Masculinities have been rearranged in rural communities across the United States over the last four decades in response to shifting socioeconomic conditions. However, whether and how rural masculinity has been redefined at the national level over this same time period has received less attention. This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of representations of masculinity in mainstream country music from the 1980s to the 2010s. Analyzing the lyrics from over 800 weeks of songs that topped the Billboard country music charts, I find that working‐class occupations and heterosexuality were relatively consistent components of representations of men across these decades. There were also two notable transformations. Depictions of providing shifted away from a traditional breadwinner toward men providing women with alcohol, transportation, and places to hook up. Masculinity and whiteness also became more closely linked. I argue that these rearranged intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and race enable the continued reproduction of gendered inequalities amid rural men’s worsening employment prospects. These results suggest shifting intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and race will inform how gendered inequalities are reproduced as socioeconomic conditions continue to transform in rural communities.

Introduction Job losses related to deindustrialization (Jensen and Jensen 2011) and shifting resource extraction techniques (Filteau 2015) have disrupted masculinities in rural communities across the United States over the last four decades (e.g., Morris 2008; Benson 2012). Similar to suburban and urban contexts (e.g., Fine et al. 1997; Groes‐Green 2009; Carlson 2015), masculinities in rural places are often reorganized so that men can continue to be respected by others in their households and communities (e.g., Sherman 2009; Scott 2010). This is significant because rearrangements of masculinities can reproduce, intensify, and undermine inequalities between and among men and women (Brandth and Haugen 2010; Filteau 2014). Numerous analyses have examined how masculinities are being rearranged in particular rural communities (e.g., Morris 2008; Sherman 2009) and regions of the United States (e.g., Benson 2012; Filteau 2014, 2015, 2016), but comparatively less attention has been granted to whether and how rural masculinities have been reorganized nationwide over the last 40 years. This needs to be addressed because ways of doing gender that become legitimated at the level of the nation‐state inform how individuals do gender and reproduce gendered inequalities (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Mainstream country music offers an ideal data source to assess whether rural masculinities have changed over the prior 40 years at the national level in the United States. The genre is widely consumed across the country (Country Music Association 2017), and mainstream country music is regularly associated with rural men (Hubbs 2014; Malone 2002; Mann 2008). By analyzing the lyrics of songs that topped the weekly Billboard country music charts from the 1980s through the 2010s, I address the following questions. Have representations of men shifted in country music from the 1980s to the 2010s? If so, have these representations transformed in manners that promote greater gender equalities? I find that working‐class occupations and heterosexuality remained significant components of masculinities depicted in country music over the last 40 years, but there were two key shifts. In the 2010s, an increased emphasis was placed on men providing women with alcohol, places to hook up, and transportation. Whiteness also became more closely coupled with masculinity in the 2000s and 2010s. By providing a representation of rural masculinity that redefines what it means to be a heterosexual provider while simultaneously defining that provider as white, the masculinity that is generally celebrated in mainstream country has transformed while remaining a hegemonic masculinity that facilitates the reproduction of inequalities between and among men and women. This analysis also contributes to ongoing debates regarding how white masculinities are reorganized when these men’s economic opportunities decline. Some note such men utilize racism and sexism to achieve hegemonic masculinities in spite of worsening employment opportunities (e.g., Eastman and Schrock 2008; Fine et al. 1997; Kimmel 2017; Kimmel and Ferber 2000), while others show white masculinities being rearranged in manners that, at least in some respects, undermine gender inequalities (e.g., Filteau 2014; Sherman 2009). Some have even predicted the end of gender inequalities (e.g., Salam 2009). By showing how a hegemonic masculinity continued to be constructed and disseminated by the country music industry, I illustrate that gendered inequalities can still be reproduced, in spite of white men’s worsening employment prospects, through rearrangements of the intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and race. I begin by reviewing the literature on gender and country music before detailing my sampling and data analysis techniques. Then I address shifting representations of masculinity in country music. To conclude, I stress the need to analyze shifting rural masculinities through an intersectional lens attuned to the links between gender, class, sexuality, and race. Such an approach is necessary for understanding how gender inequalities continue to be reproduced amid fluctuating socioeconomic conditions, and it is indispensable for considering how rearrangements of masculinities inform inequalities among men and women with different classes, sexualities, and races.

