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Members of the Red Hat Society get a little funk in their trunk. Drawing comparisons to gender-equity movements like Title IX and ERA, white girls are now demanding that society smash the glass mirrored-ball ceiling that has kept them from playing that funky music. White girls are also demanding the right to lay down the boogie on a equal status as white boys. Dominique Lativia, a gender funk studies professor at Penn State, said the anti-female bias that exists in the male-dominated funk industry is reinforced by negative stereotypes of non-funky females and a habitual need for funds to support bad-ass bass programs in public schools. "If you look at what our girls are accepting as role models, you can easily see how pervasive this attempt to de-funkify our sisters and daughters actually is," said Lativia. "I've never seen a Funky-ass Barbie doll on the shelves." The Funk Institute, a disco-leaning think tank, backs up Lativia's claim. A recent institute study indicates that white boys who play funk earn 75 percent more money than their female counterparts for playing the same funky music. Critics of the movement charge that white girls are innately different from white boys when it comes to funking out in every way. Larry "Bootsie" Summers, former president of the Funk U., an Ivy League preparatory funk school, is one of those critics. "In most funkadelic cases, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude," Summers said. "And that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination, as well as movin' to the groovin'." "In other words, get the funk right outta here wit' dat crazy gender jive," Summers continued. Lativia said attitudes like this make government intervention necessary. The government should provide a comprehensive plan to encourage white girls who wish to pursue the playing of funky music. "It should be cradle to grave. They should play that funky music until they die. Till they die?" asked Lativia. "Indeed. Until they die." In other headlines... Dead, Allmans support Obama. Dead Allmans still undecided. Robbers grab OxyContin, head to Red Lobster. Police suspect rednecks. Police chief resigns. Roscoe P. Coltrane named successor.
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