Post 2

          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.”