Stereotyping Women in US Music Journalism — A Reexamination

Rihanna is so dominant in global pop culture that she is instantly recognized by a single name. By 2016 the R&B superstar had moved more than 230 million albums, placed 14 songs at number one on the Billboard charts, and collected nine Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen American Music Awards. She had also become the most-watched artist on YouTube. Still, a review of her 2016 album Anti in a major US newspaper described this celebrated musician as, among other things, “a star of fashion, social media and tabloids who sometimes, y’know, makes music or whatever.” That same year Forbes ranked Rihanna as the fifth highest-earning musician in the world.

The review dismisses her artistry and zeroes in on her looks and public image. This example, taken from the larger body of work examined here, shows how gendered coverage pervades music journalism in the United States, affecting both superstars and emerging artists. That an artist as accomplished as Rihanna can be diminished in a top US newspaper during a year of remarkable achievement shows how deeply ingrained these practices are. The website Gawker and its affiliated outlets repeatedly pointed out this problem, calling on journalists to stop stereotyping women musicians. In 2015, journalist Dayna Evans accused a male critic reviewing a St. Vincent concert of adding “another entry to his book on What Women Musicians Wore, a growing compendium of music-irrelevant analyses that he apparently reserves almost exclusively for female performers.”

Despite awareness within the industry of how women musicians are stereotyped, no recent US studies have measured the extent of this problem. Most existing research focuses on music lyrics or videos rather than journalistic stories or criticism. The few studies that examine music writing itself are quite old. This study therefore aims to update and expand the analysis of stereotyping in music journalism in a way that can be generalized across the US music journalism industry. A second goal is to explore how women journalists portray women musicians, using the lenses of stereotyping and professional socialization. While the female journalist who called out her male colleague clearly opposed stereotyping, findings on professional socialization are mixed: some research shows women are less likely to stereotype, while other studies find the opposite — that women adopt the perspectives of men to succeed in male-dominated fields. This study tests whether such patterns extend to women journalists stereotyping other women in a subfield of journalism that is male-dominated yet falls within the domain of soft news.

Music journalism offers a particularly relevant setting for examining how gender is depicted in US popular culture. It is an important branch of lifestyle journalism, which helps audiences understand which cultural creators and trends to value and how to think about them. Combining fact-driven reporting with opinion-driven criticism, music journalism contains both explicit and implicit signals about gender. As a subfield of lifestyle, entertainment, or cultural journalism, music journalism is considered “soft news,” unlike the “hard news” fields of politics, business, and sports that dominate most stereotyping and professional socialization research. This study tests how findings from those theoretical frameworks apply in this softer genre.

Through the perspective of stereotyping, this study analyzes the themes and tropes associated with women musicians in US journalism. By combining stereotyping with insights from professional socialization, it also seeks to understand whether women journalists counteract or reinforce stereotypes of women musicians. A quantitative content analysis of 936 articles randomly sampled from eight top US music publications was conducted to gauge the extent of the problem and identify which categories of gender stereotypes are most common in a generalizable way. The results can help journalists and educators focus their efforts to address the problem.

This research matters because audiences absorb cultural cues from the news they consume. Stereotypes can affect how women and girls think and behave. “It is the cumulative effect of this patterned discourse — not the influence of a particular critic or piece of writing — that is most important.” These latent meanings extend beyond the page and shape readers' perspectives.

Stereotyping and Schema Theory

News media coverage of people and communities can either contribute to and reinforce stereotypes or work against them. Stereotypes are harmful because they reduce entire categories of people to oversimplified, negative shorthand. “Stereotyping converts real people into artificial persons…In short, we deny them their humanity.”

Schema theory explains how people process stereotypical information. People make sense of the world through knowledge acquired from everyday life. A schema is an internal framework for understanding and processing experiences. When encountering something new — a person, place, or thing — people call upon existing schemas to make sense of it. Schemas can be helpful by aiding the absorption of new information, but they can also reinforce negative stereotypes about others. People activate schemas automatically, without conscious intention, a phenomenon known as the automaticity of stereotyping. Unless people actively work against it, stereotypes kick in when what is observed conflicts with expectations.

Exposure to stereotypical media depictions of women can trigger existing schemas and strengthen traditional gender roles. This has been shown across images, video, and text. A meta-analysis concluded that “as exposure to gender stereotyping increases, sex-typed behavior and sex-role stereotyped attitudes increase.”

This study focuses on how gendered stereotypes of female musicians are constructed in US music journalism. It follows scholars who distinguish two forms of stereotyping: themes, which are the main subjects or dominant ideas in discourse (such as an artist’s appearance); and tropes, defined as literary or rhetorical devices, descriptive phrases or adjectives that stand for larger concepts — for instance, words like “trivial” and “lush” or phrases such as “independent woman.” The practice of stereotyping women is linked to objectification, or treating them as objects. Although objectification is not the main focus, it informs the study. Research on objectification covers women in music videos and lyrics.

