Sexism in songs has increased exponentially in the last decade

BarcelonaThe lyrics of songs, both in English and Spanish, are increasingly sexist, especially in the use of words related to the possession and control of the female body by men. This is one of the conclusions of a research led by Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), which has analyzed the lyrics of more than 2,000 songs from the period between 1960 and 2022. According to the study, which has been carried out with artificial intelligence tools, 51% of the songs have songs. Since 2015, the increase is exponential. In fact, if the songs of the last decade are analyzed, 77% of the most listened to songs have sexist lyrics.

"This increase has occurred simultaneously with the appearance of streaming platforms," the report notes. Of the songs analyzed with sexist lyrics, 60% are in Spanish and 38% in English. The study highlights that many words such as "sexist" are used. Come on, shake, poompoom, tell me..., which are used in an imperative way, in the sense that the man orders the woman to move in a certain way. "The results are shocking, as they show that, although there has been progress in equality and the feminist struggle, the lyrics of many songs continue to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. But, above all, I think that this is a study that shows that artificial intelligence can be a great tool to analyze a great and other similar ones in the future," highlights Laura Casanovas-Buliart, the author of the study, which has been published in the journal Cogente Arts & Humanities and has been supervised by Carlos Castillo, director of the Web Science and Social Computing (WSSC) group of the UPF Engineering Department.

The effect of platforms

The study recalls that Spanish society has not yet shed traditional gender stereotypes or the scourge of sexist violence, despite the feminist movement and equality policies. Beyond the sexist legacy, the study points to another possible cause of sexism: the growing substitution of radio by streaming platforms as the main channel for music consumption. "On these platforms, there are no filtering or selection criteria applied by those responsible for music spaces on the radio," the study highlights. Instead, everything that is prioritized is related to popularity, which can have counterproductive effects, because the platforms' algorithm places these types of songs higher on their lists. According to the research, this generates a "feedback loop."

Carlos Castillo (ICREA and UPF) concludes: "Just as we ask social media platforms to reduce the visibility of radical or xenophobic content, we could ask streaming platforms not to give so much visibility to songs that promote sexist behaviour."