Women In Music

Subargument #1: Amateur female musicians are severely limited in their portrayals of self empowerment because of monopoly of music by males
Subargument #2: Amateur female musicians are further limited by social boundaries that occur in music

Jazz Article 1 (Willis) | E/DM 2 | Saturday night fever 3 | Bass article – Clawson 4 | * Women instrumentalists are deliberately avoided/removed in the hegemonic jazz discourse to preserve the construction of jazz as a masculine space. * Women can only perform aspects of identities that are naturalized, and end up being largely written out of jazz. * Languages used to discuss jazz and by print are dominated by white men and center around exclusion, recreating what Judith Butler calls a “heterosexual
masculine matrix”. * Singers are not “real” musicians, so women are largely ignored. * Even though feminine gender subversion has taken place, like homosexuality, is largely ignored. * For women to speak within the music, or about the music, as instrumentalists, the subversion of gender needed to occur. * Women jazz singers are generally forced into highly sexualized roles * Men wrote majority of songs and lyrics in jazz, (and women often found themselves figuring out what he was saying) * Despite undoing of the white male matrix, the development of the new space was one where blackmen could assert their own masculinity, and this came at the price of women’s voices – unles they conformed to certain roles. * Although the role of jazz singer allowed these women to be “seen”, their “voices” were stll frequently controlled by men * Women singers were still able to have a “voice” within in jazz, despite singing men’s songs
- counter point:even though the some women singers are able to achieve a certain amount of respect, their music is generally not regarded as high as that of men instrumentalists, and their voices in conversation are rarely remarked upon – she must play an instrument. * Many women refuse to play in “all-girl bands because they are afraid of becoming marginalized within jazz discourse. * Because the discourse and music industry are male dominated, most of these women remain unknown, and their invisibility creates no demand for their music. * Even when she is able to speak within the discourse, the woman jazz instrumentalist is still silenced through exclusion from the jazz canon.
| * The acquiring of new artists and pieces of music are based on beliefs informed by gender * The dance music industry is gendered – most DJs and producers are men; few women are found in powerful industry positions such as label owners or club managers – existence of “boys club mentality”. * It is much easier for girls to develop skills in fields that are less contested by men. * Like the broader popular music industry, EDM is more open to female participation because not associated with an overtly masculine agenda, but this does not seek to subvert the white, patriarchal structures of the mainstream music establishment * Women are underrepresented in music production - 5-15 percent of working DJs are women, the figure is much smaller for female sound engineers who comprise only 2-5 percent of sound engineers * The studio environment has been constructed as a male space that is generally not available to women whose place in the industry came to be limited to the press department. * Social boundaries rooted in technical knowledge and language also exacerbate studio labor divisions. * “Tricks of the trade” and the associated technical
language are inaccessible to women given the informal environements they are shared in the EDM culture. * Female DJs are commonplace in SF because of the visibility that collectives such as SisterSF bring to the field, but female DJs continue to be viewed as exceptions elsewhere. And the industry continue to be male dominated, perpetuating a “boy’s club” mentality, making it difficult for women to obtain gigs without putting in extra effort into self promotion. * Producing music will hinder a woman’s DJ career because she would be spending less time with self-promotion and performing in public. * “Frustrating lack” of tracks produced by women * As EDM’s popularity grew it became more conservative with white, heterosexual men becoming its key players, coming to resemble that of mainstream popular music, making it less likely to find women producers. * DJ is generally a solitary process: social spaces and conversations that may encourage women to produce are often off limits : many men are unwilling to share the powerful position of controlling sound, limiting opportunities for women to receive hands on training * Assumption that women are not technically adept: The gendered stratification that women experience in work-related settings impacts their confidence and desire to work with technology, and produces a culture that has few opportunities for women to participate in technology-centered spaces; also reinforced in popular culture. * The limited access women have to vital social networks that are typical male dominated impinges upon their ability to access EDM production “gear” * Women in most occupations, even outside music, earn unequal pay, even for the same work, worsens the situation. * Women are more comfortable using interpersonal skills to develop favourable reputations in the scene than learn new technical skills. * The dominance is inherent in gender: research on pop music show that adolescent boys talk about intruments and eq while girls talk about lyrics, dance and the stars themselves. * Confidence of women grows when men are removed from the scene (common to all articles) * Women take an interest in DJing or producing much later in their lives generally: problem; similar to women in rock bands (bass article) | * The construction of sex roles has been complemented by the genre’s sexual objectification of women. (2) * Men are often portrayed as controllers of women’s sexuality. * There is a necessity to tailor poplar movies to fit a media-manufactured characterization of single women as burnt-out overachievers and lonely sufferes of intertility. * SNF portrays marriage as an institution that limits women’s opportunities for upward mobility and personal autonomy – social stigma over male dominion * Men are often portrayed as controllers of women’s sexuality – implied by the portrayal of the man as an older, patriarchal figure and the woman as a younger, childlike character * The key to gender liberation is the destruction of sex-role stereotypes * In Flashdance, success is constructed on the basis of individual achievement, class transcendence, a commodified self-image, and patriarchal domination.