Stereotyping in the Music Industry

Music itself is considered a masculine domain, especially in genres such as rock, metal, rap, hip-hop, and country. A study of lyrics on the Billboard Hot 100 identified six main themes: men and power, sex as a top priority for males, objectification of women, sexual violence, women defined by having a man, and women not valuing themselves. Rap lyrics regularly degrade women, except when rappers mention their mothers or other women they love. One common trope in rap is the “independent woman” — gorgeous, domestic, and flawless. Women rap DJs served as counterbalances to the hyper- masculinized patriarchy of rap. Country music, in contrast, was more likely to portray women in empowered roles than in traditional family roles. However, between 2010 and 2014, songs of all genres were more likely to reference a woman's appearance or show her in revealing clothing than between 1990 and 2010. These shifts were driven by songs from male artists, not female ones.

The practice of objectifying women is prevalent in pop, R&B, and hip-hop. Women are far more likely than men to be objectified in lyrics, and this holds true for songs by artists of both genders. Female artists are more likely to objectify themselves in their own lyrics than male artists are. This has been explained either as an undoing of feminism or as women’s empowerment to consciously embrace their sexuality, a view associated with third-wave feminism. This study does not engage that debate but returns to it when discussing journalists’ responses to such portrayals.

Stereotyping also appears in the visual dimension of the music industry. Early MTV music videos showed women as more nurturing, affectionate, fearful, dependent, and scantily clad than men, and women made and accepted sexual advances more often. Subsequent decades saw little change: women remain more likely to be portrayed sexually and held to stricter appearance standards, and more likely to exhibit sexually alluring behavior. Significant gender themes reinforce notions of women as sex objects; one study found 39.3% of scenes in music videos contained sexualized messages. Rap music videos were especially misogynistic, though Black women’s rap presented alternative models of Black femininity. An analysis of Beyoncé concluded that while she self-objectified through sexualized dances and clothing, and self-stereotyped by referencing family and personal life, this expressed third-wave feminism and empowerment. Women-only Korean pop groups are both celebrated and subjugated — treated as cultural icons while commodified as “sex totems.” Interviews with fans and women musicians consistently reveal themes of women being sexualized, treated as less serious than men, and judged by physical attributes.

These examples show gender stereotyping rife throughout the industry, and they provide essential context for understanding the journalism tied to music.

Stereotyping in Music Journalism

Mass media are often cited as a major influence on stereotyping of women. One study directly linked media use to the internalization of thin ideals. Experimental work shows exposure to objectifying media increases self-objectification, which in turn increases preference for objectifying content. A content analysis of four countries from 1955 to 2005 documented that music journalism relegated women writers to more peripheral genres, and as those genres gained legitimacy, writing about them became more male-dominated. That research dates back more than a decade. No recent, large-scale, generalizable studies of stereotyping in music journalism could be found, underscoring the need for this investigation. Coding categories were drawn from the themes and tropes identified in this literature.

Gendered Themes

Historically, music journalism has not treated women kindly. A discourse analysis of the British music press concluded that “the music press abuses and trivialises female musicians in both explicit and more subtle ways.” That study identified recurring methods of stereotyping: ignoring women musicians by not covering them at all, focusing on their gender rather than their musicianship, interviewing women artists about topics tied to their femininity, highlighting their age or youth, and centering articles on their attractiveness and sexuality.

Other research, using a variety of methods, documents similar themes. A case study of musician Ani DiFranco found she was devalued and marginalized by having her role as a musician downplayed. Another study listed themes included boyfriends, lovers and husbands, and physical attractiveness. Some publications, such as Rockrgrl, both challenged sexist themes by discussing women’s music and reinforced them. Coverage of individual musicians focused substantially on physical appearance, family, and relationships. Age and appearance are consistently identified as themes.

The music journalism industry itself has recognized the problem. In a Village Voice article titled “How Not to Write About Female Musicians,” one journalist advised, “Go through your piece and flip the gender of your descriptive phrases’ subjects. Are there any that sound ludicrous as a result?”

These themes draw attention to women musicians’ gender — primarily through age or youth, size, appearance, clothing, and relationships — rather than their skills and experience. “These sexist conventions are so embedded in the discourses of rock that they are still reflexively employed by critics — men and women, feminist and non-feminist.” This study distills the main recurring themes into three categories — appearance, relationships, and age or youth — in order to make the analysis manageable.

Based on the evidence from prior studies, these hypotheses were tested:

• H1a: Articles about women musicians will be more likely to discuss appearance.
• H1b: Articles about women musicians will be more likely to discuss personal relationships.
• H1c: Articles about women musicians will be more likely to mention age and youth.

Gendered Tropes

Tropes differ from themes, which are about main ideas. Tropes are rhetorical devices or language — phrases, sentences, or descriptive terms. Feigenbaum outlined ways journalists stereotype women by using gendered adjectives such as “soft” and “sweet” as well as metaphors involving emotional, personal, and confessional language. McLeod categorized these tropes into semantic dimensions tied to femininity and masculinity. This study adopted categories showing patterned gender-based discourse, combined and labeled to match other studies.

The analysis revealed significant stereotyping of women musicians in the 2016 coverage sampled from major US music publications. Stories predominantly featured male artists and male authors. Articles about women musicians were significantly more likely to discuss appearance and personal relationships, and they used more sexualized and emotional language. There was one area of improvement: articles showed no greater tendency to mention age or youth when covering women musicians. Women journalists proved just as likely as men journalists to stereotype women musicians, and in one category they did so even more. These findings expand the concept of stereotyping by incorporating professional socialization theory and applying it to the “soft news,” male-dominated domain of music journalism, adding to the body of knowledge about hard news fields like politics, business, and sports. The study also updates earlier, decades-old research on music journalism, showing minimal progress in the blatant stereotyping of women musicians.

