Misogyny and mass media

Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of females. Examples of misogyny exist in many published forms, within multiple cultures, such as the Qur'an, the Bible, and other well observed works.^[1][2] Technological advances in the modern era have contributed proficient means to media and marketing to the resultant mass media in the 21st century. The merging of Misogyny and mass media has made numerous examples where studies have concluded correlations between misogynous messages, both obvious and subliminal. Corresponding physical appearance of violence and hateful conduct, may be seen relative to exposure.^[3]

"Misogyny wears many guises, revels itself in different forms which are dictated by class, wealth, education, race, religion and other factors, but its chief characteristic is its pervasiveness."

Misogynies, By Joan Smith (1991)^{[4] [5]}

"Misogyny is not a word useful simply for describing particularly nasty bits of behavior, but rather it directs us to a set of relations, attitudes, and behaviors that are embedded within all other social relations"(p. 123).

Does Misogyny Matter? By Roberta Hamilton(1987)^[6][5]

Music, violence, and aggression

Messages containing misogynous views are found commonly in the Media.^[7] Music has become incorporated into our society, permeating many parts of our lives.^[8] Music can be found in almost all types of media, especially television, movies and advertising. Felson, professor of crime, law, and justice and sociology at Penn State, states that a crowd of onlookers enjoys a street fight just as the Romans enjoyed the gladiators.^[9] Cooper (1985) found after analyzing popular music over a time frame of thirty years, that there was a tendency to describe women in terms of physical attributes or as evil, as possessions of men, or as dependent upon men. Dietz state that the concept of masculinity has come to be associated with sexual aggression.^[3] It is thought that audiences of unpunished violent behavior, compared to audiences of punished violent behavior are more likely to take part in violence.^[8] Some musical themes and lyrics can be compared to the negative attitude toward women found within some pornographic movies and magazines.^[7] This negative attitude and acceptance of violence towards women shows the possible likelihood of rape or sexual coercion.^[10] Fischer and Greitemeyer found that men who listened to sexually aggressive music reported that their relationship with women was more troublesome.^[11] Media Violence research has found that aggressive music adds an accessibility of aggressive related attitudes and emotions.^[11] Violence in the form of linguistics is in fact a form of physical violence. ^[12][13]

Rubin, West and Mitchell (2001) found that many studies have seen consumers of rap and heavy metal music as having more hostile attitudes, higher sexual activity and more drug use than consumers of other music.^[11]

Gangsta rap

Themes of misogyny can be seen in much gangsta rap music. This music elevates degradations of women such as rape, torment, and violence. In a study conducted by Armstrong in 2001, he found after examining 490 gangsta rap songs, that 22 percent contained violent and misogynist lyrics.^[13] Wester, Crown, Quatman, and Heesacker state that, "The increasing popularity of GR (gangsta rap), coupled with documentation of society's increased sexism (Faludi,1991;Zillmann &Bryant,1982,1984), domestic violence (Koss et al. 1994; Catharine MacKinnon 1993), sexual assault (MacKinnon, 1993;Malamuth,1981),and other forms of degradation of women (Andrea Dworkin, 1979,1988;Mackinnon, 1985,1989,1993),suggest that perhaps GR is partly to blame for an increase in anti-female attitudes and behaviors. It is difficult to tell whether GR directly causes misogynous attitudes or if it serves to increase preexisting anti-female cultural values.^{[8][14][15][16][17][18]} The difference between rap music and other types of music is that the lyrics are generally the main focus of attention.^[7] Rappers seem to commit themselves to worst impulses by telling their stories in the first-person.^[13]

In a study conducted by Barongan and Hall (1995) they had male college students listen to rap music with misogynous or neutral song lyrics. After listening to the different music, they viewed three different vignettes. These vignettes were either sexual-violent, neutral, or assultive. Then they were asked to choose one of the three vignettes to show a female. Those who had listened to the misogynous music were significantly more likely to show the female the assaultive vignette.^[11]

Regarding gangsta rap Yo Yo states that,"The harder that you are, sad to say, the more you sell".^[13][19]

Rap

Misogyny was not found in rap music until the 1980s even though it had been in the commercial market for ten years. Some artists such as 2 Live Crew, Ice T, and N.W.A. integrated misogynous lyrics into their rap songs. Women are reduced to objects-specifically objects that are only good for abuse, sex and for the most part are just trouble for men within misogynous rap. Using such misogynistic lyrics allows degradation of their female counterparts while boosting themselves up.^[20]

This acceptance of misogyny can be seen in many rap lyrics. For example in N.W.A's "She Swallowed It"(1991)gives a clear description of how to attack a fourteen-year old; ^[21][13]

Punch the bitch in the eye/ then the ho will fall to the ground/ Then you open up her mouth/put your dick,move the shit around.

