Foundations - Gender and Sex

Explain the first wave of feminism

• 1840s-1960  

• Focus on legal issues (e.g suffrage), protest 

Explain the second wave of feminism

• 1960 - 80 

• Focus on social concerns beyond stereotypes 

• Social construction of womanhood 

• Media representation, women in workplace, reproductive rights, domesticity 

Explain the third wave of feminism

• 1990s – present 

• Intersectionality: individual women, difference, diversity, womanism and race - What it means to be a woman in different ways (e.g LGBT+, Race) 

• Sex positivity, punk, underground subcultures 

Explain the fourth wave/post feministwave of feminism

• more debated as to whether it exist, (most people define 3 definitive waves) 

• Internet-mediated e.g #MeToo 

What article did Pauline Oliveros Write? When?

‘And Don’t call them “Lady” composers’ (1970) 

What did Oliveros argue?

• Woman in music is always subjugated compared to men 

• A woman can’t escape being squashed by male counterparts as when women choose to composer/conduct/play they insert themselves in a male world 

What book did Judith Butler write?When

Gender Trouble (1990) 

What wave of feminism is Butler?

Third Wave (very ahead of her time)

What is Simone De Beauvoir’s quote? How does BUlters work tie into this? (performance and culture)

Simone de Beauvoir – ‘One is not born a woman, but rather becomes a woman’

Gender as performance, not set out attributes -> denouncing binary oppositions + freeing gender from biology 

• It is performative fabrications

Gender is not the culture to sex’s nature. Gender is a neutral surface that culture acts on and it is the way sexed nature is produced. 

• Gender constructs sex 

What does Butler say about sex?

• We are given ‘sex’ at birth so maybe sex is just as cultural as gender 

• Sex is assined from power, politics and discursive representation 

• Bodies (gender and sex are social constructs) 

§

What does butler say about woman as the constructed subject?

• ‘woman’ has been constructed as the ‘subject’ of feminism under the guise of emancipation.

• Actually this is more constricting and hides exclusionary aims and gender domination of men.

• Also pushes idea of universality of patriarchy and feminism pushing this onto non-western cultures whilst labeling their misogyy as ‘non-western barbarism’ as the ‘third world’ or ‘orient’ 

What book does Susan McClary write? When? (give two dates)

Feminine Endings 1991/2002

What does Susan McClary say about time in music?

• Music drives to climax and resolution 

OR

• Sustained Pleasure 

What does McClary say about music and conceptions of gender?

Music contributes to social conceptions of gender - if you have to socially construct gender/sexuality, ofc internalised misogyny feeds its way into music, and vice versa 

Link McRobbie and Frith

What does Maus say about McClary?

some find McClary problematic, seemingly condemning women for writing feminine music 

What book did Maria Citron write and When?

Gender and the Musical Canon (1993) 

What does citron say about the canon? What key questions arise from this?

Canons create ‘a narrative for the past and a template for the future’ but debate as to whether they create unity and consensus or diminish diversity – argument of power 

• Do people call for canonic change because of ‘trends’ of multiculturalism/feminism etc 

OR

• are these people blind to socially contingent nature of canon. Canon change over/with time - ‘which music deemed is canonic says a great deal about the image society has of itself’ 

Who agrees that Gender is a social construct and sex is biological?

Citron, Beard and Gloag, Maus - this is in contrast to Butler

What does Citron say about issues of anecdotes in women in history?

History can’t compute endless anecdotes-> generalisation -> essentialising and diminishing socially contingent nature of gender 

Women have been made in a male-dominated society 

What article did Ellen Koskoff write and when?

‘(Left out in) Left (the field)’ (1990-2000) 

What was the main questions of Koskoff work?

Difference in feminist writing in musicology (lots of it) to ethnomusicology (not much of it at all)

What did koskoff suggest the reasons are for lack of feminist writing in ethnousicolgy?

Difficulties in fieldwork -> less ethno on women. E.g living with people for data in world of feminism, means whereas with most fieldwork someone is examinings there exotic ‘other’ in feminism if a women is interviewing a women, there is no ‘other’ 

What does Koskoff say in terms of women vs men as categories?