The raw, unpolished nature of the text aligns with the exoticism outlined by Feigenbaum (2005), including terms like "lunges," "primitivism," and "licking your chops" (p. 100). Alongside blatantly sexual phrases such as "chick singer" (p. 40), more subtle "lexical patterns" (p. 39) emerge, featuring emotional language ("angry females," p. 43) and exoticized descriptors ("tigress," p. 46) that subtly underscore sexual connotations. Other scholarship has confirmed these patterns, noting "angry young women" (Johnson-Grau, 2002, p. 210) and references to "the natural and the animal," including words like "primal" and "wild" (Railton and Watson, 2005, p. 58). This leads to the following predictions:

H2a: Stories about women musicians will contain significantly more sexualized and exoticized tropescompared with stories about men musicians. H2b: Stories about women will feature significantly more emotional tropes than stories about men.

Professional Socialization

Some researchers suggest that these portrayals stem from men being the primary creators of music journalism (Davies, 2001). Although music journalism sits within the “soft news” category of lifestyle, entertainment, or cultural reporting—considered “traditionally female-oriented” (Armstrong, 2006, p. 78)—both music journalism and the music industry are typically seen as male domains (Feigenbaum, 2005). Women have traditionally been barred from the tight-knit boys’ club of music criticism (Evans, 1997). “The disproportionately low number of women in rock journalism certainly contributes to the marginalization and degradation of women rock musicians” (Feigenbaum, 2005, p. 39). Davies (2001) argues that such sexism pervades the music press so thoroughly that both men and women authors perpetuate it, creating a self-renewing cycle.

Davies’ argument is illuminated by professional socialization models (Breed, 1955; Tuchman, 1978; Shoemaker & Reese, 2013), which explain how organizations acculturate journalists through newsroom policies, standards, and routines. Because of similar professional socializing processes, women and men would be expected to perform their work in comparable ways. Even if women bring different values and attitudes, socialization motivates them to conform in order to gain acceptance or promotion—essentially, they act like men. Steiner (2012) noted, “At least until the 1950s, the highest compliment for a news woman was that her work was ‘just like a man’s’” (p. 210).

Studies on professional socialization in journalism yield conflicting results. Some found no differences between male and female reporters concerning their selection and treatment of women sources (Rodgers & Thorson, 2006; Freedman et al., 2007; Zoch & Turk, 1998; Liebler & Smith, 1997). Panuzzo (2014) interviewed women journalists and editors, uncovering that they acknowledged approaching their work through a male perspective. Other studies contradicted these findings, showing that women journalists wrote less stereotypically about women, included more women sources, and framed stories more positively (Zeldes & Fico, 2005; Zoch & Turk, 1998; Rodgers & Thorson, 2006; Freedman & Fico, 2005). Yet still other research found that women performed worse than men in stereotyping women (Denham & Cook, 2006; Freedman et al., 2010).

Factors that reduce gender similarities include smaller newsrooms (Rodgers & Thorson, 2006), more diverse newsrooms (Armstrong, 2006), and those led by women (Everbach, 2006). Socialization has primarily been explored in terms of framing and sourcing in political news and sports, both strongly masculine domains like music. Considering these findings—and that all studied outlets were large, covering male-dominated music—socialization models lead us to predict that US women journalists will behave like men:

H3: Women music journalists will be as likely as men to stereotype women musicians’ a) appearance, b) relationships, and c) age or youth, and use d) sexualized and exoticized language and e) emotional language.

Method

This quantitative content analysis drew from a random sample of journalistic articles about musicians published between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016, sourced from eight major US music publications. We selected well-established outlets devoted to music journalism, popular with readers, focused on listeners rather than musicians, and covering diverse genres, audiences, journalists, ownership structures, and artists. The music varied widely—rap, pop, rock—alongside less mainstream options (world music, Tejano, trance). The publications included:

• Billboard magazine, founded in 1894, widely regarded as a reputable source for industry news (Sisario, 2014), known for publishing charts tracking the most played, purchased, and downloaded songs and albums in the US.
• SPIN magazine, founded in 1985 as an alternative to more establishment music outlets, offering readers news about music options.
• MTV News, owned by Viacom, created in 1993 after the music video television channel launched in 1981.

• Pitchfork.com, a digital-native publication founded in 1995, originally focusing on independent music, now covering a broad range of genres; one of the most prominent independent music websites (Itzkoff, 2006).
• Rolling Stone magazine, founded in 1967, with a circulation of 1.4 million in 2016 (Alliance for Allied Media, 2017); its annual “Hot Issue” and “500 Greatest” lists are subfield classics.
• Alternative Press magazine, AltPress.com, founded in 1985 to cover punk rock, indie, and alternative music, included for its focus on genres receiving less attention.
• Complex magazine, launched in 2002, concentrating on hip-hop music and culture, owned by Verizon Hearst Media Partners.

One mainstream news outlet, the New York Times, was also included to represent a US newspaper of record with a well-regarded Arts section. The Times has won two Pulitzer Prizes for music criticism, covers a wide variety of genres, and is the only publication in this corpus to regularly feature jazz and opera.

