Ben Kelly UNIV 112 Integrated Research

How have women been systematically oppressed in Music [Ben Kelly]

Women in Music

Women in music as performers and as music makers and composers have historically been censored and shoved aside as artists to make way for males. Music performance and composition is still today a male­dominated field, with women usually taking niche roles. As in the case of Vi Redd, jazz saxophonist, who said “‘he [Basie] didn’t let me play [alto saxophone] much because Marshal [Royal, the lead alto player for the Basie band] didn’t like it. When I was singing, they were happy, but as soon as I started playing, they didn’t like that.’Clearly she was accepted more as a singer than as a saxophonist” (Suzuki 8). This way of fitting women into a box musically occurs also in composition. Because composition in schools was so hostile towards women and because music has historically been so exclusive to men, women have taken ​ to creating private women­only composers organizations to compose with their kind, and without malicious scrutiny (Hershenson). However, the existence of women­only group for composers is only a reminder of the problem, even if it is progression, says Ruth Schonthal (Hershenson).

There are many barriers for women in the creation of music, not just as performers, where one might see them the most.

Women as Music Makers

Roberta Hershenson, freelance writer on musical subjects for the legendary newspaper

The New York Times, in her article entitled “Female Composers Seeking Parity” paints a picture ​ of the status of women composers in the 80’s and throughout history, and their fight for equal status. She goes through several examples of inequality in the musical field for non­male composers. This includes composers like Elizabeth Bell. “When Elizabeth Bell was in college in

1950, she was told that women couldn’t be composers. ‘Women don't have the strength,’ a teacher said. ‘That made me so mad I had to do it,’ declared Ms. Bell, who has since produced an impressive list of musical compositions, including a symphony”(Hershenson). This is a perfect example of how male oppression has kept women down in terms of making music. Bell found the drive to compose anyway, but imagine how many women before and after her believed that teacher, or where at the very least discouraged by it, and decided to not compose. Even with barriers like this that discourage women from ever composing, there are still more for those that did. Prolific composer and pianist Ruth Schonthal estimates that there were 8,000 to 10,000 composers of concert music in the United states, about 2,000 of whom were women. ‘There has been a lot of good music lying in the closet,’ she said”(Hershenson). This just goes to show that even after you get to the composition stage, the actual performance stage becomes trickier.

Women face just as much prejudice, if not more, as performers as composers. This is true in many types of music, especially including classical and jazz.

