Texas Tech Study Shows Country Music Objectifies Women More Now Than Ever

A study by Texas Tech researcher Eric Rasmussen finds women are being objectified in country music more than ever.

Rasmussen recently published his results along with co-author and student Rebecca Densley with the College of Media and Communications at Texas Tech. In a Texas Tech article, he said in the last decade country music lyrics have trended more toward talking about women's appearances.

"What we found was that country lyrics in the 2010s talk about women's appearance more, talk about women in tight and revealing clothing more, refer to women using slang more and rarely use their names," Rasmussen said. "Country music has generally been seen as the most wholesome music genre, but what this research is saying is that may not be the case anymore."

Rasmussen added the 'Bro country' movement has had a big influence on the shift in the way women are portrayed.

In the first two half-decades, he found country music lyrics referred to people specifically, or the songs represented women in respective ways. Those were the decades dominated by singers like George Strait, Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks.

But something changed in country music around the late 2000s and into the 2010s when the portrayal of women in country music changed completely – the influence of pop music. "Bro country" was born.

Suddenly, it became commonplace to talk about women in tight shorts or bikinis, referring to them in unflattering ways with nicknames such as "baby" or "honey" and looking at them as nothing more than a trophy or something that looks good in the front seat of a pickup truck.

So you tell us Concho Valley. What do you think? Does today's country music objectify women? Sound off and give us your opinion in the below comment section. We'd love to hear your opinion.