Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Sociology Theses Department of Sociology 12-4-2006 Stand By Your Man, Redneck Woman: Towards a Historical View of Country Music Gender Roles Cenate Pruitt Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_theses Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Pruitt, Cenate, "Stand By Your Man, Redneck Woman: Towards a Historical View of Country Music Gender Roles." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2006. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/sociology_theses/12 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Sociology at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STAND BY YOUR MAN, REDNECK WOMAN: TOWARDS A HISTORICAL VIEW OF COUNTRY MUSIC GENDER ROLES by CENATE PRUITT Under the Direction of Wendy S. Simonds ABSTRACT Country music, considered a uniquely American musical genre, has been relatively under-researched compared to rock and rap music. This thesis proposes research into the topic of country music, specifically the ways which country music songs portray gender. The thesis uses Billboard chart data to determine commercially successful songs, and performs a content analysis on the lyrics of these songs. I will select songs from a fifty year period ranging from 1955 to 2005, so as to allow for a longitudinal study of potential changes in