. The campaign will also ensure interventions with sex workers to clear misconceptions around overall hygiene management to ensure that results flow both ways.

Read more about her campaign.

MH Fellow Sabna comes with significant experience working with a range of development issues. A co-founder of Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to combat period poverty and break menstrual taboos, Sabna has, in the past, worked on the issue of menstruation in urban slums of Delhi with women and adolescent girls. She and her team also released MenstraBook, with menstrastories and organised Menstra Tlk in the Delhi School of Social Work to create more conversations on menstruation.

With YKA MHM Fellow Vineet, Sabna launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society. As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

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A student from Delhi School of Social work, Vineet is a part of Project Sakhi Saheli, an initiative by the students of Delhi school of Social Work to create awareness on Menstrual Health and combat Period Poverty. Along with MHM Action Fellow Sabna, Vineet launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society.

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A native of Bhagalpur district – Bihar, Shalini Jha believes in equal rights for all genders and wants to work for a gender-equal and just society. In the past she’s had a year-long association as a community leader with Haiyya: Organise for Action’s Health Over Stigma campaign. She’s pursuing a Master’s in Literature with Ambedkar University, Delhi and as an MHM Fellow with YKA, recently launched ‘Project अल्हड़ (Alharh)’.

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A psychologist and co-founder of a mental health NGO called Customize Cognition, Ritika forayed into the space of menstrual health and hygiene, sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights and gender equality as an MHM Fellow with YKA. She says, “The experience of working on MHM/SRHR and gender equality has been an enriching and eye-opening experience. I have learned what’s beneath the surface of the issue, be it awareness, lack of resources or disregard for trans men, who also menstruate.”

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A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector, before realising she wanted to work in the development and social justice space. Since then, she has worked with Teach For India and Care India and is from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a one of its kind organisation creating leaders for the development sector through its experiential learning post graduate program.

As a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow, Nitisha has started Let’s Talk Period, a campaign to mobilise young people to switch to sustainable period products. She says, “80 lakh women in Delhi use non-biodegradable sanitary products, generate 3000 tonnes of menstrual waste, that takes 500-800 years to decompose; which in turn contributes to the health issues of all menstruators, increased burden of waste management on the city and harmful living environment for all citizens.

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A former Assistant Secretary with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in West Bengal for three months, Lakshmi Bhavya has been championing the cause of menstrual hygiene in her district. By associating herself with the Lalana Campaign, a holistic menstrual hygiene awareness campaign which is conducted by the Anahat NGO, Lakshmi has been slowly breaking taboos when it comes to periods and menstrual hygiene.

A Gender Rights Activist working with the tribal and marginalized communities in india, Srilekha is a PhD scholar working on understanding body and sexuality among tribal girls, to fill the gaps in research around indigenous women and their stories. Srilekha has worked extensively at the grassroots level with community based organisations, through several advocacy initiatives around Gender, Mental Health, Menstrual Hygiene and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for the indigenous in Jharkhand, over the last 6 years.

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A Guwahati-based college student pursuing her Masters in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bidisha started the #BleedwithDignity campaign on the technology platform Change.org, demanding that the Government of Assam install
biodegradable sanitary pad vending machines in all government schools across the state. Her petition on Change.org has already gathered support from over 90000 people and continues to grow.

Bidisha was selected in Change.org’s flagship program ‘She Creates Change’ having run successful online advocacy
campaigns, which were widely recognised. Through the #BleedwithDignity campaign; she organised and celebrated World Menstrual Hygiene Day, 2019 in Guwahati, Assam by hosting a wall mural by collaborating with local organisations. The initiative was widely covered by national and local media, and the mural was later inaugurated by the event’s chief guest Commissioner of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Debeswar Malakar, IAS.

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