Investigating the Hyper-sexualization of Women in the Music Industry

Why has this become the way to easy success for a woman?

I am a musician, and I am a woman. And everywhere you look, female music artists are extremely hyper-sexualized. Think of the world’s highest level female superstars, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Kali Uchis; the list goes on and on. Each and every one sells themselves through sex. This is not to take away from their talent, or musical ability, but rather to say that if they danced less provocatively, or wore more clothes, they would not be at the level that they are. It can be incredibly frustrating to see this as a woman trying to make it in the music industry. A woman that actively does not want to use her body or face or booty-shaking ability to get ahead, a woman that only wants to use her voice and the stories she wants to tell to get ahead in her career. A woman who does not see how women are sexualized as “sexual liberation”, but rather as an unfortunate obstacle that places even higher value on a woman’s body and the way she moves instead of her craft. An obstacle that means if you want to get ahead, it’ll go a lot quicker if you wear a tight dress.

So how did we get here? Why is this the easiest way to notoriety for a woman? It is because this is the role that was created for women. In any case, a video or post or article gets more clicks and eyeballs the more scandalously dressed women there are. In the hip-hop world, the more girls you have on your arm, or dancing on you in a music video, the better you are. This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. It has only gotten more extreme. First, we’ll take a look at a few articles and social media pages talking about our current highly celebrated female artists, and then we’ll delve into one of the ultimate sex symbols of the pop-music world: Britney Spears.

An article titled “Gucci Mane Delivers the Bootylicious “Big Booty” Video Feat. Megan Thee Stallion”. An Instagram page titled, “@bardibooty”, a page with almost 3,000 followers that is a fan-page for Cardi B’s butt. From TMZ, “28 Booty-FUL Shots of Cardi B to Celebrate the Bday Babe”. Nicki Minaj’s 2014 “Anaconda” video, featuring four minutes and fifty seconds of jungle-themed booty shaking, got 19.6 million views on the first day of its release, breaking Vevo’s 24-hour record in 2014 previously held by Miley Cyrus’ “wrecking ball” video where she swings naked on a giant disco ball. These media sources support the already known fact that the general public responds in extreme ways to women as sex symbols. But it seems that so many believe this is what female sexual liberation looks like, when in fact it is the exact opposite.

An article from Cherwell titled, “Sexualization in music: liberation or objectification” brings to light the frustration that I and many women I’ve spoken to personally deal with on a day to day basis. We do not see the space for women to be nearly naked on stage as “freedom”. It is most definitely a limitation, and one that is dangerous to an audience that is getting increasingly younger and more impressionable. Tara Mewawalla writes, “music alongside other mediums such as film and visual art have huge cultural and psychological effects on society…Music and performance are a space where gender and sexuality have been debated. As such it is important that the music industry is constantly aware of how they present sexuality, especially since music videos are so accessible to those who are young and easily influenced” (Mewawalla). It seems as time goes on, the music industry is less and less aware of how they present the ever-intensifying presentation of sexuality.

TikTok is a disturbing example of how normal it has become for young children and teens to post videos of themselves sexualizing themselves. In a seemingly harmless article called, “10 TikTok dances to learn at home”, instructions on how to do one of the most famous dances to “Candy” by Doja Cat, making sure to emphasize the most important dance move: “But in this one, you have to throw it back — a central move in the TikTok oeuvre. Your torso does a body roll while your leg kicks back. You’re throwing “it” back, and “it” is your butt” (Spellings). The increasing sexualization and infantilization of female artists over the years has led to a culture where entertainment includes young children remaking moves where they have to perfect how to “throw it back”. I read a journal written by Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins titled “Pigtails, Ponytails, and Getting Tail: The Infantilization and Hyper‐Sexualization of African American Females in Popular Culture”, which delves deeper into one part of the infantilization of women in pop culture, that of the black woman. She writes, “Seemingly never far from the infantilized black woman is the black male pimp…The pimp stereotype is most readily recognized in hip hop videos and songs where pimping denotes power for male rappers, producers, and listeners”, (Dagbovie-Mullins). This reinstates what I previously noted, that as a man, the more women you have around you in pop culture, the more respect you command. She goes on, “When positioned next to the sexy schoolgirl trope, the pimp stereotype reinforces this disturbing thinking, for the pimp plays as the “authority” figure, manipulating the sexual merging of black girl/woman. In short, when a black woman is dressed as a pubescent or prepubescent sex object (pigtails, school uniform, knee socks, etc.), she seemingly needs her “daddy” (i.e., pimp daddy) both sexually and in terms of patriarchal guidance” (Dagbovie-Mullins). This is one of the real-world situations of female oppression and abuse that has contributed to the normalization of women’s value being held too closely to their bodies and their value sexually. From this, women are now ‘owning’ being looked at mostly for their sexual value, and it is sold to us as female empowerment, but that is a product many women are uncomfortable buying. Those who do buy into it do believe that showing themselves off sexually is a liberating experience, but I beg the question, who is really benefitting here?

