Sophie's A2 Planning :P: Female Representation in Music Videos

Females, like men, are generally represented in two ways...

Wearing little clothing, sexual and seductive
More about the voice and lyrics, not about their body but about the music and what it means

The first representation of women usually features a skinny woman, wearing short dresses/skirts, if any at all (some just wear lingerie or leotards). These women are represented as 'rulebreakers' and do what they want. They attract the opposite sex with their bodies rather than anything else, and so the lyrics typically do not have much behind them.
The videos are usually quite fast paced as well as the songs, and this way the dancing can be more seductive. Performance is very common amongst female music videos, but these performances aren't always them singing but attracting men too.
These female artists are usually 'chart' artists - in that their songs appear in the Top 40 and other shows similar.
The music videos usually feature darker, sexual colours, such as reds, blacks and purples. The women are also extremely over sexualised, with the male gaze being used a lot. The emphasis on their assets is evident across these music videos. The clothing is little but does somewhat keep up with current fashion trends.
An example of this kind of music video would be S&M - Rihanna.

and 23 - Miley Cyrus ft Wiz Khalifa, Juicy J and WILL Made It

The second representation features more ordinary women; women who do not have the super skinny, long legs, thin waist look - but more like women of the public, with more filled out body shapes and natural looking make up. This representation can feature in the charts but won't be as popular as more exposed women. These artists are usually younger, between 16-22, and if were represented sexually would be seen as 'wrong' and therefore they stick to the innocent and emotional (vulnerable) personality.
The videos aren't necessarily slower and neither are the songs, but the videos don't hold strong connotations to glorifying substance abuse and sexual activity.
These videos can also be more experimental, relating to the lyrics or not and it wouldn't matter because the videos wouldn't be seuxalised either way.
An example of these music videos is Someone Like You - Adele.

On the more experimental side of female representation, Lady GaGa is a good example, with her music video for You & I she experiments with the idea of 'the perfect woman', where in her video she is being built by a man to be married to, and various other creations have been made by him (all played by her).

The transition between the innocent and the over sexualised women have been evident in artists such as Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera.

For example, Genie in a Bottle featured in the charts and on Pop Party 3 (Christina Aguilera), and then her Stripped album came out and featured the music video for Dirrty.

Miley Cyrus was the pop sensation Hannah Montana, and then moved on to her video for We Can't Stop.

Genie in a Bottle