* Women become “old maids” if they do not integrate themselves into the terms of patriarchy by latching onto the first man who proposes to them. * A woman’s best means of gaining power is by captivating a man with her body. * (FD) Women are encouraged to view their looks as a source of power and to predicate their self-esteem on their ability to attract the male gaze. * (FD) Women denied of self-sufficient avenues of upward mobility must latch onto a man, either as a fetishized ornament or an object of explicit derogation | * Because of the traditional association of women with singing, their opportunities and achievement have been disproportionately concentrated in musical forms that highlight individual vocal performance * Because instrument playing is so strongly linked to notions of rock creativity, the traditional restriction is especially disempowering in rock music * Woman are most likely to make inroads into occupations that experience a shortage of “suitable” male workers that arise from changes in work processes, or by declines in available rewards (common with SNF article) (conformist point) * Rather than pushing men out, women gain access to jobs that men have already begun to abandon, as they move on
to monopolize the most prized jobs, leaving women and minority group men to occupy less advantageous places * The entrance of women into a previously male-dominated occupation often produces ghettoization * Reasons include the role of skill requirements, supply and demand, and men’s efforts to monopolize highly valued activities. * Ease of learnin of bass is attractive to women as they commonly begin playing rock instruments and join bands at a considerably later age. (similar to EDM on accessibility) * Aspiring women rock musicians are often denied the years of teenage skill acquisition experienced by male counterparts – appeal of bass as a quickly learned instrument is understandable as it provides a quick entrance into a world that had largely excluded them(conformistpoint) * Demand for guitarists is low due to overwhelming supply/monopoly by males * The availability of an occupation to women is contingent on men’s rejection of it * Lower skill requirements produce opportunities for women only when coupled with low prestige and consequent masculine disinterest * The bass is the antithesis of a “real” instrumentalist, and seen as the resort of failed guitar players. * The star status of the guitar is understand as the masculine instrument par excellence, while the bass is the instrument men are least motivated to monopolize. * For men, the acceptance of women as bassists provided confirmation of a broad-minded, oppositional identity within a framework that reorganized, rather than totally abandoned, masculine predominance. (limited portrayal of female empowerment) * Men control access to the most valued instruments, leaving the lower-status bass more available to those marginalized by either gender or skill. * According to social theory, women are especially suitd to play the bass by virtue of heir “supportive nature” (Jenson) and more selfless, collective orientation. (common to vocals in jazz) * The imperative of command is often expressed through an obsession with technique and with competition over technique. (common to EDM music producing) * Men’s domination in EDM is attributed to women’s supposed lack of rhythmic sense. * The sight of a woman instrumentalist disrupts the image of the rock band as inevitably male, boys-only club, dissimilar to her role as a singer. * Playing in a band is a principle means of skill acquisition in rock music * Rock exists in a male-dominated culture in which the opportunity to work as an instrumentalist has been unfairly conditioned by gender – women’s location as bassists is the product of men’s ability to monopolize the better prized positions. * Women call on a notion of deeply inculcated gender difference as a means of status mobilization – bass is a first step: they are pioneers whose participation will legitimate women as instrumental musicians while providing them access to the band-based modes of artistic and professional development that characterize rock as a pop genre. |