Misogynistic Lyrics in Pop Culture

By: Abril Centurion, Angelina Patti, and Cianna Platt

Due: 26 April 2016

I. Introduction
Sexism. Misogyny. Objectification. Violence. Rape. If you listen closely to todays most
popular songs, it is likely that you will hear these themes embedded or blatantly written in the
lyrics. Today, pop culture is sending the wrong message to society that women are nothing but
sexual objects. There are lyrics calling women hoes, sluts, and bitches, which are all words that

objectify and dehumanize women. Another message being sent is that women should not be seen
as an equal to a man. Women are not paid or respected the way men are. In 2015, female fulltime workers made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men (IWP.org). One of the most
common messages being sent to women and young girls is that they are not beautiful or wanted
unless they have a certain body type. Some pop culture stars like Nicki Minaj have had many
plastic surgeries to get the body she has today. She is an idol to many people of varying ages,
which should identify as a problem, but people look right past it. In all her music videos, she is
half naked and dancing promiscuously. In particular, her song Anaconda objectifies women. In
the song and video, a man does not want to have sexual intercourse with a woman unless she has
a big butt. We need to bring attention to how society supports artists, music, and music videos
just because they are supposedly catchy. Hopefully, if we convince people to listen closely and
understand the meaning behind pop culture lyrics, they will stop listening to and supporting
them. If we achieve that the pop culture industry will adapt to society's new interests, and
change. Then hopefully the problem of objectifying women in lyrics will stop all together.In this
proposal, we will present what our motivation is to create this project, provide a summary of our
overall project, specify details on filming and our experiment, discuss our implementation issues
and challenges we predict, pitch our deliverables and provide a clear and concise timeline of
important dates.
II. Motivation
Pop culture contributes to and begins the problem of sexualizing and dehumanizing
women. This problem was institutionalized before the 1920s when women were treated as an
object. Women were perceived as nothing more than physically and mentally weak. They were
only used as baby makers and housekeepers. Beginning in the 1920s, women were trying to
emerge from the stereotype that they were meant to be stay-home wives, and they began
demanding equal rights by attempting to contribute to society outside of their homes by
controlling their own finances and bodies. In addition, Women started to drive and look for job
opportunities to support themselves. Regardless of this, men in pop culture continued to
objectify women through music (Labbe). For example, in 1986, the song Girls by The Beastie
Boys was a very catchy and popular tune, yet objectified women by implying that they are
nothing but cooking, cleaning sexual objects. The lyrics say, Girls - to do the dishes, Girls - to
clean up my room, Girls - to do the laundry, Girls - and in the bathroom, Girls, that's all I really
want is girls. Todays pop culture has barely evolved from previous generations pop culture,
which consists of songs about drugs, money, and sex. This influence has become a huge
component of why sexism and misogynism happens today, especially within young people.
Youth are more inclined to listen to the kind of music genres that objectify women. The
American Academy of Pediatrics has found that violent or sexist lyrics in music can negatively
impact young minds. They have found possible correlations between a teenagers preference to
certain musical genres and risky behaviors (AAP News). Some examples of artists that abusing
their fame by praising these unjust stereotypes about women are Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and
Nicki Minaj. Most of the popular artists today talk about how women are not equals to men and

must have a certain body type to be wanted or loved. This problem is interesting to us because it
is unbelievable how people automatically sexualize women in not just music, but in everyday life
as well. We believe pop culture is largely responsible for this. Women are not treated fairly
among men and sexism still exists today. We believe sexism and sexualising women happens
constantly and for many reasons. One of these reasons is that pop culture makes it seem like it is
okay to do so. The problem is nowhere near being solved. Videos and music are constantly being
made sexualising women. Everyone in the world is impacted by the misconception of female
inferiority. Women are being oppressed, children are being brainwashed, and men are thinking it
is okay to treat a human the way pop culture talks about women. Women are being victimized,
paid less, sexually assaulted, and oppressed in their everyday lives.
III. Project Summary
Our video aim is to create awareness about what song lyrics are actually conveying.
Understanding the lyrics of certain songs is really crucial in the #Breakfree movement because
most of the time, people are just spitting back words without thinking twice about the meaning.
In many songs, women are portrayed as if their only purpose is to make a man happy. The
general belief is that women do not need to be smart, as long as they have nice tits and a big butt.
Every day, women perform surgery, work on projects for NASA, serve our country, and so much
more, but it seems that artists only care about what girls do between the sheets. They judge a girl
based on what her body looks like as opposed to what her mind looks like. Our group wants to
see if people change their opinion of a song when the words are not rapped or sung by someone
famous. We also want to inform people of the stereotypes of the messages that these famous
people are subconsciously imprinting on us. The video will reflect this by knocking down the
first metaphoric domino by getting people to hear what they and their children are listening to
and not just listen. Even though teenagers are the ones who are most vulnerable, they are not the
only ones receiving these messages. For our experiment, we are going to have a room full of
people and play a video mash up of misogynistic music. We will see how they react and then
have them one by one read the lyrics slowly to the rest of the group. This will hopefully allow
them to realize what kind of message song lyrics nowadays are portraying.
The myriad of examples makes one wonder if anyone else has tried to spread awareness
of this issue. Although we did not find any social experiments similar to the one we are
proposing, there are two existing videos that have a similar message. How Women Are
Portrayed in Hip Hop Videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2q5zlgkKas) is about
womens role in the music industry, while Beyond the Lyrics - Misogyny in Hip Hop and Rap
Culture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTce5O8UXHI) has disturbing facts about
misogynistic lyrics. Both videos are very informative, but they lack the personal aspect that we
intend to have. Regurgitating facts does not show the full emotional impact of the situation.
Although slightly different, the backbone is similar to each others video and our video.
Our test subjects will likely be an older man (30s-40s), an older woman (30s-40s), a
younger man (20s-30s), a younger woman (20s-30s), a teenage boy, and a teenage girl.

