Broadening research in gender and music practice

Abstract

This article builds on research about gender in music practice, concerned with skewed musical canons, ratios and quotas of gender representation, unfair treatment and power dynamics, and the exclusionary enmeshment with music technologies. The aim is to critically discuss what ‘gender’ is understood to be, how it has been studied and how gendered power has been challenged, in order to suggest new routes for research on gender and music practice. While we count ourselves among the scholars working in the field and critically investigate our own work as well as that of others, the article addresses some additional concerns to those of previous studies by examining how gender is ontologically constructed in these studies, how intersectional approaches can enrich analyses of gender in music practice and how the material dimensions of music practice can be actively addressed. The conclusions outline suggestions for broadening research in gender and music practice.

“The two voices,” or more? Music and gender from myth and conquests to the neurosciences

“…“What does music have to do with gender anyway?” is the provocative title of the 2019 article produced by Werner (2019) within a sociological framework, surveying the field in more recent feminist interdisciplinary research from angles such as “cultural critique of music,” “consumption/production,” “studies of genre and social settings” and “media technology”, within the overall frame of “intersectional gender theory.” A follow‐up paper stretches the theoretical slant in suggesting new approaches to research, “examining how gender is ontologically constructed (…), how intersectional approaches can enrich analyses of gender in music practice and how the material dimensions of music practice can be actively addressed (Werner et al, 2020).

An important question for future research is how individuals—as childhood advances into adolescence—integrate their culture‐specific musical knowledge into their emerging social identities and use if to forge bonds with others.

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Nesten alene: Artisten, økonomien og bransjen

“…I musikkvitenskapelig og samfunnsvitenskapelig forskning har det videre blitt gjort studier av hvordan visse kjønnede idealer, diskurser og strukturer gjør seg gjeldende i forskjellige musikksjangere, og det har blitt diskutert hvordan kjønn virker på ulike områder i musikklivet, for eksempel i kulturskolen, i musikkutdanningene og blant profesjonelle musikere (se f.eks. Björck, 2011;Björck & Bergman, 2018;Blix et al, 2021;Blix & Mittner, 2019;de Boise, 2019;Kvalbein, 2021;Onsrud, 2004Onsrud, , 2012Stavrum, 2004Stavrum, , 2008Vinge, 1999;Werner et al, 2020). Bevisstheten om kjønnede skjevheter og mangel på likestilling i musikkarbeidsmarkedet har også vaert økende i praksisfeltet, blant arrangører og andre bransjeaktører, og debatter om kjønn er med jevne mellomrom tema i norske medier.…”

“…Forskningen om musikk og kjønn utvidet seg seinere til å utdype betydningene av kjønn i ulike kontekster, situasjoner, delfelt og sjangere (se f.eks. Blix et al, 2021;Werner et al, 2020). Etter hvert som utdanningspolitiske og kulturpolitiske tiltak har blitt satt i verk for å utjevne kjønnsforskjeller, har også evalueringer og studier av slike tiltak og prosjekter blitt en del av forskningsfeltet (Björck & Bergman, 2018;Blix & Mittner, 2019;de Boise, 2019).…”

A way with words. The art of negotiation and collaboration in the age of the new woman on broadway as seen through the careers of Anne Caldwell, Dorothy Donnelly and Rida Johnson Young 1906-1928

“…Finally, the twenty-first century has witnessed a rise in musicological/new historicist and cultural studies from musical authorial and collaborative interrogation (McHugh, 2015), to diverse cultural approaches examining gender equality in the music industry (Lowes, 2021), the importance and relevance of queer culture in iconic musicals (Birkett and McHugh, 2018;Whitfield, 2020) and perspectives that seek to deconstruct male-female binary polemics (Werner, Gadir and De Boise, 2021). The growth of these diverse studies examining such a broad field in the past two decades underlines the positive development of researcher mindset in the genre, wherein dialogic interrogation is free to explore and correct historical bias across the board.…”

“…Further, and as recently as 2021, Werner et al note how 'the discursive gendering of 'musical genius in classical music' has served to obscure the contributions of women composers and musicians' and how the perfomative function of the prevailing canon serves to ensure 'the music of composers in the canon will be played and taught more often' (Werner, Gadir and De Boise, 2021). This research, by its very nature, is wholly cognizant not only of Taruskin's inducement to interrogate 'the glaring absence of female participants' in the story that is told but beyond that to elevate the importance and relevance of their role in the story itself.…”