Degree Department

Male and Female Roles in the Lyrics of Three Genres of Contemporary Music (open access)

Male and Female Roles in the Lyrics of Three Genres of Contemporary Music

A sample of the top fifty songs of 1973 in Soul, Country-Western, and Easy Listening music is content-analyzed to determine dominant theme and type of love relationship presented. Most of the songs are about women and are sung by men. Hence, male artists continue to dominate the record industry. Criteria for evaluating direction of presentation are applied to lyrics to determine how men present women and women present men. Songs with the heterosexual theme are analyzed to determine conformity to six male and six female stereotypical traits. Males conform to the male stereotype in larger percentages than females conform to the female stereotype. Differences in female role expectations vary among the three genres.
Date: December 1974
Creator: Freudiger, Patricia T.
System: The UNT Digital Library