Gender is defined as “socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people” by the Canadian Institute of Health Research. In music, gender affects the instruments that students learn and the type of career they may seek in music. Gender also affects classroom and mentor dynamics and can, in conjunction with social class, race and ethnicity, affect the student’s individual experience in both music and the world at large. In this post we will discuss the differences between men and women in music because there is not a lot of research on non-binary individuals.
Our community partner was Meaghan Leferink from Seattle Music Partners. Seattle Music Partners is a nonprofit organization in the Central District of Seattle that works to provide music education to low income students. It is an afterschool program that is composed of group lessons and one-on-one mentoring. The mentors are matched to each student individually based on a variety of factors.
Gender differences in music are obvious to an outside observer the moment a student gets to decide what instrument they want to play. This is because certain instruments are stereotypically played by certain genders. Ricky O’Bannon, from Baltimore Symphony Orchestra states that, “Historically, some instruments have strong masculine or feminine associations… a lot of the criticism came down to the appearance of the woman while performing.” This still affects the instruments students choose today. As Meaghan Leferink from Seattle Music Partners says, “Gender can influence the instruments that kids choose to play in the first place… there are certain instruments that have been gendered.” Kids are sometimes encouraged by parents, relatives or teachers to play certain instruments. They also see role models of the same gender as themselves playing those instruments. Finally, they are influenced by their peers in an attempt to be “normal.” This leads to some instruments traditionally being played by mostly boys or mostly girls. As Leferink says, “The flute, for example, is an instrument largely played at the elementary school level by girls and the trumpet, for example, is viewed as a boy instrument. That is a narrative that gets played out.” Seattle Music Partners tries to combat this stereotype and encourage students to play whichever instrument they really prefer. As Leferink says, “we have a lot of instructors who are women who play both [the flute and the trumpet]…so girls can see that women also play the trumpet.”
One cause of the gender differences in instrument choice is the media’s portrayal of women in the music industry. Women are rarely seen in the backup bands that tour with popular singers. In orchestras and on televised music shows they are generally seen playing the flute, the violin, or the harp. O’Bannon says that, “Interviews with students from a study from the University of North Texas show that media examples they had seen were also a factor [in instrument choice].” The media is an integral part of our society that helps shapes each person’s view of gender. As Neil Postman says in Amusing Ourselves to Death, “television is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations” (p.16). Gender roles are an “important cultural conversation” and when television programs do not show equal numbers of women playing all instruments in bands or orchestras, this greatly impacts the way people across America view gender roles in music. Postman also says that “[on television] pictures have little difficulty in overwhelming words, and short-circuiting introspection” (p. 103). This means that stereotypes can easily develop because people do not question the images they see. Seattle Music Partners shows students that they have control over their own destinies and do not have to follow gender stereotypes. They do this by providing students with freedom. Leferink explains, “when you are giving students the opportunity to pick the instrument that they want to play and the song they want to play at the recital and how they want their lesson to go…it shows them that they have some autonomy and they can determine the course of their life.”
Having a mentor who is the same gender as the student can help promote this idea. “It is very important,” Leferink says, “to consider gender, because it is an avenue where students can see themselves reflected as they progress in their instrument, like a young black girl having a tutor who is a black woman could be more affecting than some older guy.” This helps show the student that people like themselves can learn skills and have amazing accomplishments.
Gender is one aspect of intersectionality. According to Brigit Katz, Kimberlé Crenshaw describes intersectionality as “the multiple avenues of discrimination that people face when their identity encompasses a number of minority categories, connected to things like race, gender, class and sexuality.” Race, according to Live Science, is defined as “genetically distinct populations within the same species… [that] typically have relatively minor morphological and genetic differences.” At Seattle Music Partners, many of the students are students of color.
Intersectionality is an important topic to keep in mind when talking about gender. Leferink expanded on this idea by saying, “thinking intersectionally about identity is really important so that definitely plays a part in a mentoring relationship.” This means that when they create mentor-student pairings they must think about race, gender, and socioeconomic status together. Leferink continues by saying, “It’s sort of easy to have an idea that, for example, a white woman who is being a tutor and a black girl should be able to share an experience because they’re both female. But there are different structural barriers for that black girl than for the white woman and so they can talk about having a similar gender experience, like maybe they’re those trumpet players who are trying to rock the boat and be female trumpet players… But when it comes to race and how they show up in a space as black or white, [it] can be another layer that is either a barrier or a privilege for them.”
It is often hard for women of color to pursue careers in the arts. Historically, women of color have not gotten as many opportunities as men to become artists, and their works have been criticized harshly. Ronald Takaki’s book A Different Mirror provides two examples of race and gender based discrimination. Takaki says that Thomas Jefferson refused to believe that Phyllis Wheatley was a poet because she was black, even though she had already published critically acclaimed poetry (p.p. 65-66). Later, when Takaki talks about the Harlem Renaissance he says about author Zora Neale Hurston, “what rendered race especially complex for her was gender. The ‘Negro Renaissance’ seemed stifling to Hurston as an artist and as a woman… Indeed, within the world of blacks, as she saw it, there was a gender mountain” (Takaki, p.332). As with female artists historically, today’s female musicians face race and gender based struggles. Because of the long tradition of women of color not being accepted as artists, and of women in general being judged for their appearance rather than their talent and hard work, girls don’t get as much encouragement to become musicians. Seattle Music Partners is trying to combat that by providing music training to low income children, many of whom are women of color.
Instrument stereotypes, media representation, and historical underappreciation of artwork by women (particularly women of color) creates barriers based on gender in the music industry. Seattle Music Partners tries to undo gender narratives along with racial and class-based narratives. They do this by providing free music education to all students, pairing students with a mentor that is similar to themselves, and allowing students to choose the instrument that they want to play. Finally, Seattle Music Partners tries to have “equitable treatment of all of our students.” In this way, Seattle Music Partners battles gender-based discrimination.
By Quinn Bellamy
Phone Interview:
References
Government of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, & Institute of Gender and Health. (2014, September 30). What is gender? What is sex? Retrieved from http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48642.html
Katz, B. (2017, August 29). This Video Breaks Down the ABCs of Intersectionality. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-intersectionality-video-breaks-down-basics-180964665/
Leferink, M. (2018, April 26). Phone Interview.
Leferink, M. (2018, May 24). Phone Interview.
O’Bannon, R. (2018). Boys Play Trumpet and Girls Play Flute, but Why?. [online] Bsomusic.org. Available at: https://www.bsomusic.org/stories/boys-play-trumpet-and-girls-play-flute-but-why.aspx [Accessed 7 Jun. 2018].
Postman, N. (2007). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. London: Methuen.
“Seattle Music Partners.” Seattle Music Partners, www.seattlemusicpartners.org/.
Staff, L. S. (2012, May 09). What is the Difference between Race and Ethnicity? Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/33903-difference-race-ethnicity.html
Takaki, R. T. (2008). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, and.
American Media 