Music and Gender

Gender inequality has consistently been a large topic of debate for several years, and the world of music has yet to fully escape this continuing issue. Although some of these debates are more obvious ( i.e. the question of “Girls really can play tuba?”), there are also reversed gender inequality issues within the music world.

When I was in Middle School and High School I can remember the “norm” regarding the instrumentation and gender question in our band was simply that the girls were to play the upper winds, and guys were to play the lower winds/brass (ironically, there never seemed to be any “non-written” rules governing the percussion section…). This seemed to continue for a while until the unspeakable happened, a male student entered our High School band, and against all the “non-written” laws of the band, played flute. I never saw anything odd with this (I had been in ensembles in the area with plenty of male flutists), but our school seemed to be in an uproar. Eventually this student quit due to obnoxious remarks and insults that were regularly handed out to him. This was probably the first time that I ever thought about the gender inequality that exists in the world of music.

This experience with gender inequality amongst music was simply a brief encounter with a much larger issue. I fully believe that a lot of the stereotypes regarding instrument choices and gender are practically forced upon us from a young age. I know that this is a bit of a stretch, but for the most part a lot of aspects of media ( i.e. movies, television shows, books, etc.) seem to portray varying degrees of stereotypes regarding this subject. I can remember commercials from years ago centered around music stores and sure enough every child playing a high wind instrument was a dainty female, while the low wind player was inevitably a bright-eyed male. In most cases this interaction with aspects of media is a first glimpse that a child has of musical instruments. Like I mentioned before, I know this is a stretch, but in most every Middle School as children are lining up to sign up to play a particular instrument the adult at the front table handling the “signing-up” process can probably predict what instrument each child will request, simply by gender (and if a child chooses something outside of the “norm“, this adult will more than likely express their shock in some outward way). In our modern society, this should not happen, and thankfully seems to be occurring less and less with every year.

I know that I have slightly strayed away, but in all actuality I have only witnessed aspects of gender inequality amongst music in small doses (I mean, I am female, and I play flute and oboe… the only gender inequality I have experienced personally is that people predict I play one of these instruments before I ever say anything). With regards to my experience of music here at Converse, all I can say is that clearly we are proof of the lasting effects of gender inequality. Simply put, how many female brass instrumentalists have you witnessed in any Converse ensemble? Not many. However, I do not think that this has greatly altered my musical experience.