Stereotypes In Music - Gender

- Men are mostly dominant, aggressive and can be represented as independent, adventurous, unemotional and competent.
- Stereotypical gendered occupations such as males as firefighters/mechanics and women as cheerleaders/ waitresses
Examples of males are: 50 Cent - Candy Shop this video shows 50 Cent as him getting any kind of girl he wants and showing the women being used a sexual target, this suggests they are submissive and powerless.
- Women engaged in more sexual and passive behaviour and more explicit. They are represented as objects of sexual advances or as sexual objects this shows the negatives of stereotypes in music as it portrays women as sexually provocative, objects that dance, pose and look good for the males.
Examples of women are: Destiny's Child - Cater To You this video shows the reliance on gender roles and shows that women are just housewives and will do anything the men want them to, the lyrics also suggest of pampering husband's or boyfriends.
Feminism 1960/70's - A movement that questioned the position within patriarchal society and the 'domestic bliss'
- Serves to challenge and eliminate oppression and dominate gender imagery
- Emphasised women in media such as women as sexual objects, domestics in the home, inferior to men or women as virgins, mothers or promiscuous
Sexual Objectification and the Male Gaze
- Laura Mulvey 1975 defined voyeurism as erotic pleasures gained from looking at a sexual object. She also showed the presence of women solely for the purpose of display and their display is passive and objectified for a male gaze regardless of viewers gender. The voyeuristic treatment of the female body in 'male' videos such as dancing in the background, looking good, wearing tiny or little clothes boosting male ego's. Women connote to be looked and object of the 'male gaze'
Stereotypically 'Female' Occupations
- There are many music videos that emphasis the stereotypes of women occupations and an example of that is Britney Spears. She adheres to traditional gender stereotypes by taking on the roles of as sectary, air hostess and a waitress; each occupation emphasises highly sexualised costume and behaviours. Pink also shows this in the video U and Your Hand showing Pink as a boxer, mechanic, and sitting on the bed, balcony and in a park showing herself as a 'male gaze' but also showing her subverting to the stereotypes of women showing her working out in the gym and being a mechanic.
Post Feminism and the female gaze 1980's
- Re appraisal of feminist vales
- Does not strive for equality as this assumes men as better but they wish to surpass male achievements
- Objected to the theories which position them as objects of the 'male gaze' and identifies the 'female gaze' - women desiring men
- Women began to assert their right to dress and be sexually attractive