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%

Throsby D and Zednik A, 2010, ‘Do you really expect to get paid? An economic study of professional artists in Australia’

Moya Henderson, 1989

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 (2003-11)

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%)

SNAPSHOT OF 2013 (FROM NEW MUSIC NETWORK WEBSITE)

GROUP NO. MALE NO. FEMALE % FEMALE

What is Music 3 0 0%Fat Rain Music 6 0 0%Decibel 12 3 25%Song Company 1 0 0%Taikoz 1 0 0%Ensemble Offspring 6 2 33%Continuum Sax 4 0 0%Kammer Ensemble 3 0 0%Sound Stream Collective 4 0 0%Aphids 2 0 0%Halcyon 2 1 50%Chamber Made Opera 1 1 100%Chronology Arts 5 1 20%Speak Percussion 13 0 0%Altman/Brookes Duo 9 1 7%Tom O'Halleran 1 0 0%Ellen Winhall 6 0 0%Tangents 1 0 0%TOTAL 80 9 11%

Table 1: Representation of Women’s Music in 2013 by the Network of New Music

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 WORKPolarises 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 DeadBy 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: