Teen Prom efforts are bittersweet

This is a story that is bitter sweet. The sweet part is the activism and campaign of a small group of high school students - who are charting a new path toward change. The bitter part is that so many of their peers are clueless.

I would love to personally congratulate the group of teens at Arcadia High School in California for being pro-active and encouraging respect for all girls and women. Because of their efforts, "Twenty songs that refer to women as "hos" and other derogatory names won't be played at the Arcadia High prom Saturday night", reports Pasadena Star News. Thanks to the efforts of senior Madeline Conrique and fellow members of the Women's Health and Issues Club who made an agreement with school administrators limiting songs with misogynistic themes and lyrics. "Some of the songs call women `bitches' and `hos,' or refer to them as objects and treat them like animals," Conrique said. "We find that offensive." A petition circulated on campus since last week asked students to support banning misogynistic songs from the prom; it garnered 130 signature

The Pasadena Star News reports:
The issue first came up a few months ago, when club members viewed two episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in which Winfrey asked members of the hip-hop community if they felt their lyrics were degrading to women. But educating their peers turned out to be difficult. One classmate launched a text message chain imploring students not to sign the petition, club members said. Some students felt the club was trying to ruin their prom. "The girls, surprisingly, were turned off," Conrique said. "They were telling us that we were ruining their prom and that they liked to dance to those songs." The club members now hope that the effort they launched this year translates into a "misogyny free" dance next school year. "I think we definitely made some progress," said Conrique. "We are not trying to silence anyone. We just want people to listen to the lyrics."

"We are just trying to advocate for respect", said senior, Lani Luo.

It is clear that many of the teens do not yet fully understand the damaging effects of lyrics which advocate for disrespect of women. The comments from teens are usually along the lines of: "Listening to lyrics that are degrading to women, doesn't make me want to go out and hit a woman". They don't realize that this is one way our society condones disrespect for women - which establishes a belief that women are "less than". And in many cases, this IS what leads to violence against women. Most offenders "hold it together" with their friends and family, and save the violence for their girlfriend or wife. This fact speaks volumes.

Do they not realize that 1 out of 4 women will be abused in their lifetime? If they don't, we need to keep that statistic out there - and keep telling the stories.

And that - is on all of us!