Now we come to a very specific example of a girl turned woman, and the sick sexualization of that process: Britney Spears. At first I had no intention of including Britney in my research. It isn’t what I wanted to focus on because it seemed so simple: a girl sexualizing herself and everybody either loves her or loves to hate her. But it is so much more complicated than that, as is the case with all of the women in music and pop culture. Sexualizing themselves for success, money, and attention is what they’ve always known and seen in the industry and in their own lives. Any woman has seen that. Cardi B was a stripper before she became a rapper. She sold her looks for money. The same role exists in music, and is usually the plan for a woman when she first enters into the industry. Her manager, her publicity team, her audience, the world, they all know that she will sell and they will all make more money if they sell her looks.

Britney Spears fits this example perfectly. She was rocketed into fame at just fifteen years old when she signed with Jive Records. Her music and performances all dripped with sex appeal, and she championed the ‘sexy school girl’ trope mentioned in Dagbovie-Mullins’ research. She entered the game as a young girl with all eyes on her, watching her become a woman. She even made a song called “Not a Girl, Not Quite a Woman”, which when combined with her sexual image, invites an extremely inappropriate reaction from the general public of an underaged girl.

But through all of this, Britney Spears was guided and pushed in directions she likely would not have chosen for herself. She was pushed to sexualize herself to the point that rumors of her breasts made headlines, and when she was just seventeen years old an interviewer asked her about her breasts directly. At the same age, another interviewer grabbed Britney’s feet and ankles when she said she didn’t like her toes and asked if she had ever done any “kissing tricks with boys”. Both are very uncomfortable watches, and these are far from the only interviews she experienced like this as a young girl. While there are clearly people like this who enjoyed her sexualiztion, there were also many who despised her for it. One article from December of 2001 written by two college students at Harvard and Columbia called “Got Your Money Shot” has a subheading that gaudily reads, “America’s Sweetheart Soaks in the Nation’s Cum as Rock ’n’ Roll Soothes Her Soul”. The entire article is filled with spite and disgust for the young pop-star, and picks through her sexual lyrics and performances. The article completely lacks any nuance as to why a girl Spears’ age would choose to live her pop-star life this way, and also lacks any sympathy toward the fact that a young girl was exploited and groomed for the spotlight so those around her could profit.

The depth of what I’m talking about could go on for an infinite number of pages, but what I want to make clear is this. The sexualization, infantilization, and exploitation of women and their bodies is an incredibly layered and complicated issue. Our world will likely never get away from it because it is so ingrained in our psyche. It will be difficult to change because the women who are in it have been placed in sexualized roles that bring in money and give them an audience, and if it stopped, so likely would their successes. It has become more and more dangerous as the internet becomes open to practically anyone of any age, and having open access to pornographic materials and pornagraphic tendencies in the media have contributed to normalizing people and even young children sexualizing themselves and others. It isn’t any one person’s fault, or burden, or problem. It is however something that many more people need to wake up to, and be aware of what is going on so that if they disagree with it, are discomforted, hurt, frustrated, or angered by it as I am, there can be more people contributing to this incredibly necessary conversation the world needs to have.

References

Biography.com Editors. “Britney Spears.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 12 Nov. 2020, www.biography.com/musician/britney-spears.

Carmon, I., & Phillips, A. (2001, Dec 18). Got your money shot. The Village Voice Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/newspapers/got-your-money-shot/docview/2322168 92/se-2?accountid=11226

Dagvobie-Mullins, S. (2013). Pigtails, ponytails, and getting tail: The infantilization and hyper-sexualization of african american females in popular culture. Journal of Popular Culture, 46(4), 745–771. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/pigtails-ponytails-getting-tail-infant ilization/docview/1473705030/se-2?accountid=11226

Gucci mane delivers the bootylicious “Big booty” video feat. megan thee stallion. (2019, Oct 10). Vibe (Online), Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/magazines/gucci-mane-delivers-bootylicious-big-boo ty-video/docview/2303422555/se-2?accountid=11226

Lewis, Hilary. “Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ Video Breaks Vevo Record.” Billboard, 22 Aug. 2014, www.billboard.com/articles/news/6229110/nicki-minaj-anaconda-vevo-record.

Spellings, S. (2020, Mar 30). 10 TikTok dances to learn at home. New York, Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/magazines/10-tiktok-dances-learn-at-home/docview/ 2466127648/se-2?accountid=11226