Gender, Intersectionality, and Rurality Individuals do gender through an assortment of practices deemed legitimate for those who are perceived to belong to a particular sex category (West and Zimmerman 1987). Those perceived as males are generally expected to do masculinities while individuals perceived as females are generally expected to do femininities. At any given historical moment, there are multiple ways of doing femininities and masculinities (Carrigan, Connell, and Lee 1985; Connell 1995). A dominant masculinity is the ideal standard against which other masculinities are compared, but masculinities are only hegemonic if they facilitate the reproduction of gender inequalities (Beasley 2008; Filteau 2014; Messerschmidt 2008, 2018). Because gender is done through ongoing (inter)actions informed by institutions, how gender and gender inequalities are constructed is historically contingent and open to change (Butler 1990; Deutsch 2007). Instead of a timeless version of masculinity that always reproduces privileges for men, hegemonic masculinities are regularly rearranged as shifting socioeconomic conditions render particular masculinities obsolete for the reproduction of gender inequalities (Bridges and Pascoe 2018; Connell 1995; Demetriou 2001; Messner 1993; Messerschmidt 2018). Shifting employment opportunities for men and women, in particular, often precipitate rearrangements of how gender and gender inequalities are reproduced (Brandth and Haugen 2010; Hochschild and Machung 1989). For example, as opposed to doing masculinities that justified gender inequalities through traditional heterosexual breadwinning, men in postindustrial Detroit legitimated their positions as patriarchal heads of household by emphasizing that they could utilize guns to protect their families from the supposed dangers presented by the economically depressed conditions in the city (Carlson 2015). Gender also intersects with other differences and inequalities such as race, class, and sexuality in reciprocally impacted manners (Carbado 2013; Crenshaw 1989; Collins 2009). Consequently, there are multiple masculinities and femininities complicated by intersecting differences and inequalities (Choo and Ferree 2010; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), and inequalities between and among men and women are informed by these intersections (McCall 2005). The concept of hegemonic masculinity, for example, highlights that gender inequalities are reproduced through the hierarchical arrangement of multiple masculinities that are complicated by race, class, and sexuality (Connell 1995; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). White supremacy and gender inequalities have repeatedly been justified in the United States through black rapist myths that depict black men as hypersexual criminals who would pose greater threats to white women, and society more generally, if white men did not occupy positions of familial, economic, and political authority (Connell 1995; Davis 1981; Kimmel and Ferber 2000). Heteronormativity and gender inequalities have also regularly been reproduced by the construction of hegemonic masculinities commending breadwinning (Kimmel 2017; Scott 2010) and homophobia (Connell 1995; Pascoe 2007). The meanings assigned to places complicate intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality. In (sub)urban (Brekhus 2003) and rural contexts (Leap 2017), meanings associated with places are centrally important to inequalities within and between communities. Rural sociologists and geographers have repeatedly stressed that meanings associated with rural people and places inform how individuals in rural communities arrange their lives (Bell 1994, 2007; Ching and Creed 1997; Cloke and Little 1997; Cramer 2016; Falk and Pinhey 1978; Leap and Thompson 2018), including how they do gender and reproduce gendered inequalities (Campbell and Bell 2000; Connell 2006; Leap 2018a, 2018b; Little and Austin 1996). Sexuality (Brewer 2018; Gray 2009; Little 2003; Silva 2017), class (Desmond 2007; Keller, Lloyd, and Bell 2015; Morris 2008), and race (Kimmel and Ferber 2000; Leap 2017) also complicate the links between gendered inequalities and rurality. Consequently, although there are multiple rural masculinities complicated by intersecting inequalities, rural men are often expected to do masculinities in particular manners because of their rurality (Campbell and Bell 2000).

Spatial Scales, Popular Media, and Country Music Ranging in scale from the organizations in which individuals work (Acker 1990; Filteau 2014) to global institutions (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), numerous institutions influence gender. Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) “geography of masculinities” helps conceptualize how institutions arranged across multiple, interconnected spatial scales inform gender and gendered inequalities. At the global level are transnational political‐economic institutions and corporations; at the regional, or nation‐state, level are cultural and political‐economic institutions such as mass media and federal bureaucracies; and at the local level of face‐to‐face interactions are municipal governments, community groups, and families. Masculinities at more localized spatial scales are informed by masculinities legitimated by institutions operating across broader spatial scales, but these broader masculinities do not determine gender at more localized levels. Local masculinities have the ability to impact masculinities at the regional and global scales, and individuals can creatively utilize and subvert masculinities legitimated at the local, regional, and global scales as they do gender (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). For example, and paralleling studies that illustrate masculinities being reorganized in rural communities in response to both regional and global economic restructuring (e.g., Benson 2012; Filteau 2014; Morris 2008; Scott 2010), individuals