Sampling

We sourced music articles (news stories, reviews, and features) from each outlet’s website. Articles about musicians were included only if they related to music; stories like “Justin Bieber’s solo trip to Disney” were excluded. Starting from each publication’s first 2016 issue, we randomly selected every 16th story in the order it appeared on the site, from top to bottom and left to right. The skip rate of 16 was determined using a G*Power analysis requiring 923 stories for a power level of .80 (alpha = .001). We then roughly estimated each site’s monthly output and multiplied by 12 for a yearly total. After discarding seven articles described below, the final sample measured 936.

Measures

We coded both the musician’s gender and the author’s gender (male = 1, female = 0, can’t tell = 2). No transgender or nonbinary musicians or authors appeared; seven from the “can’t tell” category were removed. Author gender was determined through Google searches, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the music site’s author biography and photo. When a story featured multiple musicians (e.g., band members), each was coded separately.

Themes and tropes were coded dichotomously: present (1) or absent (0):

Themes:

Appearance referred to the musician’s body, weight, hair, skin color, tattoos, and clothing. For example, country singer Kelsea Ballerini was described as “Blonde, tan, sweetly effusive, and Southern…the pretty girl…” (Lambert, 2016, para. 3).

Age or youth was coded when a specific age number or a descriptor such as young, naïve, wise, or old appeared. Taylor Swift was portrayed as “an immensely successful 26-year-old multimillionaire” and reference was made to “the wearisome trials of being a heartbroken young woman” and “an intrinsically feminine youth” (Cills, 2016, para. 5).

Personal relationships was coded if the story referenced the musician’s children, siblings, significant other, or parents, or mentioned divorce, dating, breakups, affairs, domestic violence, etc. Gwen Stefani’s divorce and relationship with country singer Blake Shelton prompted her to be called “the quintessential divorcee, fresh off her messy split… Stefani forces herself to look forward as she navigates the thrill and insecurity of dating for the first time this millennium” (Mapes, 2016, para. 1).

Tropes:

Sexual and exoticized language was coded when stories used inherently feminine terms (vulnerable, lush, delicate, intimate, innocent, gentle, sweet, etc.) or masculine terms (strong, powerful, masculine, protective, dominant, etc.), or when the musician was described as foreign, mysterious, wild, animalistic, raw, instinctual, etc. For instance, an MTV tribute (Roth, 2016) to Victoria Beckham noted her “sultriness” (para. 4), “magnetizing charm” (para. 5), and “sexy” (para. 5) assertiveness, describing her dance moves in one video where she “slithers like a snake” (para. 4).

Emotional language was coded when the story described the musician with affective terms such as happy, sad, angry, etc. Gwen Stefani’s “vulnerability” (para. 6) and “insecurity” (para. 3) exemplify this, along with her being described as “upset” (Mapes, 2016, para. 5).

Intercoder Reliability

Two female coders—one of the authors and an independent coder—trained for approximately three weeks in sessions of one to two hours daily. Coding categories were revised using stories excluded from the final sample. After about 40 hours of training, agreement was achieved on 20% of the stories (Krippendorf’s alpha: Appearance .92, Age/youth .83, Relationships .84, Sexual/exoticized tropes .87, Emotional tropes .82).

Results

Out of 936 stories, 23.4% came from Billboard, 19.6% from Rolling Stone, 15.9% from Pitchfork, 15.5% from SPIN, 10.5% from NYTimes.com, 9.1% from Complex, 3.2% from MTV News, and 2.8% from AltPress.com. Stories written by men dominated at 72.1%. Additionally, 72% of articles featured male musicians—a statistically significant difference (t = 18.96, df = 935, p < .001).

Chi-square tests of independence analyzed the categorical data; no cell had an expected count less than 5. Bonferroni corrections set the significance level at p < .001.

Two of the three themes yielded significant differences: Stories stereotyped women’s appearance more frequently than men’s (χ² = 10.78, df = 1, p < .001; male = 11.7%; female = 20%). Women musicians were also more often stereotyped in the context of maternal, spousal, or romantic roles (χ² = 10.91, df = 1, p < .001; male = 27.4%; female = 38.5%). H1a and H1b were therefore supported.

H1c was not supported: men and women were described similarly in terms of age and youth (χ² = .804, df = 1, p = .37; male = 27.8%; female = 30.8%).

Both language-tropes hypotheses were confirmed. Stories about women used significantly more sexualized and exoticized language (χ² = 20.94, df = 1, p < .001; male = 6.5%; female = 16.2%) and featured emotional descriptors like sad, happy, or angry more often for women than for men (χ² = 11.56, df = 1, p < .001; male = 7.1%; female = 14.2%).

The hypothesis regarding journalists’ behavior—that both men and women journalists would stereotype women at similar rates—was supported for three themes and one trope (emotional language). However, for sexualized and exoticized terms, women journalists were significantly more likely to stereotype women musicians than their male counterparts were (χ² = 10.87, df = 1, p < .001). Women-authored stories depicting women musicians in these ways accounted for 60% versus 40% for men. The other four variables showed no significant difference between male and female journalists, confirming that women music journalists stereotyped women musicians as often as men did (Appearance χ² = 5.81, df = 1, p = .023; Relationships χ² = 2.42, df = 1, p = .120; Age/youth χ² = .402, df = 1, p = .526; Emotional language χ² = .640, df = 1, p = .424).

