Gender Trouble: The Myth-Making Power of Country Music Playlists

Cultural myths about declining masculinities have led to American country music’s gender problem, as female artists have disappeared from the industry. Whereas women had experienced growth in airplay prior to September 11, 2001, culture wars and economic recession prompted the genre’s re-centering of American white, working-class masculinities in music lyrics and radio airplay. Tracing this emphasis shift, scholars like Jada Watson highlight country music’s discrimination against female artists by examining radio airplay representation to show how women have lost ground in the industry. The research presented in this paper extends Watson’s work through analysis of the gender myths country music constructs across radio and streaming playlists. This paper argues that the masculine rhetoric of music lyrics and the homogenous male voices in playlists’ predominately male lineups accumulate ontological power to valorize the voices and subject positions of men. Thus, these playlists’ missing women both contribute to and index the erasure of women in country music, an impact of the very myths the playlists lyrically construct.