utilized a range of strategies for reworking masculinities when the slumping timber industry undercut men’s abilities to be heterosexual breadwinners in a rural community in the Western United States (Sherman 2009). Representations of masculinity disseminated through mass media at the regional level inform gender at local levels (Messerschmidt 2018; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009) by providing “on‐hand material to be actualized, altered, or challenged through practice” (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005: 849). While individuals can creatively modify and subvert such representations (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Neal 2006), they still inform how individuals do intersectional genders and how they perceive others in their communities (Hall 2000; Collins 2009; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). Numerous works examine representations of gender in films (e.g., Bell 1997), television shows (e.g., Stenbacka 2011), and literature (e.g., Brandth 1995), and analyses repeatedly find that popular media regularly depict rural, working‐class whites as ignorant rednecks who cause their own economic marginalization and a range of other inequalities (Bell 1997; Eastman and Schrock 2008; Hartigan 2003; Hochschild 2016; Hubbs 2014; Jarosz and Lawson 2002; Scott 2010). For example, though white voters favored Trump over Clinton at all income levels (Serwer 2017) and a majority of whites who voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election were not poor or working class (Carnes and Lupu 2017), rural, working‐class whites have regularly been portrayed as the prototypical Trump supporter—too ignorant, racist, and concerned with moral issues to vote according to their best interests (e.g., Rich 2017). Like other forms of popular media disseminated at the regional and global levels, music legitimates particular perceptions and behaviors (Radano 2003), including how individuals do gender and reproduce gendered inequalities (Eastman 2012; Eastman and Schrock 2008; Weitzer and Kubrin 2009). A number of analysts have focused on representations of gender (Eastman, Danaher, and Schrock 2013), race (Mann 2008; Neal 2006), class (Fox 2004; Malone 2002; Peterson 1992), and sexuality (Grossman 2002) in country music, while others explore how these intersect in the genre (Ching 2003; Hubbs 2014). There is some debate (Hubbs 2014), but analysts generally agree country music celebrates the respectability of working‐class people, whiteness, heterosexuality, rurality, and the Southern United States. The genre is popular across the United States, where 42 percent of the population are listeners (Country Music Association 2017). The average listener consumes nearly five hours of country music per day, and the share of adults who listen varies little by age and gender (Country Music Association 2017). Though country music is associated with rural people and communities (Hubbs 2014; Malone 2002; Mann 2008), by the 1970s mainstream country consumers were not overwhelmingly rural (Peterson and DiMaggio 1975). By the 1980s, the genre had become a “social force” across the United States (Malone 2002: 8) as it was increasingly consumed by (sub)urban audiences (Hubbs 2014). In spite of an increasingly (sub)urban population in the United States, it has been the most consumed form of radio media across the nation since 2009 (Nielsen National Regional Database 2017). Country music is relatively more popular in the Central and Southern regions of the United States, where over half the population consumes the genre. Even in regions where it is relatively less popular, such as the West Coast and Northeast, at least 30 percent of individuals are listeners (Country Music Association 2017). This analysis extends research examining rural masculinities by synthesizing research on gender and country music. Corresponding with a broader field of literature that highlights that gender is reorganized in response to shifting socioeconomic conditions, numerous analyses illustrate masculinities being rearranged in rural communities (e.g., Morris 2008; Sherman 2009) and regions of the United States (e.g., Filteau 2014, 2015, 2016; Scott 2010) since the 1980s as rural men’s employment prospects have declined. With few exceptions (e.g., Bell, Hullinger, and Brislen 2015; Kimmel and Ferber 2000), comparatively less attention has been granted to examining how rural masculinities have been redefined at the national level in the United States during this time period. Masculinities disseminated through popular media at this spatial scale deserve closer scrutiny because they are important to the reproduction and/or subversion of gender and gendered inequalities at the local, regional, and global scales (Brandth and Haugen 2005; Connell 1995; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). Further, though there are exceptions (e.g., Kimmel and Ferber 2000; Scott 2010), analysts have generally focused on how intersections of class and gender inform how masculinities are rearranged in response to shifting socioeconomic conditions in rural contexts (e.g., Filteau 2014; Wierenga 2011). These are valuable contributions, but it will be impossible to consider how hegemonic masculinities are reproduced in rural communities if gender and class remain the primary focus of analyses (Leap 2017). I show that mainstream country music has reproduced a hegemonic representation of rural masculinity, in spite of rural men’s increasingly precarious economic prospects, by rearranging the intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and race in depictions of masculinity in the genre.