The following are possible breakdowns of what songs will be delivered to whom.
(Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, Superman by Eminem, Bitches aint shit by Dr Dre, etc).
1: Different songs for everyone.
2: Net three or four songs that are tested on every participant.
3: One song for everyone.
IV. Project Details
Setting up the Environment
We plan on shooting everything in one day at the Fashion Valley Mall. The mall is ideal
because it will have a range of ages, races, and backgrounds. This will allow us to get the most
diverse perspectives possible. Well have songs that appeal to teenagers and songs that target an
older audience; however, this video is also directed to people in general who are ignorant to the
fact that women are more than their bodies. The damage that these people are inflicting on
society is concerning to us and that is why we need to change the minds of these individuals. Our
expert will be Dr. Kristin Moran, a professor from University of San Diego who is an expert on
communications and popular culture will help us do just that by providing evidence using her
experiences and knowledge. Pop culture lyrics are nonchalantly encouraging the stereotype that
all women are good for is sex. After each person reads the lyrics of the songs that we played for
them, they will hopefully have a #Breakfree moment and realize that the songs people are
listening to nowadays are not actually being heard. Currently, songs are sung because they are
catchy or cool. We will then ask them questions along the lines of: What does this say about our
society? and How will this influence our youth? These questions will hopefully open minds
for more #Breakfree moments. The equipment we use will play a large role in the
professionalism and quality of our video. We plan to use a Nikon camera, attachable microphone
and an audio zoom which records and monitors the audio as we are filming, so there are no
distracting background noises. Lastly, we will use Final Cut Pro to edit the final cut.
Implementation Issues and Challenges
The most challenging aspect of this implementation will be creating a video that is
professional and inspirational rather than comedic. Sure, it may make the audience giggle to hear
curse words being used so casually. I think the solution to this will be to create a professional
tone to the video by incorporating music that fits the mood at parts where the viewer should take
it more seriously. We searched on YouTube to see if anyone else had already done this social
experiment, but we only found videos that provide background information that can help us build
on what is already out there. This is a very unique experiment that we believe will open the eyes
of society by making them realize that these songs may be catchy, but they preach values that are
unworthy of all the attention they receive. I think what will make this go viral is the quality of
the video and how real it is.
Deliverables
This project will produce a professional, high quality video that informs people, raises
awareness, and influences change. It will start off with some background information, historical
facts, and statistics to prove that this is not a new problem and it still remains unsolved. Then, we

will play misogynistic songs to a variety of students from different grades at High Tech High
International. We are hoping that they will dance to them or nod their head to the beat. We will
then have each student read excerpts of the lyrics on slips of paper that they will draw out of a
basket. Afterwards, we will ask the students questions about the experiment we just conducted on
them. We will also explain to them what the message of each song is (sexism, misogynism,
violence, rape, etc). After doing so, the viewers will be able to see the contrast between the
students initial reaction of appreciation toward the songs and what we hope will be their
#Breakfree end moment of disgust. That moment will be a very important component in our
video, so we have to make sure that we capture it. We will conduct the same experiment with
adults to capture a different kind of perspective.
This video will not just bring attention to the problem, but it will also hopefully be the
beginning of a movement. How will we do that? We know that just this video alone will not
solve the problem, but we are hoping it will be the first step. Our call to action will be to have
each student draw the Pause symbol on their wrists to remind themselves to pause and listen
closely to the lyrics that they are hearing on the daily. This could become a trend that will bring
attention to this issue.We hope that this video will be viewed and shared over and over again, and
influence people who will then influence others, ultimately creating a domino effect that will
bring an end to sexist lyrics in pop culture.
Timeline
The timeline of our video project is very straight forward. We should have our script
written by Monday, May 2nd. That week, it will be critiqued by Joanne and at least two students.
We will be shooting on Friday, May 6th so the script should be polished by then. The first cut
should be edited by Monday, May 23rd which is when our video critiques will be held as a class.
Finishing touches should be made and the video should be uploaded to youtube by Wednesday,
May 25th, considering our exhibition will be on Thursday, May 26th at Queen Bees.
V. Conclusion
Misogynistic, demeaning songs have been dehumanizing, sexualizing, and demoralizing
women since before we were born which is really scary to think about. This is why our group is
determined to open peoples mind to the harsh realities of todays music. This project is supposed
to help educate people on everything that is said but not heard in pop culture, songs and raps in
particular. We will read a part of one of said songs to a person and ask what they think about the
message the song is sending to the people supporting the music, and why this could negatively
impact mindsets. Ideally, this PSA will convince everyone of the urgency to speak out about this
problem so that our children can grow up in a world where women are more than walking sex
toys. Realistically, if we change only one mind, we will have succeeded.
VI. References/Cited Research: MLA Format
"Pay Equity & Discrimination." IWPR. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.

Labbe, Izzy. "Sexualized Music through the Ages: The 1960's." Spark Movement. 5 Sept. 2012.
Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
American Academy of Pediatrics. Bad rap: Can music lyrics with negative references affect kids
behavior? Ma AAP News 2009
Outbrain. 23 Shocking Ways We're Still Oppressing Women In the 21st Century 14 Jan. 2014
Nicki Minaj. Anaconda 19 Aug. 2014