GENDER AND MUSIC
Associate Professor
Sally Macarthur, UWS
RESEARCH PUBLISHED AUSTRALIA COUNCIL
WEBSITE 2012
(ARTFACTS.AUSTRALIACOUNCIL.GOV.AU)
Women in music continue to be marginalised
 Stereotypes continue to be maintained and/or
perpetuated
80% of singer/songwriters are men
70% of music teachers are women
GENDER BREAKDOWN OF COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS
(AC WEBSITE)
FEMALE COMPOSERS – 27%
FEMALE MUSICIANS – 32%
Moya Henderson, 1989
Throsby D and Zednik A, 2010, ‘Do you really expect to get paid? An economic study of professional artists in Australia’
REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN COMPOSERS AT THE
AUSTRALIAN MUSIC CENTRE
Australian Music Centre increase incrementally, shifting from around 8% in the 80s, to
around 15% in the 90s, to 25%, which is where it is currently.
2014: Total ‘artists’ represented = 659
Male = 493 (75%)
Female = 166 (25%)
In stark contrast to their representation at the AMC, we have seen a backward-slide
in the performance of women’s music on Australian concert platforms. Is the 19th
century baggage (‘great’ composers = male) being dragged into the 21st century?
GROUPS/SOURCES SURVEYED 1985-95, MACARTHUR 1997
Sydney Morning Herald reviews
Concert programs for:
Musica Viva, SSO, ACO. AYO, SYO, SBS, Australia Ensemble, Opera Australia,
Camerata Australia
Song Company
Synergy, Seymour Group, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Australysis, Sydney Spring Festival
of New Music
Other: data from ABC Concerts, Australia Council and Australian Music Centre
PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN’S MUSIC IN CONCERT
HALLS (1985-95)
(MACARTHUR, 1997)
Survey of music performed by all groups (mainstream and contemporary and SMH)
between1985-95 showed that:
women’s music constituted less than 2% of all music performed (total:
15,216 works)
Findings skewed by canon-effect
Survey of music performed by Australian composers post-1950 showed that:
 women’s music constituted 12% of all music performed (total: 111
works)
 women’s representation by AMC in 90s approx. 15%
SNAPSHOT OF TWO CONTEMPORARY GROUPS (200311)
Ensemble Offspring (2003-11): women’s music constituted
29/285 works performed (10%)
Chronology Arts (2007-11): women’s music coconstituted
30/130 works (23%)
Table 1: Representation of Women’s Music in 2013 by the Network of New Music
SNAPSHOT OF 2013 (FROM NEW MUSIC NETWORK
WEBSITE)
GROUP
NO. MALE
NO. FEMALE
% FEMALE
What is Music
Fat Rain Music
Decibel
Song Company
Taikoz
Ensemble Offspring
Continuum Sax
Kammer Ensemble
Sound Stream Collective
Aphids
Halcyon
Chamber Made Opera
Chronology Arts
Speak Percussion
Altman/Brookes Duo
Tom O'Halleran
Ellen Winhall
Tangents
TOTAL
3
6
12
1
1
6
4
3
4
2
2
1
5
13
9
1
6
1
80
0
0
3
0
0
2
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
9
0%
0%
25%
0%
0%
33%
0%
0%
0%
0%
50%
100%
20%
0%
7%
0%
0%
0%
11%
Moya Henderson, 1989
DATA FOR NEW MUSIC GROUPS (1995)
GROUP
NO. MALE
NO. FEMALE
%
FEMALE
Song Company
7
3
43%
Sydney Alpha Ensemble
5
3
60%
Sydney Spring Festival of New
Music
19
9
47%
Australysis
16
1
6%
Synergy
2
0
0%
Seymour Group
6
3
50%
TOTAL
55
19
35%
1995 women’s music represented 35%
of the music performed in new music
venues.
2013 women’s music represented only
11% of the music performed.
Indicates that the situation worse in
2013 than it was in the 1990s.
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
Gender mainstreaming a globally accepted strategy for ensuring neutrality while championing
equality in the workplace and guiding people to conduct themselves according to norms.
Feminist critiques suggest norm is male therefore forces women to become like men
According to Wittman, while the global gender equality landscape has been widely adopted
internationally, its radical potential to transform organizations has not been fulfilled (Wittman
2010). It is therefore ineffective.
Braidotti’s view, gender mainstreaming is an anti-feminist mechanism that perpetuates the
marginalization of women (2006: 45)…a classic master- and pro-capitalist narrative because
it considers financial success as the sole indicator of the status of women. It reintroduces the
syndrome of the ‘exceptional woman’. The pernicious part of this syndrome is that it ‘fosters a
new sense of isolation among women and hence new forms of vulnerability’ (Braidotti 2006:
45)
AUSTRALIA SIMILAR TO FINDINGS OVERSEAS
Adkins Chiti (2003): less than 0.5% of women’s music performed by European
orchestras (see Macarthur 2010, 27)
Fowler (2006): data gathered for 1989-2006 shows that women’s music constitutes
less than 1% of music performed
Hirsch (2008): 30% of composers women at Berkely and Stony Brook but concert
programs of 2004 concert season (League of American Orchestras), only 1% of
music performed by women, and in 2005 rose to 2%, boosted by Tower’s Fanfare (see
Macarthur 2010, 25)
POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION
A tool of affirmative action: favours
individuals in groups which suffer from
discrimination
Works in the short-term e.g. Restrung New
Music Festival, Brisbane 2012:
61% of music performed by women
PROBLEMS WITH POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION
For positive discrimination to be effective requires vigilant surveillance of and
intervention
Given difficulty of monitoring new music groups over long periods of time, such a
strategy unlikely to succeed.
Affirmative action policies can be politically and socially divisive, stigmatising those
who have benefitted and compromising the self-esteem and self-respect of
beneficiaries who know they have been given preferential treatment (Allen 2011).
PROBLEMS WITH FEMINIST WORK
Polarises male/female
Perpetuates ‘cringe’ factor – women’s work seen as less important so women prefer
to be mainstreamed/normalised/ neutralised/masculinised
 ‘woman composer’ a negative label
And The ‘Woman Composer’ is Dead
By Amy Beth Kirsten, March 19, 2012
SOLUTIONS?
Need to discuss identity categories in ways that shift from hierarchical (negative)
difference to positive difference (Deleuze) e.g. the idea that difference isn’t good or
bad but simply different or, in a Deleuzian sense, continuously different
(differenciation)
Correction needs to come from men as well as women (but not in ways that are
patronising)
Need to get beyond naming and blaming at level of individual e.g. Gillard misogyny
speech
I rise to oppose the motion moved by the Leader of the
Opposition. And in so doing I say to the Leader of the
Opposition I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by
this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured
about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.
DOES THE SITUATION IMPROVE WITH THE ‘NEW’
WORLD ORDER OF DIGITAL MUSIC-MAKING?
It’s over to Cat Hope to tell us about this but I leave you with this cartoon from
Wilcox: