Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Research Question: How has the music industry history past of male dominance censored female musicians and forced them to comply to strict gender roles, thus reinforcing these stereotypes? How does this affect consumers, focusing mainly on female consumers?

1. Philips, Abbey. “The History of Women and Gender Roles in Music.” RVANews, 2 Sept. 2011, rvanews.com/features/spacebomb-truth-lies-somewhere-in-between/49992.

a. Women being denied equal access to music genres like Rock and Hip-Hop are not new issues. Music, which often has underlying tones of aggression, passion, and sexuality, often opposes the gender roles forced on women that categorize every woman as a nurturing, soft spoken being. However, it is not just

Often, the celebration of one or two female musicians can lead to the belief that the music industry does not still contain sexism. However, a deeper look at the current music industry reveals a much darker truth. Statistically, out of the 899 people nominated for Grammys in the past six Grammy ceremonies, 815 have been men. On the Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 Chart for the past six years, 228 out of 2,767 performing artists have been women. Out of all the songs on the same list, only 2 percent were produced by females. In the past six years, Max Martin has been one of the most successful songwriters, with 36 hits, while one of the most successful female songwriters, Nicki Minaj, has only 15. Statistics like the ones listed above not only support, but prove that gender inequality is still very present in the music industry

Exploring the ancient tale of the Kuna people, The Star Girls Descent, provides the supposed origin of Women’s Singing. Relating back to the notion of forced gender roles, the verbal art of singing for women mainly revolved around lullabies as can be expected. However, one interesting detail does accompany the ancient folktale. Singing, for women specifically, was often a mixture between crying/mourning and singing. Using mainly to be expressive, instead of instrumental, women’s voices were often melancholy, often referred to as chicha singing. Women’s singing focused on storytelling and the conveying of emotions, while men’s singing was rigid and impersonal. This reflects the stereotype of women being more emotional creatures and demonstrates how these stereotypes were not created recently, but have been constricting and binding women for hundreds of