To obtain a comprehensive industry picture, this study covered eight music genres: rock, pop, rap, country, Latin, soul/R&B, dance, and “other” (including world, opera, and niche categories). Pop music is not monolithic, however, so we explored the role musical genre plays in stereotypical coverage of women. No formal hypotheses were posed, but the data were analyzed for deeper engagement with music journalism debates. Within the industry, rock and rap are often perceived as serious music, whereas pop is treated as more trivial (McLeod, 2002). In mainstream music, women musicians tend to be more prevalent in pop, where pressure to deliver sexualized lyrics and behavior is intensified (Meier, 2017). Brand partnerships—common in pop—compound this (Meier, 2017). Since some categories had insufficient articles for meaningful statistical analysis, we focused on the three genres constituting 73% of the sample: rock, pop, and rap.

The data showed that women were more represented in pop than in rap or rock—61% of pop artists in the sample were women, compared to 88% of rock musicians and 92% of rap artists being men.

Chi-square tests of independence revealed that, across four of five categories, pop musicians of all genders were stereotyped significantly more often than rock or rap artists. Pop performers received more stereotypical coverage related to appearance, relationships, age/youth, and emotions. Rap musicians were depicted using more sexualized and exoticized terms. However, when restricted only to women musicians, no significant differences by genre emerged. Analyses were constrained by small sample sizes, yielding reliable comparisons only for age/youth and relationships. In those categories, women were stereotyped at similar frequencies regardless of genre.

Put differently, pop musicians are stereotyped considerably more than those of other genres, yet this “genre effect” largely vanishes when considering women musicians alone (see Table 1).

Discussion

This study uncovered little improvement in the stereotypical themes and tropes applied to women artists in US music journalism since scholars last examined them around two decades ago. Building on prior research, we hypothesized three themes (appearance, relationships, age/youth) and two tropes (sexualized/exoticized language, emotional language) would be used to describe women musicians more than men. A generalizable content analysis across eight major US music news sources confirmed that women were stereotyped regarding appearance, relationships, sexuality, and emotions. Only age and youth were not emphasized more than for men. Success at a young age appears equally newsworthy regardless of gender: the music press writes about Declan McKenna and Billie Eilish (ages 17 and 14, respectively, when recognized) to a similar degree. This represents a small step forward, but does not indicate substantial progress from the nearly two decades since Davies (2001) studied the British music press. Despite women’s gains toward equality, rising societal awareness of discrimination, and attempts by journalists to eliminate stereotyping, music journalism remains largely unchanged.

The study also revealed that men wrote the majority of stories (over 70%). However, male authorship is clearly not the sole problem, since women music journalists were as likely—or even more so—to stereotype women musicians.

A foundational journalism ethics principle from the Society of Professional Journalists is to “avoid stereotyping” (https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp). No working journalist today could have escaped industry publications, on-the-job training, or college courses that stress its importance and propose countermeasures. Yet stereotyping persists. Some scholars suggest women musicians themselves are complicit in such journalistic portrayals (Panuzzo, 2014). What should a journalist do when a female musician actively engages in sexualized behaviors, like prostrating across a stage, or self-stereotypes through sexualized lyrics? Industry pressures from labels and fans further motivate such conduct. The straightforward answer: don’t write about it, or at minimum, don’t prioritize it. Journalism is fundamentally about selection and emphasis—deciding what to include and what to leave out (Entman, 1993). Journalists regularly choose not to highlight certain story elements; indeed, each article, constrained by space and audience attention, demands such decisions. There is no requirement that writers must mention what a woman wears or her hair color, particularly given the ubiquity of images in online and print media, which typically convey such details more effectively through photographs or video. This pattern becomes especially concerning given how elements like relationships, appearance, and emotions are omitted from identical stories that feature male musicians, as shown in this study.

Our “relationships” category was designed to capture coverage of musicians’ personal lives—boyfriend/girlfriend, lovers, spouses, exes, children—rather than lyrical content; however, self-stereotyping in song lyrics is an important issue.

Men musicians write lyrics about their lovers just as often as women, yet these topics are covered very differently by the music press. Regardless of whether a female musician actively sexualizes or stereotypes herself, journalists perpetuate injustice by reinforcing those patterns. Doing so, especially when industry pressure is already powerful, only reinforces a vicious cycle.

Moreover, journalists cannot always discern when female musicians who stereotype or sexualize themselves are expressing genuine empowerment or subverting patriarchal femininity (Panuzzo, 2014). Nor do journalists need that insight.

Focus on the music itself. Write about the vocals. Write about the craft.

Discuss the quality of the lyrics – their meaningfulness, how relatable they are, their ability to evoke emotion – and avoid exclusively concentrating on content that highlights gender-stereotypical topics.

Take Johnston’s (2012) suggestion: try replacing women musicians’ names with those of men to see if the description suddenly sounds ridiculous. Stay consciously aware of these tropes, along with your own gendered preconceptions. Recent findings indicate that making journalists conscious of their cognitive gender biases can reduce the prevalence of such bias in their reporting (Kalra and Boukes, 2020).