‘Woman’ as an analytical category vs all-inclusivity of ‘man’ (e.g ‘Mankind’)

Link Butler ‘women’ as political subject of feminism 

What does McClary hightlight about the progressness of music?

• Musicology lagging behind film and lit in progressiveness because of institutionalist obstacles (entered lit in 1960s) 

• Female musicologist indebted to feminists scholar in film and lit

What does McClary compare being a woman in musicology to?

• Compares being a woman in musicology to Bluebeard’s wife who seeks more than she is permitted to know 

• McClary like Judith should be grateful for the knowledge she does have with it having the one stipulation that she mustn’t question is 

• But what McClary loves about music isn’t what is found in textbooks 

W

What does McClary say is more concerning that misogynistic racist theorists?

Those who present music as autonomous

What 5 key points does McClary raise in relation to music and gender

Music constructions of gender and sexuality 

• Semiotics of gender and convention Masculine vs feminines musical themes.  

• Music is not a passive reflection of society, it is a ‘public forum’ for gender to be asserted 

• Also gives insight into history 

Gendered Aspects of Traditional Music Theory 

• Feminine vs masculine cadences mirroring strength of cadence 

• Equally Apel argues feminines ending postpone beyond downbeat -> refusing hegemonic control 

Gender and Sexualiy in Musical Narrative 

• Music relying on metaphorical similuation of sex for its effects (orgasmic teleology) 

• Sonata form used to call opening theme masculine and S theme feminine – although this is old news it still does manifest in theme of sonata form with daintier S. Stamitz does this a lot 

Music as a gendered discourse 

• Charge of musicians and devotees being effeminate is a long standing one through history becuase of association with body 

• Male musicians retaliate. Arguing is it most ideal of arts, it is ‘rational’ and masculine in its objectivity and universaity 

• Also for long time then forced its masculinity by prohibiting female participation 

Discursive Strategies of women musicians 

• For a long time women who desires to compose where condemned as either ‘pretty yet trivial or ... as aggressive and unbefitting a woman’ 

What did Susan Rutherford write and when?

Verdi, Opera, Women 2013

How does the romance in Verdi’s opera reflect his personal life?

• Macbeth criticised for lack of love interest 

• Frustration from librettist for not wanting to set an opera with no love interests for 2 women 

Lack of romance in his personal life with his wives e.g no recorded love letters etc

What does Rutherford say about La traviata and sexuality in verdi’s operas?

Violetta in La Traviata in aria ‘Sempre Libra’ - a paean for sexual liberty 

• Verdi brings body of his singers into the music physically with demanding passages e.g high notes, wide leaps, psychical injunctions in score e,g ‘con passione, un grido’ 

How is sexuality in verdi’s personal life reflected in his operas?

Verdi clearly open-minded – relationship with Strpponi (3 illegitimate chilren, 4^th miscarriage/abortion) together for years before married ‘it seem unlikely then that Verdi was a moral prude’ 

• Censorship would’ve imposed on physical intimacy on stage but intimacy in the music? E.g Rigoletto in double cadenze like a kiss and Violetta and La Traviata

What did David beard and Kenneth Gloag write and when?

Musicology: The Key Concepts (2016) 

What do Kenneth and Gloag say about New Musicology, linking with McClary?

1980s feminism becomes concern in ‘New Musicology’ - key figures: McClary, Citron, Solie considering cultural reasons for marginalisation

Link McClary about music being behind Film and Lit 

What does Samantha Ege write and when?

‘composing a Symphnist’ (2020) 

What does Ege make clear about women in music?

• In order to get to where Price got she required the help of many other Black female musicians e.g Nora Holt, Estella Bonds and Maude George 

 

What does Arienne Rich write and when?

‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’ (1980) 

Why does Rich argue there is an assumption most women are innately heterosexual?

How does Lesbianism relate to this?

• Lesbian existence is written out of history 

• Treated as exceptional not intrinsic 

• Heterosexuality has been so imposed on women it is not the preference but the imposition which forces them to consider themselves straight, maintained by force 

Lesbian existence rejects compulsory way of life 

It is an attack on male right of access to female body 

When did Maynard Soloman write about Schubert?

