Calling Men Out: Why Are Female Musical Artists So Fed Up?

Anyone who’s put the radio on in the past decade will have noticed a growing trend in pop music: lyrics that are openly critical of men. From the likes of Sabrina Carpenter to Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, much of their songs centre around criticising male behaviour - particularly in romantic relationships. The themes are familiar: emotional immaturity, infidelity and overall indifference. So, this raises a question: what has made female artists become so vocal about being disrespected by men? 

Credit: @sabrinacarpenter on Instagram

This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon as such- songs in the early 2000’s like Carrie Underwood's ‘Before He Cheats’ or Beyonce’s ‘If I Were a Boy’ also share similar sentiments about male behaviour. But the explicitness and abundance of this sentiment have only increased in recent years. The language has become more direct, even contemptuous, with Sabrina describing the ‘Manchild’ phenomenon, and romantic disappointment increasingly being framed more as a pattern of disrespect rather than as heartbreak.  

Compare this trend with much of the chart-topping music from the 80s and 90s, whose thematic focus was mainly on dancing, optimism and escapism, and the shift is clear. Of course, every era has its breakup songs, but there has been an obvious tonal shift- from the 90s yearning and melancholy (honourable mention to Jeff Buckley) to the accusation and disillusionment often portrayed by contemporary artists.   

So, the question still stands- is this thematic change one of a reactionary nature? Arguably, the commercial success of artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift relies on their songs being relatable. This can be attested to, as thousands of fans at the Eras tour can be seen screaming along to lyrics and crying their eyes out. From an outsider's perspective, this is simultaneously empowering and concerning. Empowering because women are finding a collective voice to speak out against injustices, but concerning because music is not just arbitrarily written, they are reflective of lived experience. 

When millions of young women are finding themselves united over lyrics about deception, disrespect, or emotional neglect, it is difficult to dismiss this as pure performance. Sabrina Carpenter’s song ‘Nobody’s Son’, which has over 242 million streams on Spotify alone, is centred around how women ‘probably should have guessed/ He's like the rest/ So fine and so deceiving’. Considering how the intended audiences of these songs are young women, this worryingly points towards the emergence of a new trend in the decline of treatment towards women- specifically women of this age. And it’s not just female artists’ who attest to this argument.  Other 21^st century songs like ‘When I Was Your Man’ by Bruno Mars also explicitly state that he didn’t treat his previous partner the way she deserved.   

Now, it could be that these trends in the music industry aren’t necessarily indicative of men behaving worse than they did in previous decades. It could instead be that they suggest a rise in women advocating for themselves. The prominence of fourth-wave feminism means that women are increasingly calling out misogyny, and they are utilising music as a means to do so. 

Still, there is evidence that this rise in feminism isn’t the only cause of the increased frustration with men. The broader cultural backdrop is shifting in troubling ways- and this is reflected by the rise in damaging individuals like Andrew Tate and Clavicular who promote just as equally damaging ideals like looksmaxxing, and what Louis Theroux described in his 2026 BBC documentary as ‘the manosphere’. With an increase in misogynistic content like Theroux points out, it is understandable to see why women feel the need to promote opposition through musical liberty. 

Credit: The New York Times

The argument that this online content is having harmful consequences is consolidated in qualitative measures by TV shows like ‘Adolescence’, and in quantitative measures by academic reports by institutes like King’s College London. For International Women’s Day 2026, they released a study that found that ‘Gen Z men (born between 1997 and 2012) were twice as likely as Baby Boomer men (born between 1946 and 1964) to have traditional views on decision-making within a marriage’. This included the fact that ‘31% of Gen Z men agree that a wife should always obey her husband.’ Unfortunately, these statistics point clearly towards a generational change in male behaviour, and one that is reflected by modern day music.  

Of course, music can’t quantify whether male behaviour has gotten worse. It can’t objectively say that the treatment of women has declined. But it cannot be dismissed. It is symptomatic of a wider issue at hand and is demonstrative of how- without combatting internalised misogyny- there is potential for the treatment of women to regress to a detrimental standard. So, as Raye asked in her 2026 song ‘Where is my Husband?’...I can only tell you where he isn’t- surfing the Manosphere or sitting in Andrew Tate’s following list.