INAS KEMAL

Egypt- Mai Mohamed Ahmed El Sayed is a doctoral student at the Ain Shams University and she has written her doctoral dissertation on youth and popular culture and gender roles from a feminist perspective. She draws attention to the gender roles shaped by young people through songs, the elements of popular culture.

 Mai Mohamed warns that the messages of songs cause gender inequality in society. Mai Mohamed argues that the songs shape society and affect people of all ages to use gendered language.  

Songs about freedom also have lyrics including gendered language

When Mai Mohamed started writing her doctoral dissertation, she was shocked, “Because even the songs about freedom have lyrics including gendered language.” Mai Mohamed thinks that especially children and teenagers have been affected by arts such as drama, theater, and cinema but the songs affect daily life. “Children and teenagers shape their lives according to what they listen to.”

“Women are also affected by this language”

Mai Muhammed stated that men have more space than women in the art and music sectors, “This situation affects women producing music.

“Female singers have to work for hours outside their home; they have to record their songs, appear in concerts. We can see that the number of professional women appearing on the stage has decreased because they are subjected to gendered language in the music sector.”

Mai Muhammed conducted a survey with more than 200 secondary school students to write her doctoral dissertation. She asked questions about the music genres listened to by the attendants, 63% of attendants said, “We listen to all songs no matter what their lyrics include.”

“Children listened to female singers ”

The students attending the survey were asked, “Do you listen to female or male singers more?” 46 of the attendants said they listen to female singers more despite the low number of women singers in popular music.

“There is discrimination between boys and girls”

Another significant finding in the survey is that the effect of songs on families, society, and women is 2.2 percent. 81% of children think the songs are gender-neutral. 55.7 percent of the children think they are subjected to discrimination by their families. They think that Egyptian families act differently against boys and girls.