The last two articles attempted to demonstrate how Blue Church and Red Church news outlets differently exploit group biases against men.
The Blue Church sees the role of government as complexity manager. They focus on the teenaged mothers with children in the caravan. They also call on male college students and immigrants to emulate the women in the elevators outside the U.S. Senate Chambers. One could imagine how two immigrant men raising their voices and blocking a senator may end differently.
The Red Church, also exploits the caravan’s perceived criminal impact on women and children. Similarly, The Red Church spreads Keith Ellison’s affiliations with Minnesota based male terrorist organization, Antifa, while subtly alluding to his past public support of the Nation of Islam, another male-centric organization.
Both sides exploit the automatic out-group status of men, they just follow different patterns. They point at these biases against men, because, these news outlets are trying to sell shoes and maintain control of the government.
Another area of the media where we might find automatic outgroup bias would be in the $40B songwriting and music publishing industry.
Ralph Murphy, a songwriting veteran and ASCAP VP, spearheaded a comprehensive song market analysis for the professional songwriting association, and had this to say about the song market:
“A hit song is a script for women to like the singer” Murphy said. “50% of songs are purchased by women, and 50% of songs are purchased by men, to get women to like them.”
In essence, Murphy is saying in order for songs to be popular, in addition to being catchy and easy to sing, top selling songs will effectively exploit the group biases of women.
The song market is incredibly competitive, and in order to get a piece of the song user’s dollar, songwriters try to exploit these biases.
For an endless stream of humorous, disturbing, colorful and bizarre insights into what a hypothetical female gender bias might look like, reverse the gender of songs like the Dixie Chicks “Goodbye Earl”.
How does changing genders affect the cuteness of the song?
Authors Note: No one is condoning the killing of women, the wrapping of women in tarps or packing a lunch and throwing the bodies of women into a lake. This is simply to point out that it makes us feel differently when the genders are reversed.
Minneapolis songwriter Dan Wilson’s top selling hit song, “Someone Like You” about showing up to his recently married, ex-girlfriend’s house out of the blue and uninvited, is much less likely to result in criminal charges when sung by Adele.
Gender reversal in popular songs reveals a pattern of visceral weirdness, even when pouring over pop history for rare counter-examples, the changes were still often bizarre. Try rotating the genders of the singer, the murderer, and the victim after turning “Hey Joe” to “Hey Jo”.
The Macarena, a long time staple of weddings and elementary school dances, is about a girl named Macarena whose [boyfriend is conscripted into the army so she ends up having sex with two of his friends] because he’s out of town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macarena_(song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwWRjvwlLKg
Reversing the genders here is conceptually difficult in the United States where women can not be conscripted.
Of course, the bias of songs isn’t limited to just the end stage of relationships. The bias works when appealing to women in all stages of relationships, including eternal and perpetual.
Christian popular music exploits the gender bias and selection by describing the perfect man, who is always with the song user, silently listening to the song’s user’s prayers. He listens, protects, forgives, and uses His Father’s infinite power, influence, and resources to solve any and all of the song-user’s problems.
Christian popular music is very popular. To some, is sounds like the inspired work of God, to others it sounds like ultimate chick porn.
Show Me Your Glory by Australia’s Jesus Culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df7XEvFNX-E
How this ties into the Brett Kavanaugh saga is that the media, including popular music, play some small part in how we collectively view and value men in society. Women, as a group, and men, as a group, were pitted against each other over two movies playing out on the same screen in Washington, DC.
To quote Barry Gibb, one of the music industries biggest selling songwriters in history, from one of the biggest selling songs in the known universe, “We can try to understand, the New York Times effect on man”.
In our next article, Lorena Bobbitt, Dr. Christine Ford and the automatic outgroup derogation of men, we’ll explore gender differences in persuasion techniques.