Methods Sample Similar to other analyses of gender in popular media (e.g., Keller et al. 2015; Rader and Rhineberger‐Dunn 2010; Stenbacka 2011), data for this analysis were collected through purposive sampling. The 1980s–2010s timeframe corresponds with research exploring the gendered consequences of deindustrialization and shifting resource extraction techniques in rural contexts across the United States (e.g., Kimmel and Ferber 2000; Morris 2008; Sherman 2009; Filteau 2014). The sample is comprised of each song that occupied the top spot on Billboard magazine’s weekly country music chart from 1983 to 1986, 1993 to 1996, 2003 to 2006, and 2013 to 2016. Widely considered the standard for gauging the success of music, the Billboard charts provide a tool to systematically sample the most popular songs during given eras (Hesbacher, Downing, and Berger 1975; Lopes 1992; Myer and Kleck 2007; Rothenbuhler and Dimmick 1982). The Billboard Hot Country chart was utilized for the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and the Billboard Country Airplay chart was utilized for the 2010s because Billboard’s method of determining songs’ positions on the Airplay chart best approximates the method utilized to determine songs’ positions on the Hot Country chart over the previous decades. By utilizing the Billboard charts to restrict my sample, I analyze the most widely disseminated depictions of masculinity in mainstream country music during the eras considered. This strategy produced 209 weeks of country music hits from each decade for a total of 836 weeks of data. Reflective of the gendered country music industry, 676 weeks (80.9 percent) were credited to male musicians, 118 weeks (14.1 percent) were credited to female musicians, and 42 weeks (5 percent) were credited to both men and women. Because some songs charted at number one for multiple weeks, the sample includes 546 unique songs. Data Analysis Similar to previous analyses of gender and rurality in popular media (e.g., Keller et al. 2015), qualitative and quantitative techniques were utilized for this analysis. Borrowing from the tenets of grounded theory (see Charmaz 2003), and corresponding with Eastman et al.’s (2013) analysis of lyrics in truck driving songs, all songs were initially analyzed through open coding. Utilizing MAXQDA12, codes were applied line‐by‐line to the lyrics of each song to assess their depictions of masculinities. Following works that approach masculinities as collections of practices complicated by intersections of sexuality, race, and class (e.g., Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Demetriou 2001; Leap 2018b; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009), codes were applied to capture what men were depicted as doing and the sexual, racial, and class dynamics woven into such representations. Because the sound of country music is often key to the meanings it conveys (Mann 2008), all songs were listened to at this stage of coding to help ensure more of the subtleties of representations were coded. Memos were then written to develop prominent codes into categories such as “male providing resources to women/children” and “white phenotypic characteristics.” A quantitative coding schedule and manual were then developed to reflect these categories. Utilizing MAXQDA12’s ability to transform qualitative codes into quantitative data, all songs were analyzed again according to the coding schedule and manual. To strengthen intracoder reliability, all code applications were then verified and all songs were reread for instances in which codes should have been applied. Next, the proportion of weeks from each year and decade that contained particular categories was assessed in Stata12. Yearly results are available from the author upon request, but, following other longitudinal analyses of masculinities in popular media (e.g., Brandth and Haugen 2005; Cavender 1999), data are analyzed by decade. This quadrupled the sample size of each time period considered, and utilizing decades as the unit of analysis provided a more pragmatic technique for analyzing and presenting the data. Finally, selective, qualitative coding (see Charmaz 2003) was carried out in MAXQDA12 to gain a more in‐depth understanding of the quantitative trends identified. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques provided two key advantages. Though researchers have identified many key tenets of hegemonic masculinities (e.g., Connell 1995), and while country music is often stigmatized as a simple kind of music consumed by unrefined, simple people (Bryson 1996; Hubbs 2014), the meanings conveyed in the genre often depend on subtle turns of phrase, purposeful ambiguities, and ironic twists (Fox 2004; Mann 2008). Consequently, open coding and memo writing at the outset helped to develop a quantitative coding schedule and manual better attuned to the complexities of country music’s depictions of masculinities. The subsequent quantitative analysis enabled an assessment of the prevalence of particular dimensions of representations of masculinities during the time periods analyzed.

Working‐Class Men: Pride in Dangerous Jobs and Helping Around the House Country music generally challenges the economic marginalization of working‐class people (Fox 2004; Hubbs 2014; Malone 2002). Mainstream country music has rarely promoted organized labor or state interventions on behalf of working‐class people, but the genre regularly questions the privileges enjoyed by those in the middle and elite economic classes while celebrating working‐class people for being down‐to‐earth, hard‐working, resilient individuals who can effectively cope with economic marginalization without losing their integrity. Across all four decades analyzed, country hits tended to denigrate men in white‐collar occupations and celebrate men in blue‐collar fields. Men in white‐collar occupations were almost never portrayed in a positive light. They caused strife for working‐class men and women, performed their jobs poorly, and were overly materialistic. John Anderson (1983) criticizes his sister and her banker husband for bragging about their exotic pets and Japanese yacht in “Black Sheep,” and Blake Shelton (2004) laments an encounter with a dentist in “Some Beach.” He sings, “Then he stuck that needle down