Tokenism in the Representation of Women Composers on BBC Radio 3
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The Other Composer: Tokenism in the Representation of Women Composers on BBC Radio 3 Valerie Abma (5690323) Deadline: 15 juni, 2018 Begeleider: dr. Ruxandra Marinescu BA Eindwerkstuk Muziekwetenschap Universiteit Utrecht MU3V14004 2017-2018 Blok 4 Table of Contents Abstract.…………………………………….………………………………………………… 3 Introduction: The Other Composer.…………………...……………………………………… 4 Chapter 1: The Negligible Impact.……………………………….…………………………… 7 Chapter 2: BBC Radio 3 and its aims.………………………………………………………. 11 Chapter 3: BBC Radio 3 and its tokenism………………………………….…..…………….14 3.1: The BBC guidelines for diversity……………………………….……………….14 3.2: Programming…………………………………………………………………… 15 3.3: “Mind your language”.…………………….…………………………………… 17 Conclusion.…………………………………………………..……………………………… 20 Bibliography.…………………………………………………...…………………………… 22 BBC Website Data.……………………..…………………………………………… 25 Appendix 1.…………………………………………………………………………..……… 27 Appendix 2.…………………………………………..……………………………………… 31 Appendix 3.…………………………………………..……………………………………… 39 Appendix 4.…………………………………………...………………………………………44 2 Abstract This thesis focuses on the tokenism, which, as I will demonstrate, is present in the representation of women composers on BBC Radio 3. More specifically, this thesis looks at how tokenism hinders the equality in the representation of men and women composers. The presence of tokenism will be illustrated by data of BBC Radio 3 from 2015 until 2018. As long as compositions by women composers are programmed as tokens, and therefore only as a gesture of temporary change within a dedicated space signaled as such, women composers will not get included in the musical canon. Chapter 1 presents a brief history of feminist musicology and discusses how the key concepts of this thesis have been defined and addressed in musicology. Chapter 2 discusses the policies and guidelines of BBC radio of the past and present. Lastly, chapter 3 addresses the case study, which is an analysis of the latest published BBC Radio guidelines, programmes which were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from 2017 until June, 2018, and the language that is used concerning women composers in the descriptions of these radio programmes and on the BBC website. This thesis concludes that women composers have been used, and continue to be used nowadays, as tokens in the programming of BBC Radio 3, and that BBC shows very little understanding of the aims of its own guidelines concerning diversity adopted in September, 2017. This case study demonstrates the presence of tokenism in the musical canon in general and calls for permanent change. 3 The Other Composer In a milieu where dead composers are favored over the living, women composers are in an unfortunate position, as the Western classical music world is one that is dominated by men and was even more so in the past.1 However, the Western world is emancipating, and the music world is trying to do so as well. Research on women in music started to develop in the 1970s.2 In 1993, feminist musicologist Susan McClary wrote an article on musicology and feminism in the 1990s, in which she anticipated a bright future for feminist musicology. In this article she praised the amount of accomplishments that had been reached already and presented an overview of what had been reached up until 1993. Among other things, this overview listed the appearance of documented studies on women composers, the recognition of women composers of the distant past and present, and an increase in the amount of institutions offering courses on women in music.3 She stated that “feminist work concerning music has left its ghetto and broadened its scope to include reexaminations of the canon, standard methodologies, and much else.”4 She concluded that “it is anybody’s guess what will have transpired by the year 2000, but this much is clear: musicology has been permanently transformed by its encounter with feminism.”5 Looking at today’s state of the position of women in the Western classical music canon, this bright future McClary wrote about seems to be further than she anticipated. Women’s works seem to be praised more and more today. Complete radio programmes, concerts, and festivals are dedicated to women composers, often as an attempt to restore the balance of the inequality in the representation of men and women composers. Even though this may sound promising and quite the opposite of what I mentioned above, there is a problem: the canon is still overflowing with men composers – who mostly also happen to be Western and white – while women composers are scarcely represented in it. In this thesis, I argue that the problem lies in the separate stage that women get assigned to on a regular basis. Often, the dedications to women composers mentioned above tend to have the opposite effect, as those very same women composers are usually forgotten when it comes down to ‘the 1 In this thesis, I chose to write about ‘women composers’ instead of ‘female composers’, as the word ‘female’ would reduce the woman composer to her reproductive abilities. 