Music and Gender
(Disclaimer before you read, I may use 'male and man, woman and female' interchangeably. I'm not too well versed in the graces of modern gender theory; however, I don't mean to come across as ignorant or uncaring. Also, if I use slang terms denoting gender I am NOT using in a pejorative or reductionist way. I just want to keep this blog rather lighthearted)
First, to tackle the question of 'Have different genders listened to different types of music or been expected to listen to different types of music?'. Yes, and yes. Within my narrow experience of just a white guy there is a level societal gender norms when it comes to the type of music one is to listen to. For example, if I tell someone to "picture a listener of Iron Maiden" I would be surprised if the majority of responders came back and said woman. On the same token if I say, "picture a Taylor Swift fan", dollars to donuts a man will not be the first thing to come to mind.
The next question "Within the style of music that you like to listen to, does the media treat different genders differently?" I listen to a proverbial ass load of different kinds of music soooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Yet, within some microcosms of music I'm sure there is a difference of treatment between men, women and anything in-between as there is anything.
Thirdly, "In music ensembles, have you noticed a difference in who plays what instruments, or how different sections act in choir?"... Yes! and I've wondered what causes this sociologically for many years. My experience mainly comes from middle and high school band, particularly marching band. Now these next few sentences may be generalizations, these are just my observations. To start flute players... girls, up, down, left or right a majority of flute players I've seen (in the context of a concert flute, not flutes outside of western culture.) are women. With clarinet I've mainly seen women dominate populations of clarinets. However, there are a couple of guys mixed in. With saxes I'd call it 30 70. 30 percent women 70 percent male. Most of the other instruments I can readily think of I feel like it can go either way with the exception of percussion. Most of the time I think percussion sections are widely dudes. However, as I've gotten older, I've seen a lot more women in percussion. (Around here at least, even before coming to Converse
The last question asked, "Do you find that folks performing music-related jobs that aren't actually performing (dealing with sound equipment, conducting, teaching, managing, etc.) lean to one gender or the other?" To my experience most of the people I've seen 'under the hood' of music so-to-speak is men. However, that's not to say I've not seen women within that field of course.
As the last things I want to add. This is one of my favorite songs and it's by Kimya Dawson. In my opinion best folky style by a woman.
(I have no clue what to add for a 3rd media selection.)
I agree that there's definitely stereotypes as to which genders play certain instruments and what genres they listen to. I've never really thought about how mostly men tend to work behind the scenes in performance settings. Probably because I've usually been the one doing it for myself or people in my family.
ReplyDeleteBefore coming to Converse I used to have a stereotypical way of thinking about what gendered played what instrument mainly due to coming from a smaller southern town. But this school has shown me that gender doesn't matter when it comes to a lot of things especially music.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that there are certain stereotypes when it comes to what genres of music each gender listens to. I've also noticed how most flute sections are predominantly female and brass and percussion are predominately male. In my own experience, I have also seen that most of the time I see more men doing the technology and production aspect of music.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely are stereotypes surrounding sex associated with certain instrument groups.It sucks the way people view that, but I do think the world is changing.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the stereotypes first hand also with the wind ensembles with what gender plays what instrument. I actually talk about it some in my blog. As someone who is apart of a statistic of yours, I will agree how "rare" it is to see a female saxophone player or a male clarinet player. It is definitely something that is changing in today's society for the better.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate, but the music industry is still widely dominated by men, even in areas like sound recording and managing. I do think that a lot of people are drawn to one instrument or another (specifically brass vs woodwind) based on the sound, and that the attraction they feel is due to part of the way they're genetically written (though that's more speculation on my part). This would explain why certain genders are concentrated with certain instruments (girls with flute and clarinet, and guys with brass), though I think that concentration also may end up putting some pressure on future musicians to play certain instruments.
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