deep in my gum, and he started drilling before it was numb.” Politicians were also generally portrayed in a negative manner. They fight with each other instead of getting things done in Hank Williams Jr.’s (1985) “I’m for Love,” a senator “squawks” about the economy in Anne Murray’s (1983) “A Little Good News,” and a congressman refuses to help a young man in need in Alan Jackson’s (1994b) remake of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues.” Somewhat surprisingly given the conservative reputation of country music, but related to negative portrayals of state officials, police were also generally portrayed negatively across all four decades. While songs such as Toby Keith’s (1993) “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and Alabama’s (1985) “Forty Hour Week (For a Livin’)” commend law enforcement officials, police were generally portrayed as inept representatives of an overly intrusive state bent on limiting men’s freedom. The federals never can catch the bandit Lefty in Nelson and Haggard’s (1983) “Pancho and Lefty,” the chief of police is busy “hiding from his wife” at the bar instead of keeping law and order in Joe Diffie’s (1994) “Third Rock from the Sun,” and Randy Houser (2016) successfully evades the police on multiple occasions in “We Went.” 2012b Well, I grew up in one of them old farm towns Where they hit it hard ’til the sun goes down Nobody really seemed to care That we were living in the middle of nowhere We just figured that’s how it was And everybody else was just like us Soaking in the rain, baking in the sun Don’t quit ’til the job gets done In contrast to the overwhelmingly negative portrayals of state officials and men in white‐collar occupations, men in blue‐collar fields such as construction and agriculture were repeatedly celebrated for their willingness to work in spite of low pay, physically demanding conditions, and danger. In “The Only Way I Know,” Jason Aldean () recalls: 2004 We said a prayer for Cousin Michael in Iraq We’re all aware that he may never make it back We talked about the way we missed his stupid jokes And how he loved to be a soldier more than most Similarly, in “Awful Beautiful Life,” Darryl Worley () emphasizes the respectability of military enlistment. Invoking an image of a family praying around the dinner table, he sings: Such ambivalent representations of men in working‐class jobs have been at the heart of country music since its inception (Hubbs 2014; Malone 2002). Like other types of media that commend rural men in working‐class occupations (Brandth and Haugen 2005), these portrayals recognize the drawbacks of blue‐collar jobs traditionally filled by rural men while simultaneously portraying men who work these jobs as worthy of respect because they work in perilous conditions. These findings correspond, to a degree, with findings from scholars who have analyzed the links between employment and rural masculinities in particular communities across the United States. Consistent with research on working‐class men more generally (Connell 1995), research in rural communities has regularly emphasized that rural, working‐class men depict blue‐collar work as respectable and criticize the class privileges enjoyed by men in white‐collar occupations (e.g., Desmond 2007; Grigsby 2012). However, research at local levels also notes employment is often deemphasized as a means of doing masculinity when men’s employment opportunities decline (e.g., Eastman 2012; Sherman 2009). Though employment opportunities for rural men have generally subsided since the 1980s (Filteau 2015; Jensen and Jensen 2011), there was not a consistent decrease in the prevalence of representations of employed men in country music from the 1980s to the 2010s. As Table 1 illustrates, the proportion of weeks in which men were depicted as employed oscillated over time. The prevalence of such depictions increased by nearly a third from the 1980s to the 1990s and then again from the 1990s to the 2000s. Then, in the 2010s, and perhaps in response to the economic recession that began in 2008, the prevalence of representations of employed men receded to levels observed in the 1990s. Table 1. Proportion of Weeks by Decade Referencing Men or Women Working. 80s (%) 90s (%) 00s (%) 10s (%) Man employed 18.7 23.9 31.6 23.9 Man household labor 1 6.7 7.7 0 Woman employed 4.8 8.1 12 1.9 Woman household labor 4.8 10.5 12 2.9 Depictions of household labor also corresponded, to a degree, with research in rural communities. When rural men’s economic prospects decline, women often find formal employment while some men take on greater shares of household labor (e.g., Alston and Whittenbury 2012; Brandth and Haugen 2010; Sherman 2009). As Table 1 illustrates, representations of formally employed women became increasingly common during the 1990s and 2000s. Then, in the 2010s, the prevalence of such representations dropped to levels that were even lower than the 1980s. It was also increasingly common to hear about men doing household chores and taking care of children in the 1990s and 2000s. Tim McGraw (1995) starts sweeping his floors in “I Like It I love It,” and Jason Albert of Heartland (2006) tucks his daughter in to bed and reads her fairy tales in “I Loved Her First.” However, no number one hits analyzed from the 2010s addressed men doing household labor. As depictions of employed men became less common following the 2000s, depictions of men doing household labor and employed women also became less prevalent. Consequently, depictions of labor in country hits from the 2010s did not correspond directly with research carried out in rural communities that notes women’s growing participation in formal labor markets and men’s increasing involvement in household labor.