1989

Why was Soloman’s writing so influencial?

One of the first to write on Schubert at AMS meeting in 1989 (context of AIDS) 

What is soloman’s evidence for Schubert’s sexuality?

Hint:

• disease

• underground subcultures

• language

• Schubert’s circle

• Cellini

Venereal diseases rife and he caught it, with friend who attributes it to ‘excessively indulgent sensual living’ 

Male homosexual cultures rife through cities through time 

Decoding figuative language of sexually non-conformists subcultures is hard to do but always up for debate 

Young men in schuberts circle – not explicit but soloman but could’ve all been homosexual 

Schubert’s friend (Bauernfeld) wrote ‘Schubert is out of sorts (he needs ‘young peacocks’, like Benvenuto Cellini)’. 

• Cellini famous homosexual convicted of sodomy 

• Bird frequent symbol of sexual object 

• In Memoirs Cellini refers to ‘peacocks’ as feminine boys 

When did Rita Steblin write?

1993

What reasons does Steblin give to discredit Soloman?

• Soloman is selective and anachronistic – its more complex than a few select paragraphs 

• May appear homoerotic today must doesn’t make it homoerotic then 

• Bauernfeld only meant Schubert needed cure using Cellini’s peacocks as an example 

• Until modern time, peacock flesh many a food to cure illnessNo evidence of Schuberts circle being homosexual 

• ‘figment of Soloman’s imagination’ 

What did McClary write on the Steblin/Soloman debate and when?

‘Music and Sexuality: On the Steblin/Soloman Debate’ (1993) 

What did a 1992 opposer of Soloman call him according to McClary?

a ‘pornographer’

What does McClary write about the dangers of trying to decipher a historical figure’s sexuality?

• Soloman excepts complexities of composers and impact of this on their music whilst some devote of time from some to validating heterosexuality 

• Important to remember impact of homosexuals in culture BUT shouldn’t just label Schubert as gay for sake of minority groups and to not promote smoke screen. Equally shouldn’t assumes he’s straight either 

Link Beard and Gloag

What does Sedgwick say about sexuality in 20th century cultural studies?

20^th c culture music be examined with consideration of sexuality as modernism spawned from perceived ^ in homosexuals in art

What does Beard and Gloag say gay studies arose from?

Gay studies arose in response to homophobic attitudes + patriarchal resistance  - part of diversifying ‘new musicology’

What do Britten and Gloag question in relation to Brett’s article?

Brett 1977 article on Britten and reflections of his homosexuality in his opera Peter Grimes 

• Is it good to have awareness of the role queer people have had in culture?  

• OR is is positivists and essentialist to reduce musical features to a musicians sexuality/identity

Link Schubert, Steblin/Soloman

Also link the how many female composers were viewed. Wtriting ‘women’s music. E.g Smyth and Clarke accused of her music being ‘too masculine’ to written by a woman 

What did Fred Everett Maus write and when?

Music, Gender, and Sexuality 2012

How does Maus define sexuality?

Sexuality refers to feelings, actions and involes feelings behaviors and erotic desires – vagueness of this definition reflects vagueness of concept

What do Frith and McRobbie say about Foucault? When?

Foucaults emphasis on the construction of sexuality -> impact on interpretation of music - post-structuralism

What does Catherine Clément say about opera and when? How does this link to what Susan Rutherford said?

1978)

• opera presents misogynistic content in a seductive form 

Rutherford said

• love is ideal for opera’s narrative

What does Oliveros say about the canon in the 70s?

Proccupation with greatness in canon -> no new work

Link Citron

What does Oliveros say in her later works about analytical skills?

Analytical skills key to composition – but women are discouraged from ‘self-determining, purposive activity’ instead focus on being ‘receptive and dependent’ 

What does Oliveros say in her later works about penetration of music in 1984?

In a Psychology textbook she found idea that ‘music is a phallic phenomenon because it penetrate the body!’ -she argues we too can penetratemusic – music is not a one-way street 

• Perhaps the books assumes only men write music so women recieve it