Gender slants in consumer music: reading and musical perception of sexist messages in teacher student

Abstract

Prevention of gender violence is a pressing concern in current society. Far from being an inborn issue, violence is most likely a phenomenon learnt troughtout daily lives. One of them are songs, as we know them nowadays, which lyrics show a sexist message that not many people understand owing to their musical characteristics (easy and constant rythm, basic melodies and plain and catchy lyrics). Teachers have a key role to cope with this phenomenon however, their training in gender prejudices is scarce. The current project has a very clear objective: to know the sensitivity towards gender prejudice acquired in musical consumption of future teachers, about 78 students in Ciudad Real University “UCLM” (Education College). The investigation follows a mixed methodology, qualitative as well as quantitative complemented by an experimental study with two main interventions one with the music and the other with exclusively the lyrics of the songs so that we can stablish the differences in perception modes, the ability of finding gender slants and the way they perpetue. Results show that subjects that deal with the song with music realice less gender slants in comparison with those who just read the lyrics of the songs. On the other hand, gender slant is perceived more clearly by feminine gender and specially in “reggaeton” songs, though it is not so clear in other music styles. However, differences in appreciation between the sexes decrease exposure to other musical styles.