The Role Of Gender Stereotypes In Country Music

I grew up listening to different types of country music all the time. Whether we were on a road trip, out on the boat, or just playing in the yard, there was always a country song playing in the background. Brad Paisley became one of my favorite singers, and I knew the words to most of his songs. While thinking about different ideas for this paper, one song stood out to me the most, You Need a Man Around Here. I had never really thought much about the lyrics, but as I started to think about them from a more sociological point of view I saw many examples of gender stereotypes and the ways that society blends the concepts of gender and sex. Paisley sings of man surveying his girlfriend’s home making comments including, “You’ve got more candles than a midnight mass”, before ultimately deciding …show more content…
Conley describes gender roles as, “sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one’s status as male or female” (Conley 287). Paisley assigns men specific roles believed to be associated masculinity, saying “To me it’s painfully clear that you could use a little help, someone to kill the spiders, change the channels and drink the beer.” Killing spiders and drinking beer are considered masculine behaviors and are therefore considered manly activities. These activities have less to do with sex and more to do with masculine and feminine behaviors. Can a woman not also enjoy drinking beer and have no fear of insects? Gender roles have been created by society and have developed expectations about how both sexes should act. Conley states that, “Many of the differences we observe between men and women do not have much to do with gender difference at all; instead, the behaviors arise as a result of the different positions men and women occupy” (Conley 287). Paisley lyrics show how men and women have different behavioral expectations, pinned onto them by the social