Country Music Video in Country's Year of the Woman

Because of the success of its new female stars, the country music industry declared 1997 its Year of the Woman. We examined how country video portrays female artists and characters. Research on other genres suggests that women are symbolically annihilated in music video. By analyzing 285 CMT videos, we found that most female artists' videos portrayed women progressively, whereas male artists portrayed them stereotypically. The ratio of male to female artists' videos was 3 to 1. Although the data suggest country videos similar to pop or rock video of the mid-1980s, the country videos were qualitatively different in their portrayal of gender roles.