Gender in Music
Hey y'all! This week I wanted to talk about gender roles in music. From gender-associated instruments and roles, to expectations of what we listen to, gender effects subconsciously dictates how we view music. As a past choir kid, it was very rare to see a male student singing with the sopranos or altos. Not because they weren't capable of singing those octaves, but because it was expected of them to be in the more "manly" sections of the choir, with the tenors and basses. This also presents itself in bands and orchestras; at least at my high school, it was predominantly women playing violins, flutes, and cellos. Men typically played trumpets, percussion, saxophones, or basses. Of course there were exceptions and no one thought twice about it, but it was definitely noticeable.
Since this topic peaked my interest so much, I decided to do a little more research. In a blog post titled "Gender Expectations in the Music Industry" by Asyia Fricke, Fricke states "Women in the music industry have been marketed by using sex and femininity for so long that when an artist doesn’t adhere to this, it’s hard to sell them." Fricke also discusses how Madonna's muse was David Bowie and his embodiment of both feminine and masculine styles. Madonna embraced this and expressed herself by wearing suits during her performances (this was very unconventional during this time). I have added a link to Madonna's "Express Yourself" at the 1989 MTV Music Awards, a perfect example of her breaking down social constructs of gender in musical performances.
Thank you Madonna, but onto our next order of business: why are we expected to listen to certain music based on our genders????
I have forced myself to acknowledge my own biases in music when I think about gender, and here were my results:
1. I subconsciously associate women with softer music such as acoustics, classical music, and pop music. Rock was certainly not the first thing on my mind (even though I identify as a woman and am a huge Queen and rock fan). I thought about artists like Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac, Clairo, Olivia Rodrigo, and Doja Cat.
2. My first thought about men's (expected) music taste was hard rock, thick country, and rap. Artists that came to my mind were Drake, Machine Gun Kelly, Luke Bryan, KISS, and Leon Bridges.
As you can see, there is definitely a theme in my biases. It was helpful for me to think about this and be aware of my biases so I can try to knock down my own barriers. After doing some research on this topic, I found a study done by Music Machinery and how they determined what music to play for new listeners when gender is not known. I found this study fascinating because of artists that were in common between genders, such as Bruno Mars. Doing this study showed the difference in listeners of some music genres and how to present new music to a broader audience.
I had a lot of fun writing this blog, I hope you enjoyed learning as much as I did. It was very easy for me to write this blog because I have a lot of opinions on gender equality and feminism, I could very easily continue to write about this topic. I look forward to reading everyone else's blogs and learning about their perspectives!
Asyia Fricke's blog: https://medium.com/@asiyafricke/gender-expectations-in-the-music-industry-1791c6e7b467
Music Machinery's Gender Specific Listening: https://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/10/gender-specific-listening/
Hey There! I really enjoyed reading your blog. I also wrote about gender roles in the music industry. My focus was on current artists breaking these roles and the impact on the listeners. I love how you incorporated the legends like David Bowie and Madonna. I also was interested by your intro paragraph. I didn't think about choir when discussing this topic.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, your point about how women often play "softer" instruments like violin and flute while men playing "heavier" ones like drums and bass is definitely true! Also, I loved that you incorporated some other sources that had researched this issue. I specifically liked the comment you included about how women are marketed based on their sex and femininity. I like how some artists (like Billie Eilish) have been fighting against this recently and refusing to be sexualized by the music industry.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! There are definitely bias in what music certain genders are supposed to listen to. I wrote about that in my blog post as well, so I agree.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even think about the gender aspect of choir, you're so right. I grew up in church choir and if you were a guy, you were immediately sent to the tenor section, no arguments. It was also interesting to read how you associate different sounds/genres with different genders. I might've shared the same subconscious biases at one point.
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