— N.W.A, She Swallowed It

Scenes of physical harm can be seen in Too $hort "All My Bitches Are Gone"(1993);^[22][13]

You fuck with us, bitch, something gettin' broken/Your leg,arm, jaw, nose, pick a part.

— Too $hort, All My Bitches Are Gone

The artist Eminem is well know for his rap music containing extremely misogynous lyrics. In 2002 his Album The Eminem Show sold 7.4 million copies.^[11]

Rock music

Heavy-metal rock music is available in stores, homes and public radio. In a study conducted by Lawrence and Joyner, it was found that people exposed to to sexually violent or heavy-metal rock music were found to have a higher tendency on sex-role stereotyping in comparison to those who listened to classical music.^[10]

Why violent music may not influence aggression

Most violent lyrics are not heard due to the fact a large amount of listeners are not actually listening to the lyrics. This is very different from video-based media, in which the audience can see the violent message very clear. It has also been found that some rock lyrics are so distorted that people just assume what they are actually saying. A majority of people spending time listening to music, often listen for just the music and not the lyrics. Also people tend to put music on while focusing on other tasks.^[23]

Violent and aggressive videos

Music videos

Found frequently in MTV music videos are images of crime, sex, dance, visual abstraction and violence. Audiences of MTV tend to be between the ages of fourteen and thirty-four, therefore has potential of contributing to cultural norms. ^[24]Smith and Boyson found that fifteen percent of music videos contain violence.^[25] Before the introduction of music videos, research found that both music and television retained adolescents' attention, but music effectively connected with their emotions.^[26] It is far more common to see a male being dominate over a women, rather than a women being dominate over a male in music videos.^[27][28] A study conducted by Rich, Woods,Goodman, Emans, and DuRant found that out of 518 music videos and among the 391 acts of violence the aggressors were seventy-eight percent male and the victims were forty-six percent female.^[26] The need for artists to fill hours of airtime on television make certain that artists and their videos increasingly become more shocking, as to be noticed. Violence and sex or the combination of the two, are most often used for a shocking effect on viewers.^[27]

Rock music videos

In an content analysis of rock music videos, Vincent, Davis and Boruszkowski found that fifty-seven percent showed women in a "patronizing" way (such as; victims, sex objects, and stupid) and a fifth of them were found them placed in traditional sex roles (domestic, motherly,and submissive), another eight percent demonstrated women receiving violence from a male. The amount where women were shown as equal to men was only fourteen percent.^[29][30] Lawrence and Joyner found in their research of rock music videos that even after a brief exposure of seventeen minutes there was appearance of negative effects on males' attitudes toward women. ^[10]

Rap music videos

Johnson et al. found that women portrayed in sexually inferior roles in rap music videos have increased girls’ acceptance of teen dating violence.^[31][32]

Video games

Research conducted by Dietz found that, nearly eighty percent of the video games had some violence and aggression as part of the main strategy or object. In twenty-one percent of the games violence was directed specifically towards women. Also in twenty-eight percent of the games women were seen as sex objects and in forty-one percent of the games there were no female characters.^[3]

Pornography

By making misogyny sexual, pornography teaches misogyny to its viewers.^[33] Negative effects from pornography have been thought to occur do to a violence component, and not to a sexual component. Males who have been previously enraged by a female are more likely to produce aggression against a female after being shown violence pornography. ^[34] The combination of sex and aggression is increasingly being shown within pornographic material, therefore could be a possible trigger for aggressively willing men to physical assault accessible women.^[35] The attorney general's commission found that viewing of sexually aggressive pornography is casually connected to sexual violent behavior (United States Department of Justice, 1986). Sexual violence portrayed in pornography as pleasurable to the victim may increase approval of sexual coercion, there by relating to sexual violence.^[36][37][10] A common theme found within pornography is women enjoying victimization. This theme can be seen to give reason for violence and decrease general inhibitions against aggression.^[35][38][39]

Usenet

Barron and Kimmel found that Usenet contains less consensual sex and more coercive in the scenes depicted. Within Usenet it was found that 62.7 percent of the scenes had a male perpetrators and only 42.4 percent of the scenes contained female perpetrators. Victims within Usenet was found to be females 84.7 percent of the time. At nearly no expense Usenet offers the greatest access to the largest number of viewers.^[40]

Why pornography may not influence aggression

The Commission of Obscenity and Pornography in 1970 made a conclusion that there is no confirmation to imply that exposure to pornography heightens physical or sexual violence towards woman. This conclusion may have been biased due to the material they investigated which left out sexually violent rape depictions.^[10]

Slasher films

Malamuth and Check found that college males after viewing slasher films are more likely to support the falsehood that females take pleasure in rape. ^[41][42]

See also

• Misogyny
• Misogyny in hip hop culture
• Sexism
• Sexual objectification
• Sexuality in music videos
• Violence against women

References

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