A Different Type of Heterosexual Provider: A Shift from Breadwinning to Hooking Up There are some notable exceptions, such as David Allan Coe’s (1978) “Fuck Aneta Briant,” but country music is generally heteronormative (Grossman 2002; Hubbs 2014). Musicians repeatedly sing about the pros and cons of heterosexual relationships, but references to queer sexualities are generally absent. Accordingly, over 80 percent of the weeks analyzed in each decade included a reference to heterosexuality. This parallels the significance of heterosexuality to hegemonic masculinities across the United States and in rural communities specifically (see Gray 2009; Leap 2017, 2018b; Scott 2010; Silva 2017). Although heterosexuality was consistently emphasized across each decade, there was a distinct shift in depictions of heterosexual providing from the 1980s to the 2010s. In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, songs routinely depicted men as traditional breadwinners that provided resources for their wives and children in spite of marginal economic prospects. By the 2010s, representations of heterosexual providing focused on men providing women with alcohol, transportation, and places to hook up. Given that the “core feature of American manhood has always been ‘breadwinning’” (Kimmel 2017: xii), this shift in the definition of heterosexual providing away from traditional breadwinning deserves closer analysis. 1984 1985 1984 1994a 1993 2004 2003a 2005 You don’t need to make a million Just be thankful to be workin’ If you’re doin’ what you’re able And puttin’ food there on the table And providing for the family that you love That’s something to be proud of From the 1980s to the 2000s, mainstream country hits regularly celebrated men who provided for their wives and children. In the 1980s, a sharecropper “keeps his family fed” in Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s () “Long Hard Road,” a single dad provides for his daughter in Dan Seals’s () “Everything that Glitters (Is Not Gold),” and the wife and children of a long haul trucker yearn to see their breadwinner again in Alabama’s () “Roll On.” Similarly, in the 1990s, a struggling musician moves his family to the countryside so that he can better provide for them in Alan Jackson’s () “Gone Country,” and a dad comforts his boy over the phone while away on work in Doug Supernaw’s () “I Don’t Call Him Daddy.” Songs from the 2000s such as Kenny Chesney’s () “There Goes My Life” and Toby Keith’s () “American Soldier” draw on similar themes, but Montgomery Gentry’s () “Something to Be Proud Of” is especially illustrative. When a man asks his father if he is proud of him, the father tells his grown son: There were depictions of men acting as authoritative heads of household in the 2010s, but songs from this decade generally did not focus on men providing resources for their children. Aside from Eric Church’s (2014) “Talladega” and Keith Urban’s (2015) “Raise ’Em Up,” which fleetingly mention adolescent boys using their fathers’ old vehicles, there generally were not depictions of men providing resources to their children. Instead, depictions of providing shifted toward representations of men providing women with alcohol, transportation, and places to hook up in order to enable physical intimacy. Excellent examples can be seen in Jason Aldean’s (2012a) “Night Train” and (2014) “Burnin’ It Down;” Dierks Bentley’s (2014a) “Drunk on a Plane” and (2014b) “Say You Do;” Luke Bryan’s (2013a) “Crash My Party” and (2013b) “Play It Again;” and Billy Currington’s (2013) “Hey Girl.” They all either imply or explicitly note that providing women with alcohol, transportation, or a place to hook up enables physical intimacy. For example, while singing about an ex he would like to hook up with again, in “Say You Do,” Dierks Bentley (2014b) explains, “If you need a little buzz to get you there, then baby I’m buyin’.” Songs from the 1980s through the 2000s included similar depictions, but these representations became far more common in the 2010s. Combined with the decline in representations of providing for children, the increased emphasis on providing women with alcohol, transportation, and places to hook up represents a shift in the definition of heterosexual providing. These trends are readily observable in Table 2. At least 10 percent of the weeks analyzed in each decade had a number one song that included a man providing some type of material resource to a woman or child. However, unlike any other decade, in the 2010s the three most common types of resources men were depicted as providing were alcohol, places to hook up, and transportation. Table 2. Proportion of Weeks by Decade Referencing Men Providing Women or Children with Material Resources. 80s (%) 90s (%) 00s (%) 10s (%) Any resource 10.5 28.7 24.9 42.6 Clothing 0.5 1.9 0 3.8 Finances 2.9 6.7 8.6 4.8 Food 1 0.5 3.4 1.4 Generic resources 1.9 3.8 6.7 1 Housing 2.4 3.8 4.3 3.4 Romantic items 1.4 9.1 1.9 4.3 New provider dimensions Alcohol 0.5 4.3 2.4 15.8 Place to hook up 3.4 6.7 1.4 16.8 Transportation 4.3 16.8 6.7 23.9 This shift in representations of heterosexual providing resembles findings from researchers working at local levels who found that men facing increasingly precarious job prospects put a greater emphasis on heterosexual virility as a means of doing masculinities (e.g., Groes‐Green 2009; Eastman 2012). If we acknowledge that rural men in the United States faced increasingly difficult employment outlooks over the past four decades (Filteau 2015), and that men in the United States experienced especially difficult employment prospects following the economic recession that began in 2008 (Kimmel 2017), it is not surprising that a greater emphasis was placed on men’s abilities to hook up with women. Nevertheless, while heterosexual virility became more closely linked with masculinity in the 2010s, there was not a dramatic de‐emphasis on employment like researchers have documented within particular communities (e.g., Groes‐Green 2009; Eastman 2012). As detailed in the previous section, though it was less common to hear about employed men during the 2010s than the 2000s, depictions of employed men were not less common in the 2010s than the 1980s or 1990s.