Finally, journalists should address the question of whether women musicians’ sexualized videos, appearances, and lyrics represent self-stereotyping or sexual empowerment. Longer articles devoted to this topic are the appropriate venue for thoughtful debate about

whether Beyoncé’s “Partition” video, or Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” lyrics constitute sexual empowerment or its opposite (see, e.g., Carr et al., 2020; Plank, 2014; Nova, 2014).

Conclusion

This study’s theoretical contribution extends the intersection of stereotyping and professional socialization into music journalism – a “soft news” genre nonetheless dominated by men. Despite society’s growing awareness of gender issues and journalism’s ethical mandates to avoid stereotyping, such stereotyping remains widespread in stories about women musicians. Moreover, women journalists perpetuate stereotypes just as often as men do. This suggests that professional socialization exerts a powerful influence on stereotypical portrayals of women, outweighing shifting social norms, ethical obligations, and increased newsroom diversity. Women journalists socialized in male-dominated workplaces become acculturated to write like men, which includes stereotyping female subjects. While content analysis alone cannot confirm such mechanisms, these findings point to a process that leads women journalists to stereotype women musicians – a likely unrecognized implicit bias, akin to racial prejudice. This pattern extends beyond music journalism, as seen when women political reporters frame women candidates in stereotypical terms. The fact that we observe this in a genre with one foot in soft news, yet still male-dominated, is particularly troubling. Could this situation be any different in fields considered even “softer,” such as travel, food, or fashion journalism? Our results offer little reason for optimism. This phenomenon may reach beyond journalism, appearing among women employers who stereotype women new hires or women colleagues.

Our analysis is limited to editorial output from music journalists; it does not explore the decision-making behind this content, nor how economic pressures or demographic factors beyond newsroom staff gender might shape portrayals. Future research should investigate these dynamics, compare large versus small newsrooms, and examine men-led versus women-led organizations, where professional socialization is less likely to produce homogeneous coverage.

Notably, the US music journalism in this corpus appeared before the #MeToo movement gained traction in late 2017. Conditions may have improved since then, though we remain doubtful given the trajectory of minimal progress – and even regression, with song lyrics more frequently referencing a woman’s appearance after 2010 than before (Rasmussen and Densley, 2017).

Furthermore, this study focuses exclusively on US publications and cannot be generalized internationally, despite similarities to UK findings (Davies, 2001). We acknowledge that men musicians, particularly in “boy bands” (Duffett, 2012), also face stereotyping; that too deserves future attention. Finally, we recognize the critical intersection of race and gender. This study derived from a larger sample that included racial coding, but we constrained it for feasibility; future work will address this intersection.

These limitations do not undercut the findings’ importance for studying, practicing, and consuming journalism. First, this research builds on our understanding of stereotyping in US music journalism, complementing prior studies and analyses of music lyrics and videos. With these insights, we can determine whether and how the journalistic landscape has changed and identify areas needing improvement. It updates

the few decades-old studies of music journalism, revealing little progress in overt stereotyping of women musicians. Second, it integrates insights from professional socialization and positions music journalism alongside hard news reporting. It further shows that women journalists may be “doing it for themselves” by adhering to professional norms, yet not supporting one another; instead they harm other women by stereotyping them as often as – and sometimes more than – men do. This research benefits practicing music journalists by raising awareness of this problematic practice and highlighting areas that most need rectification.

By identifying and dissecting these themes and tropes, we hope this study will inform journalists so they can avoid them in their own work, while also increasing audience awareness of the dangers of internalizing such stereotypes.

References

Alliance for Allied Media (2017) Total Circ. https://archive.is/20170123200306/http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/ecirc/magtitlesearch.asp.

Armstrong C (2006) Story genre influences whether women are sources. Newspaper Research Journal 27(3): 66-81.

Aubrey JS and Frisby C (2011) Sexual objectification in music videos: A content analysis comparing gender and genre. 14(4): 475-501.

Berkers P and Eeckelaer M (2014) Rock and roll or rock and fall? Gendered framing of the rock and roll lifestyles of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty in British broadsheets. Gender Studies 23(1): 3-17.

Billboard (2018) Rihanna chart history. https://www.billboard.com/music/rihanna/chart-history/hot-100 October 20. Accessed November 1, 2018.

Breed W (1955) Social control in the newsroom. Social Forces 33: 326-335.

Bretthauer B, Zimmerman TS and Banning JH (2007) A feminist analysis of popular music: Power over, objectification of, and violence against women. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 18(4): 29-51.

Caramanica J (2016) Review: Rihanna, blissfully adrift, juggles styles on “Anti.” New York Times January 28. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/arts/music/review-rihanna-blissfully-adrift-juggles-styles-on-anti.html. Accessed October 21, 2018.

Carr R, Clouston O and Edworthy E (2020) Writing a perspective: Three writers’ thoughts on WAP. twssmagazine Oct. 15. https://twssmagazine.com/2020/10/15/write-a-perspective-three-writers-thoughts-on-wap/. Accessed Oct. 21, 2018.

Chepp V (2015) Black feminism and third-wave women's rap: A content analysis, 1996–2003. Popular Music & Society 38(5): 545-564.