Women as Performers

Music writer and saxophonist Yoko Suzuki’s article “Invisible Woman: Vi Redd’s

Contribution as a Jazz Saxophonist,” from American Music Review sheds light on a since ​ ​ forgotten jazz saxophonist and singer, Vi Redd. The article tells of her triumphs as a musician in a almost entirely male dominated field and the stigma around woman instrumentalists in Jazz music in the 60’s and 70’s. The 2013 article shares the many jazz greats that Vi played with, and goes into detail as to why they are remembered as legends while she is forgotten. Vi Redd stands out as a performer in both the jazz world and in general because she plays the saxophone, an instrument that’s masters in the history of music are almost exclusively male. This rarity might seem to be a sign of progress to some, but to the jazz players of the 60’s and seventies, a woman playing saxophone was much unwanted competition. Female jazz performers faced opposition at all sides, explains Karin Pendles’ Women and Music: a history. Karin Pendle, writer of Rugene ​ ​ ​ Scribe and French Opera of the Nineteenth Century, among others, brings her musicologist ​ knowledge to the collection of historical tidbits known as Woman and Music: A History. This ​ ​ book is pretty much exactly what it says it is, a history of women and music, starting from ancient forms of music to contemporary american popular music. It states that “men typically refused to take women seriously as gifted musicians and did not welcome them as competitors for jobs. At the same time, almost no role models existed for women as jazz artists, and their families seldom supported their career aspirations” (Pendle 290). In addition, “More recently, in his discussion of "the gender problem" in jazz, the historian Neil Leonard observed: ‘Women function in secondary roles as pianists, singers, dancers, den mothers, homemakers, breadwinners, and sex objects, but seldom are firstline musicians’” (Pendle 289). ​ So it is easy to see why fantastic jazz players like Vi Redd might as well not even exist to modern jazz players, because she was seldom hired to play saxophone, and was seldom recorded. Vi had help from others to try and get her recorded, but because she was a woman instrumentalist, a rarity in jazz, no recording company wanted to take the chance(Suzuki 6). So women as jazz performers, had a ridiculous number of obstacles to overcome to become successful. The biggest one being “jazz is fundamentally an oral tradition, which the young typically learn by playing with established figures. Systematically excluded from entry­level ​ opportunities and denied the essential period of apprenticeship, women players were rarely able to develop their talents to a professional level, let alone establish themselves as viable jazz artists”(Pendle 290). Amazingly though, Vi Redd did manage to become very successful outside the recording studio, performing with the likes of Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Still though, she faced obstacles from these two. Dizzy Gillespie,often introduced Vi on stage in many patronizing and chauvinistic ways, including calling her a woman that had been “enjoyed many times before.” (Suzuki 6). Jazz is not the only venue in which women faced oppression as performers. In classical music too, there is much turmoil. Unlike jazz, which thrived through women in its early history, (The oral traditions of early african american music thrived with the women of the typical black household. (Pendle 283)), Classical music has historically been male dominated. This is especially true with things like medieval chants. This is evident in the way all female groups that perform this music are taken, like Anonymous 4 and Sequentia Vox. “As

Knighton suggested in her first “Women’s Music” review, part of all women’s ensembles’ success depends on the familiarity listeners have with the all­male traditions—the cathedral choir tradition in the United Kingdom, the boy choir tradition in Austria and Germany, and the recent interest in Gregorian chant in American popular culture.”(Yri 8) So what Yri is saying is that

Listeners require a background in medieval culture to appreciate all female choirs, because otherwise there would be much less interest. They must think that medieval chant is a guy’s club to appreciate that girls can do it too (Yri 8). This is explained in the journal Women and Music by ​ ​ Kristen Yri. Musicologist and writer for Women and Music, Kristen Yri’s article “Remaking the ​ ​ Past” discusses the inherent spiritual and feminist messages sent by two all­female choirs that perform medieval chants other vocal works. The 2008 article draws from critics reactions to the groups to illustrate a larger message about females performing music from a male­dominated field. The perception of all female choir music like this is shaped by the negative opinions as well. An all female ensemble is seen as a feminist move onto the male dominated world, an annexing of land in the male dominated country of medieval chant (Yri 2), and the perception of an all female choir is that it is a political statement instead of what it is at face value, and the musicality of the group can be lost because of this (Yri 2). So this goes to show that it is indeed an odd thing to bring women into music like this, and that takes away from the music, when it really should not. The music should be taken at face value, not by the gender of those performing it. This is really the essence of the gender problem in music. Gender should really not take a role at all. Music is music, regardless of who’s making it.

Annotated Bibliography

Hershenson, Roberta. "Female Composers Seeking Parity" New York Times. New York Times, ​ ​ ​ 1 May 1987: Web. 2015.

This article was found using the LexisNexus, using the search terms “music” and “women” [Ben

Kelly]

Pendle, Karin. Women & Music: A History. Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 1991. Print. ​ ​ This book was found using the VCU library search engine, using the terms “women” and

“music.” [Ben Kelly]

Suzuki, Yoko. “Invisible Woman: Vi Redd’s Contributions as a Jazz Saxophonist.” American ​ Music Review 42 (2013): 5­10. Print. ​ This Article was found using Academic Search Complete using the search terms “Jazz” and

“women.” [Ben Kelly]

Yri, Kristen. “Remaking the Past: Feminist Spirituality in Anonymous 4 and Sequentia’s Vox

Feminae.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 12 (2008): 1­21. Print. ​ ​ This article was found using the VCU library journal search using the terms “women” and

“music.” [Ben Kelly]