The topic of women being negatively
portrayed in rap music is a topic that has been researched and examined in
several effects research studies. Firstly in a study titled, “Ambivalent Sexism
and Misogynistic Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem increase Sexism?”
researchers conducted a study to determine if listening to rap music caused
more sexist attitudes participants of the study. The researchers used 175
undergraduate students from the same school who all were put in identical
experimental conditions. Participants of the study were asked to listen to a
rap song by Eminem, which clearly endorsed violence towards women and a Beastie
Boys song, which does not include sexist lyrics. Then, they had to answer
questions, which measured ambivalent sexism. In the results, the researchers
found that the participants’ level of sexism, “significantly increased after
exposure to nonmisogynistic rap, especially among males” (Cobb 3036).
In
another study titled, “The effects of gender and music imagery on sexual attitudes,”
researchers, “examined the influence of gender and exposure to gender-stereotyped
music video imagery on sexual attitudes” (Kalof 378). They used 44 U.S. college
students and split the participants into a group that watched a video with
stereotyped sexual imagery or a video that did not have such sexual images. Then,
the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire, which tested their
sexual attitudes and beliefs. The researchers found that, “Men scored higher
than women on each of the sexual attitude subscales, indicating men’s greater
endorsement of adversarial sexual beliefs, gender role stereotyping, and rape
myths” (Kalof 381). The biggest effect that the exposure to the videos had on
the participants was on their beliefs about adversarial sexual relationships.
However, there was not a major effect on their gender role stereotyping, their
acceptance of rape myths, or the acceptance of interpersonal violence.
Next,
another study called, “Media/Visual Literacy Art Education: Sexism in Hip-Hop
Music Videos,” “explores issues of sexism in hip-hop music videos and proposes
ways to engage high school students in deconstructing their popular visual
culture.” (Chung 34). Chung, the author of this article, gives several
emphasizes the point that the negative portrayal of women in popular rap music
can have very harmful effects on young girls such as affecting their identity
formation. He states that these themes can cause young girls to embrace a
“highly sexual cultural capital,” to seem popular by their peers (Chung 35).
Also, these videos show girls what attributes of their bodies are most desirable,
such as lighter skin or long hair, which can cause young girls to judge or to
try to change themselves to gain that same level of desirability. These are
just a few of the serious negative effects that the sexist lyrics and music
videos or rap music can have on young girls today.
Finally,
an article called, “Music videos and sexual risk in African American adolescent
girls: gender, power, and the need for media literacy,” tested the effects that
music videos have on African American adolescents. This study was a
cross-sectional design, which used a survey that asked questions about their
amount music video viewing by genre, exposure to negative portrayals of women in
music videos, personal influence of music videos, sex-role stereotyping,
self-efficacy for condom use, rate of condom use in past 6 months, and reality
of women in music videos (Robillard 96). The results showed that, “exposure to
negative portrayals of women in music videos, when adjusted for age, was found
to be a significant predictor of whether girls were personally influenced by
women in music videos and reported self-efficacy for condom use. (Robillard 98).
This helps show young girls are being influenced by the negative portrayal of
women in rap music videos.
The
overall findings of these studies did not surprise me because I predicted that
there would be apparent effects on viewers or listeners of rap music lyrics and
videos that included negative portrayals of women. I think that these results
show how important this issue really is because these songs are not fairly
portraying women and because this genre of music is so popular, the effects can
be very large scale. The most important finding of these studies was the fact
that these songs are influencing young girls and causing them to judge
themselves or even try to change themselves to be more appealing or desirable,
like the women in these rap music lyrics and videos. This is a huge problem
because the women portrayed in these types of videos are not good role models
for these young girls.
This video shows a few clear
examples of women in rap music being portrayed in a negative light. For
example, the women in these clips are portrayed as highly sexualized female
objects and strippers who are expected to partake in sexual innuendoes. The
video makes the point that the women portrayed in rap music are not good role
models for young women and that, “young women in our world today should be
viewing women as independent, strong, and capable of protecting themselves.”