Cills H (2016) A decade of Taylor Swift. June 21. http://www.mtv.com/news/2896028/taylor-swift-tim-mcgraw-10-years/. Accessed November 1, 2018.

Conrad K, Dixon T and Zhang Y (2009) Controversial rap themes, gender portrayals and skin tone distortion: A content analysis of rap music videos. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 53(1): 134-156.

Craig T and Kynard C (2017) Sista girl rock: Women of colour and hip-hop deejaying as raced/gendered knowledge and language. Changing English: Studies in Culture & Education 24(2): 143-158.

Crocker J, Fiske ST and Taylor SE (1984) Schematic bases of belief change. Attitudinal Judgment. New York, N.Y.: Springer, pp.197-226.

Davies H (2001) All rock and roll is homosocial: The representation of women in the British rock music press. Popular Music 20(3): 301-319.

Denham BE and Cook Al (2006) Byline gender and news source selection: Coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics. Journal of Sports Media 1: 1-17.

Duffett M (2012) Multiple damnations: Deconstructing the critical response to the boy band phenomena. Popular Music History 7(2): 185-197.

Elafros A (2010) “No beauty tips or guilt trips:” Rockrgrl, rock, and representation. Popular Music & Society 33(4): 487-499.

Enteman WF (2003) Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In: Lester PM and Ross SD (eds) Images that injure: Pictorial stereotypes in the media. Westport, CT: Praeger, pp.23-27.

Entman RM (1993) Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. 43(4): 51-58.

Evans D (2015) Dallas Observer editior still confused by women who play music. TKTK http://tktk.gawker.com/dallas-observer-editor-still-confused-by-women-who-play-1696254632. April 17.

Everbach T (2006) The culture of a women-led newspaper: An ethnographic study of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 83(3): 477-493.

Feigenbaum, A (2005) “Some guy designed this room I’m standing in”: Marking gender in press coverage of Ani DiFranco. Popular Music 24(1): 37-56.

Fiske ST and Taylor SE (1984) Social cognition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Flynn M, Craig C, Anderson C, et al. (2016) Objectification in popular music lyrics: An examination of gender and genre differences. Sex Roles 75(3/4): 164-176.

Freedman E and Fico F (2005) Male and female sources in newspaper coverage of male and female candidates in open races for governor in 2002. 8(3): 257-272.

Freedman E, Fico F and Durisin M (2010) Gender diversity absent in expert sources for elections. Newspaper Research Journal 31(2): 20-33.

Freedman E, Fico F and Love B (2007) Male and female sources in newspaper coverage of male and female candidates in US senate races in 2004. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 29(1): 57-76.

Frisby CM and Aubrey JS (2012) Race and genre in the use of sexual objectification in female artists' music videos. Howard Journal of Communications 23: 66-87.

Gill R (2007) Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 147-166.

Grabe S, Ward LM and Hyde JS (2008) The role of the media in body image concerns among women: A meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. Psychological Bulletin 134: 460-476.

Grammy A (2018) Rhianna. https://www.grammy.com/grammys/artists/rihanna May 22. Accessed October 20, 2018.

Greenbeurg ZOM (2016) The world’s highest-paid musicians of 2016. Forbes December 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2016/11/30/the-worlds-highest-paid-musicians-of-2016/#735f243ef411. Accessed October 20, 2018.

Hansen KA (2017) Empowered or objectified? Personal narrative and audiovisual aesthetics in Beyonce’s Partition. Popular Music & Society 40(2): 164-180.

Herrett-Skjellum J and Allen M (1996) Television programming and sex stereotyping: A meta-analysis. Annals of the International Communication Association 19(1): 157-186.

Hester JB and Dougall E (2007) The efficiency of constructed week sampling for content analysis of online news. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 84(4): 811-824.

Hughes PC and Baldwin JR (2002) Communication and stereotypical impressions. Howard Journal of Communications 13(2): 113-128.

Itzkoff D (2006) The Pitchfork effect. Wired September. https://www.wired.com/2006/09/pitchfork/. Accessed October 14, 2018.

Johnson-Grau B (2002) Sweet nothings: Presentation of women musicians in pop journalism. In: Jones S (ed) . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp.202-212.

Johnston M (2012) How not to write about female musicians: A handy guide. The Village Voice Feb. 10. https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/02/10/how-not-to-write-about-female-musicians-a-handy-guide/.

Kalra P and Boukes M (2020) Curbing journalistic gender bias: How activating awareness of gender bias in Indian journalists affects their reporting. Journalism Practice OnlineFirst: 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1755344

Karsay K and Matthes J (2016) Sexually objectifying pop music videos, young women’s self-objectification, and selective exposure: A moderated mediation model. Research OnlineFirst. https://doiorg.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.1177/0093650216661434.

Kennedy GD (2013) Exclusive: Rihanna to receive 'Icon' honor at American Music Awards. Los Angeles Times November 14. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-rihanna-to-receive-icon-honor-at-american-music-awards-20131114-story.html. Accessed October 21, 2018.

Kruse H (2002) Abandoning the absolute: Transcendence and gender in popular music discourse. In: Jones S (ed) . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Lafky S, Duffy M, Steinmaus M, et al. (1996) Looking through gendered lenses: Female stereotyping in advertisements and gender role expectations. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 73(2): 379-388.

