The Persistence of Misogynistic Lyrics in Modern Rap/Hip-Hop Music: A Comparative Analysis

Proceedings of The 4th Global Conference on Women’s Studies

Year: 2022

DOI:

[PDF]

The Persistence of Misogynistic Lyrics in Modern Rap/Hip-Hop Music: A Comparative Analysis

Summer Sun

ABSTRACT: 

The purpose of this paper is to examine instances of misogynistic undertones in contemporary music in order to bring awareness of the prevalence of misogynistic themes in American society’s most popular music. In recent years, the rise of the Me Too and gender equity movement has brought to the forefront the question of whether music has either increased or decreased in misogynistic themes in support or refutation, respectively, of these movements. Previous studies find that misogynistic themes have been consistently prevalent in American pop music, particularly in rap/hip-hop, and that these misogynistic lyrics have a negative influence on young people’s attitudes about women and domestic violence. A recent study by K. Gray shows that among the top 79 songs selected from the Billboard Hot 100 list for the week of September 28, 2018, rap/hip-hop was the top music genre listened to by the American population. This genre also contained the highest rate of misogynistic lyrics. This paper will use a content analysis method with the same code categories from K. Gray’s research to analyze rap/hip-hop songs from the Billboard Hot 100 list for the week of July 23, 2022, to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the results from these two data sets and analyze change-if any-over time.

keywords: Misogyny, women, rap/hip-hop music