Today I’ve been thinking about gender stereotypes in music. The 1960’s songs we listened to in class today are saturated with boy/girl relationship themes. We identified in class today the attitude expressed in Beach Boy’s “Fun Fun Fun” implying the 60’s view of neighborhood teenage girls, that their freedom must be “reigned in”and how that comes to the boy’s advantage in the song. Please keep in mind, my goal here is not to criticize the song itself—my problem is with the sexist issue that seems to come up in popular music a lot through history. Even today, I don’t enjoy listening to a lot of pop music if the songs are about relationships, because many of them imply themes about women begging for male attention, which I find problematic. Justine Harman talks more about this topic in a blog: https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a27923/top-50-music-trends/

The topic of sexism and gender issues was not always one that I cared about. When I left my rural hometown and went to college (in another small rural town, but still) I made new friends away from my familiar bubble, and that made me look at things differently and question the culture we live in. I was in a sociology class last year and had to choose a topic for a term paper, so I decided to research gender identity in the United States. It took a focus on diverse genders and sexual identities that go outside of the mold of traditional feminine/masculine roles. Through that, I learned some disheartening facts and became hyper-aware of every gendered idea enforced by advertising/politics/history/religion/pop culture–particularly the ideas that are harmful to one’s sense of self worth and how they view others’. So through that I became sensitive to the entertainment media around me, especially music, asking myself questions like this: does the song I’m listening to hold a healthy attitude toward the self-worth of others, or does it do harm?