Lambert M (2016) Kelsea Ballerini and the long shadow of Taylor Swift. May 20. http://www.mtv.com/news/2883435/kelsea-ballerini-and-the-long-shadow-of-taylor-swift/. Accessed November 1, 2018.

Lasorsa DL and Dai J (2007) Newsroom's normal accident? An exploratory study of 10 cases of journalistic deception. Journalism Practice 1(2): 159-174.

Leonard M (2017) Gender in the music industry: Rock, discourse and girl power. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Lieb K (2013) Gender, branding, and the modern music industry: The social construction of female popular music stars. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Liebler CM and Smith SJ (1997) Tracking gender differences: A comparative analysis of network correspondents and their sources. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 41: 58-68.

Mapes J (2016) Gwen Stefani: This is what the truth feels like. Pitchfork.com March 21. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21647-this-is-what-the-truth-feels-like/. Accessed October 15, 2018.

McLeod K (2002) Between rock and a hard place: Gender and rock criticism. In: Jones S (ed) . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp.93-113.

McRobbie A (2004) Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies 4(3): 255-264.

Meier, L M (2017) Popular music as promotion: Music and branding in the digital age. Cambridge, UK, Polity.

Moody M (2011) The meaning of “Independent Woman” in music. ETC: A Review of General Semantics 68(2): 187-198.

Nova F (2014) Beyonce’s “Partition”: A form of sexual empowerment. CultureCrit July 29. https://www.culturecrit.com/2014/07/beyonces-partition-form-of-sexual.html.

Oppliger PA, Brian, A (2007) Effects of gender stereotping on socialization. In: Preiss RW, Gayle BM, Burrell N, et al. (eds) Mass media effects research: Advances through meta-analysis. New York, NY: Routledge, pp.199-214.

Panuzzo B (2014) Covering Performers, Discovering Femininities: US Hip-Hop Journalism and Female Artists. IASPM Journal 4(2): 43-54.

Plank E (2014) Beyonce’ doesn’t. have to choose between her sexuality and feminism. Mic Aug. 25. https://www.mic.com/articles/96872/beyonce-doesn-t-have-to-choose-between-her-sexuality-and-feminism.

Ponterotto D (2014) Trivializing the female body: A cross-cultural analysis of the representation of women in sports journalism. Journal of International Women’s Studies 15(2): 94-111.

Railton D and Watson P (2005) Naughty girls and red-blooded women: Representations of female heterosexuality in music video. Feminist Media Studies 5(1): 51-63.

Rasmussen E and Densley R (2017) Girl in a country song: Gender roles and objectification of women in popular country music across 1990 to 2014. Sex Roles 76(3-4): 188-201.

Rodgers S and Thorson E (2006) A socialization perspective on male and female reporting. Journal of Communication 53(4): 658–675.

Roth M (2016) Victoria Beckham’s 9 most memorable solos with the Spice Girls. May 6. (http://www.mtv.com/news/2878323/victoria-beckham-memorable-solos-spice-girls/. Accessed November 1, 2018.

Schmutz V (2009) Social and symbolic boundaries in newspaper coverage of music, 1955-2005: Gender and genre in the US, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Poetics 37: 298-324.

Seidman SA (1992) Profile: An investigation of sex-role stereotyping in music videos. Broadcasting & Electronic Media 36(7): 209-216.

Shoemaker P and Reese SD (2013) Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Hoboken, N.J.: Taylor & Francis.

Shugart HA, Waggoner CE and Hallstein DLO (2001) Mediating third-wave feminism: Appropriation as postmodern media practice. Critical Studies in Media Communication 18: 194-210.

Sisario B (2014) Leadership change may signal new start for Billboard Magazine. The New York Times January 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/09/business/media/leadership-change-may-signal-new-start-for-billboard-magazine.html. Accessed October 15, 2018.

Steiner L (2012) Failed theories; Explaining gender differences in journalism. The Review of 12(3): 201-223.

Strong C (2011) Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the forgetting of women in popular culture. The Journal of Popular Culture 44(2): 398-416.

Tuchman G (1978) Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York, NY: Free Press.

Tyree T and Jones M (2015) The adored woman in rap: An analysis of the presence of philogyny in rap music. Women's Studies 44(1): 54-83.

Unger MA (2015) The aporia of presentation: Deconstructing the genre of K-pop girl group music videos in South Korea. Journal of Popular Music Studies 27(1): 25-47.

Vandenbosch L, Vervloessem D and Eggermont S (2013) “I might get your heart racing in my skin-tight jeans:” Sexualization on Music Entertainment Television. Studies 64(2): 178-194.

Wallis C (2011) Performing gender: A content analysis of gender displays in music videos. Sex Roles 64(3-4): 160-172.

Zeldes GA and Fico F (2005) Race and gender: An analysis of sources and reporters in the networks' coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. 8(4): 373-385.

Zoch LM and Turk JV (1998) Women making news: Gender as a variable in source selection and use. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75(4): 762-775.

Five constructed weeks for eight publications would have yielded only 280 stories, insufficient coverage for a full year when our power analysis demanded 923.

We once again applied Bonferroni corrections, this time with a significance threshold of .001.

We thank an anonymous reviewer for this critical recommendation.