Gender stereotypes exists in all cultures and affects both men and women from
an early age. The music industry is not an exception and stereotypes can be seen
and heard in everything from lyrics to music videos. However, very little seems
to be written about gender stereotypes on album covers.
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze and compare how album
covers for female and male artists differ, with focus on gender stereotypes. The
purpose was also to examine whether a change over time have occurred when it
comes to gender stereotypes present on album covers. Additionally, this study
examined how gender stereotypes takes form in different cultures and genres.
A visual analyze were made on 100 album covers. Half of them were released
in 2006/2007 and the other half was released in 2016/2017. The number of male
and female artist were equally divided across the different years.
The result showed that some of the gender stereotypes that normally occur
when males and females are photographed, also occurred on album covers.
Other gender stereotypes were uncommon on album covers. Some changes
could be seen over the ten-year period. Moreover, the result showed some
differences when comparing Swedish and American artists’ album covers, and
when comparing different genres.
The conclusions that could be drawn from the result was that there are
differences in how male and female artists are portrayed on their album covers.
However, album cover pictures differ to a certain extent from how males and
females are photographed in other situations.