2 Susan McClary, “Reshaping a Discipline: Musicology and Feminism in the 1990s,” Feminist Studies 19, no. 2 (1993): 399. 3 Ibid., 400-403. 4 Ibid., 399-423. 5 Ibid., 420. 4 usual’ radio programmes, concerts and festivals – those predominantly filled with men composers. These dedications to women composers are, in most cases, examples of tokenism, I will argue. The question that I will answer in this thesis is the following: how does tokenism hinder the equality in the representation of men and women composers on BBC Radio 3? In order to answer this question, I will, in the first chapter, present a brief history of feminist musicology in order to contextualise my discussion. This chapter also discusses several theoretical concepts that are used in this thesis, such as tokenism and canon. The second chapter discusses the policies and guidelines of BBC Radio – those set in the early days of BBC, the 1920s, and those of the present, 2017-2018. Finally, in the third chapter I will address the case study, BBC Radio 3, and analyse BBC’s new diversity guidelines for radio, the programming of several programmes which are broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and discuss the language which is used regarding women composers on the website of BBC in the descriptions of the programmes, in the annual celebration of women composers, and in a blogpost. The programmes I discuss are Composer of the Week, Breakfast, Essential Classics, Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, Afternoon Concert, Radio 3 in Concert, and Through the Night. The analysis of the programme Composer of the Week regards the programming of seventeen months – from January, 2017, until the first week of June, 2018. The analyses of the other programmes regard the programming of a week – from 24 May until 31 May, 2018. In conclusion, tokenism in the broadcasting of music by women composers is still present on BBC Radio 3. This tokenism is one of the causes that withholds women composers from being represented in the ‘usual canon’ and it keeps the binary – women composers versus men composers – alive. The programming of women composers as tokens does not provide the permanent change that is needed. The title of this thesis, ‘The Other Composer’, refers to the concept of the Other, which is deeply embedded in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but is used in multiple fields. “In theories of ideology, the Other is construed as the non-self who departs from, and simultaneously defines, the norms of a dominant social order, whether by sexuality, race or ethnicity.”6 In this thesis, the Other is the woman composer, who is the non-self in relation to the man composer. I chose to discuss BBC Radio 3 as a case study, as BBC is known for its proclaimed inclusiveness. BBC is a public radio that is listened to internationally, and therefore this radio 6 Peter Brooker, A Glossary of Literary and Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 2017), 201-203. 5 corporation is a leading example to many other institutions.7 Because of this exemplary position, BBC has a “standard-setting function” for other corporations around the world.8 It is therefore valuable to see whether this standard-setting corporation has an understanding of its own guidelines. This thesis reveals the tokenism that is still present on BBC Radio 3. Herein also lies the relevance of this thesis for future research. My discussion of the language that is used concerning the music of women composers, is in line with the recent musicological discussion of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction by David Clarke (2007), in which Clarke decodes the programme Late Junction, meaning that he searches for other meanings behind the content that is visible.9 I used his idea of decoding as my methodological framework in the third chapter. Other recent scholarly research on BBC Radio and its policies was done by Georgina Born, Chris Dromey, and Julia Haferkorn.10 7 Georgina Born, “Reflexivity and Ambivalence: Culture, Creativity and Government in the BBC,” Cultural Values 6, nos. 1 & 2 (2002): 65. 8 Georgina Born and Tony Prosser, “Culture and Consumerism: Citizenship, Public Service Broadcasting and the BBC’s Fair Trading Obligations,” The Modern Law Review 64, no. 5 (2001): 687. 9 David Clarke, “Beyond the Global Imaginary: Decoding BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction,” Radical Musicology 2 (2007). 10 See Georgina Born, Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (New York: Random House, 2011) and Chris Dromey and Julia Haferkorn, The Classical Music Industry (London: Routledge, 2018). 6 Chapter 1: The Negligible Impact Before I turn to look at BBC’s guidelines and radio programmes, I shall first contextualise the discussion by presenting a brief history of feminist musicology and explain how the key concepts of this thesis have been defined and addressed in musicology. Feminist musicology made its rise in the 1980s and has played a major role in making women composers and their music visible, both in the scholarly world and outside.