(White) Heterosexual Masculinity: The Good Old Days and Blue‐Eyed Blondes Country music has had notable musicians of color, and though it draws from black musical traditions such as the blues, it is overwhelmingly associated with white musicians and audiences in the United States (Hubbs 2014; Malone 2002; Mann 2008). Some argue that mainstream country music neither praises nor reproduces whiteness (e.g., Neal 2006; Sanjek 1998), but Mann (2008) contends that the nostalgic depictions of the past that often typify country music celebrate and perpetuate white supremacy. There are gendered and classed dimensions to this nostalgia (Malone 2002), but country music still regularly celebrates periods of U.S. history that were characterized by dramatic racial disparities in economic opportunities (see Oliver and Shapiro 2006) and pervasive brutalities against people of color (see Davis 1981; Du Bois 2009). Consequently, allusions to idyllic pasts in the hits analyzed help illuminate the significance of whiteness to the genre from the 1980s to the 2010s. 1985 2003b Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day son A man had to answer for the wicked that he done Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree Round up all of them bad boys hang them high in the street For all the people to see At least 10 percent of the weeks analyzed in each decade included nostalgic references to idealized pasts or vintage products/public figures that were popular at least 10 years before the release of the song. In The Judds’ () “Grandpa (Tell Me ’Bout the Good Old Days),” they ask their grandfather to tell them about “when the line between right and wrong didn’t seem so hazy.” Similarly, in “Beer for My Horses,” Toby Keith () and Willie Nelson reminisce about when public lynchings were commonplace. They sing: Because lynchings were integrally important to the reproduction of white supremacy in the United States (Davis 1981; Du Bois 2009), this verse also helps illustrate the racial dynamics of nostalgia in mainstream country. Though nostalgia was common in each decade, there were shifts in the prevalence of nostalgia across decades. This can be seen in Table 3. Roughly 1 in 10 weeks analyzed from the 1980s included nostalgic references, but this more than doubled to nearly 1 in 4 weeks in the 1990s. Nostalgia was most prevalent in the 2000s, when roughly 2 out of every 5 weeks included nostalgic references. Nostalgia then receded in the 2010s to levels roughly in line with the 1990s. Table 3. Proportion of Weeks by Decade Referencing Dimensions of Whiteness. 80s (%) 90s (%) 00s (%) 10s (%) Any nostalgia 10.1 24.9 40.2 26.3 Ideal past 5.3 14.4 27.8 11 Product 0.5 1 7.2 4.3 Public figures 6.2 12.4 16.8 18.7 Any white phenotype 1 4.8 14.8 11 Blonde hair 0.5 2.9 3.8 1.9 Blue eyes 0 2.4 6.7 3.8 Freckles 0 0 2.4 0 Red hair 0 1 0.5 0.5 Sun‐tanned skin 0.5 1.4 2.4 5.7 The increasing prevalence of references to phenotypic characteristics associated with white bodies in the United States also helps illuminate the shifting importance of whiteness in mainstream country music. As Table 3 illustrates, references to red or blonde hair, freckles, blue eyes, and sun‐tanned skin were almost completely absent in the 1980s. Then nearly 5 percent of the weeks analyzed from the 1990s referenced white phenotypes. The prevalence of such songs roughly tripled to nearly 15 percent of weeks in the 2000s. References to white bodies were less common in the 2010s than the 2000s, but they were still more than twice as prevalent as in the 1990s. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s, references to white phenotypic characteristics were much more common in the 2000s and 2010s. Importantly, increased references to white bodies was not due to an increase in references to phenotypic characteristics more generally because depictions of phenotypes that could be considered more racially ambiguous, such as brown eyes, did not become more prevalent. White phenotypes were generally mentioned when describing children in heterosexual families or women who were depicted as being more sexually desirable because of their whiteness. In Lonestar’s (2003) “My Front Porch Looking In,” listeners hear about “a carrot top who can barely walk” and “a little blue‐eyed blonde with shoes on wrong.” In “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident),” John Michael Montgomery (1995) spots a woman he describes as a “ten.” He explains, “She’s got ruby red lips, blonde hair, blue eyes.” Similarly, in his vacation ballad “Beachin’,” Jake Owen (2013) sings, “And it’s 103 between her and me and only 92 in Daytona. And it’s sunshine, blue eyes, tan lines, slow tide.” By inserting allusions to whiteness into songs that focused primarily on family and romance, these country hits linked masculinity and whiteness without explicitly stating these connections. Nevertheless, these depictions are especially significant because racialized standards of beauty that preference white bodies are a key driver and consequent of white supremacy in the United States (Collins 2005; Du Bois 2009). The increased prevalence of nostalgia and white phenotypes in the 2000s and 2010s reveals the growing significance of whiteness to representations of masculinity in country music. This partially corresponds with research at more local levels, which notes that, in contexts where whites are afforded more status and opportunities, white men often emphasize their whiteness when shifting economic prospects undermine their abilities to be breadwinners (e.g., Connell 1995; Eastman and Schrock 2008; Fine et al. 1997; Kimmel and Ferber 2000). However, representations of men in country music did not correspond perfectly with findings from local levels. Whiteness and masculinity were more closely linked in the 2000s and 2010s when compared to 1980s and 1990s, but there was not a simultaneous, corresponding decrease in representations of employed men. Nostalgia and references to white bodies were actually most prevalent during the 2000s. The same decade that representations of employed men were most common.

Discussion and Conclusion: A New Hegemonic Masculinity that Enables Intersecting Inequalities Depictions of masculinity disseminated at the regional level by mainstream country music shifted over the last four decades. In the 1980s, masculinity was characterized by heterosexual breadwinning for families through working‐class employment. The 1990s were similar, but whiteness, women having formal employment, and men being involved in household labor were increasingly common. These trends largely continued into the 2000s. Men were still portrayed as heterosexual breadwinners who sometimes helped around the house, depictions of whiteness continued to grow, and representations of employed men and women became more prevalent. The masculinity celebrated in country music in the 2010s was characterized by both continuity and rupture. Whiteness and working‐class employment remained important, but depictions of men participating in household labor and women participating in the formal labor market decreased precipitously. Representations of heterosexual providing also shifted away from men being a traditional breadwinner toward men providing prospective heterosexual partners with alcohol, transportation, and places to hook up. Corresponding with research that emphasizes local masculinities are rearranged in response to shifting socioeconomic conditions so that men can continue to do masculinities associated with respect and privileges (e.g., Carlson 2015; Sherman 2009; Scott 2010), the masculinity disseminated by contemporary country music at the regional level provides an attainable definition of masculinity for rural men across the United States who are facing increasingly perilous economic prospects. Mainstream country still protests the privileges enjoyed by upper‐class men while emphasizing working‐class employment as an effective means of doing masculinity. However, by placing a greater emphasis on whiteness and redefining providing, the genre also delivers a depiction of masculinity that working‐class, white, heterosexual men can utilize to do masculinities in spite of worsening economic prospects. For example, compared to being a traditional provider for a family with children, providing a white woman with alcohol is a more attainable definition of masculinity for men facing increasingly precarious employment opportunities. Any suggestion that increasingly tenuous economic conditions for white men will inevitably undermine gendered inequalities misses a key point. Masculinities can be reconfigured to reproduce gendered inequalities in lieu of shifting socioeconomic conditions that render previous hegemonic masculinities obsolete (Bridges and Pascoe 2018; Messner 1993). This can occur at local levels of social organization (e.g., Brandth and Haugen 2010; Carlson 2015) and, as I illustrate, at the level of the nation‐state as well. Depictions of men helping around the house disappeared, the new style of providing has increasingly depicted women as sexual objects instead of employed equals, and whiteness is celebrated far more often than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, contemporary country has provided a more attainable depiction of masculinity to rural men that are heterosexual and white, but such depictions do not undermine inequalities between and among men and women. The masculinity that is generally celebrated in contemporary country music is different than the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, but it is still a hegemonic masculinity that provides particular rural men with the “on‐hand material” (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005: 849) to continue marginalizing women, people of color, and those with queer sexualities. These findings highlight the specific need to consider the simultaneous significance of gender, class, sexuality, and race. Contemporary country celebrates heterosexual men in blue‐collar occupations just like the genre did in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, but the ideal rural man is now depicted as a particular type of heterosexual provider, while white women have increasingly been represented as the ideal sexual objects to complement this masculinity. Because these intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and race were reorganized in the genre, the new masculinity disseminated across the United States to millions of country music listeners is still a hegemonic model of rural masculinity that privileges rural men that are white and heterosexual even though these men have faced increasingly difficult economic pressures that have undermined their abilities to be breadwinners. If the number of jobs traditionally filled by working‐class, white men continue to decline in rural contexts, more than just gender and class will inform how masculinities and the associated inequalities are reorganized, reproduced, and/or undermined. Paradoxically, the increased emphasis on sexual conquest and whiteness in mainstream country music could also put rural men and the communities in which they live at a disadvantage in regional and global labor markets. If rural men embrace this new masculinity, or if employers operating at the regional and global scales believe they do, rural men can be excluded from labor markets by employers seeking men that they believe can work cooperatively with both men and women (Filteau 2014). It is also easier to marginalize and exploit rural communities in regional and global political economies if their inhabitants are conceptualized as ignorant (Ching and Creed 1997; Jarosz and Lawson 2002; Scott 2010). Although the genre’s increased emphasis on sexual conquest and whiteness could provide avenues for particular rural men to construct hegemonic masculinities in their communities, this masculinity could further marginalize these men and their communities when considering the regional and global scales. After all, increasingly coupling depictions of rural masculinity with sexual conquest and the celebration of whiteness does nothing to challenge degrading stereotypes disseminated by other forms of popular media that portray all rural whites as bigoted rednecks. Pop culture critics and some country musicians have critiqued aspects of this new masculinity, with the shift to repeatedly portraying women as sexual objects that can be plied with alcohol receiving especially pointed criticism (Hight 2014; Rosen 2013). Two of the songs sampled from the 2010s even pan this new definition of providing. In “Take your Time,” Sam Hunt (2014) criticizes men who try to force alcohol on women while singing about hitting on a woman in a bar. Maddie & Tae’s (2015) “Girl in the Country Song” provides a more explicit critique. Beyond noting that country music godfathers Conway Twitty and George Strait “knew how to treat a lady,” they allude to Jason Aldean’s (2010) hit “My Kinda Party.” After singing about isolating a woman in the Georgia countryside and then encouraging her to drink moonshine, Aldean proposes, “Baby, if you’re in the mood and you can settle for a one night rodeo. You could be my tan‐legged Juliet, I’ll be your redneck Romeo.” Maddie & Tae (2015) reject the proposition, proclaiming, “Yeah baby, I ain’t your tan‐legged Juliet.” Although these critiques are complicit with the white and heteronormative dimensions of the hegemonic masculinity celebrated in contemporary country, they are especially notable because they highlight how hegemonic masculinities are routinely challenged in complex, ambivalent manners (see Bridges and Pascoe 2018; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Demetriou 2001; Messerschmidt 2018). Accordingly, and as the results of this analysis illustrate, we should expect that over the coming years and decades the masculinity disseminated by mainstream country to millions of listeners across the United States will continue to transform. Whether this masculinity contributes to the reproduction and/or subversion of hegemonic masculinities will be contingent on the shifting intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and class in the genre’s depictions of masculinities and how individuals creatively utilize and/or challenge these representations while doing gender.