Gender has certainly played a role in my personal experiences with music, in both consuming and performing it. It's safe to say that different instruments have different expectations tied to them, and the flute has been no exception to this.
In the middle and high school world that I grew up in, the flute has always been seen as a "girl" instrument. It's something that shifted completely from being historically male dominated. The sections and ensembles I played in would usually have one or two boys, if any at all. Most of the time those boys weren't relentlessly made fun of, but they would receive the occasional comment and oftentimes people would assume they were gay. Some certainly were, but I don't really think that had anything to do with the instrument they chose. I'm not sure what led the flute to start being seen as a feminine instrument instead of a masculine one, but exploring that shift is something I'm interested in doing. In most recent years, I have seen this rigid idea start to let loose. The flute section at my high school now is made of about 1/3 boys, maybe more. Even just a year apart, the makeup of my high school lessons teacher's studio events has shifted from this:
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To this:
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My own queerness has also played a small role in the way I see all of this. In my early schooling, sections were often composed of hyperfeminine straight girls. This is all fine, just something I definitely noticed as I remember being in middle school and confused about myself, and I would compare myself to others in both our playing and ways of expression. I have also seen this shift as I've gotten older. Many of the groups I've been in recently have had lots of variety in gender and sexuality combinations.
Another aspect of music affected by gender is education and leadership. Though this is not absolute, I've always thought it was interesting the way that the teaching positions seen as "women's jobs" have been things like middle/elementary music and choir, while many high school teachers and band directors are expected to be men. Men are expected to be in charge of marching bands, while women are the color guard instructors. Again, this has certainly started to shift, it's just a common pattern that I've noticed.
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In a similar vain to that, I was a drum major in my high school's marching band for two years. It's nice to see plenty of female drum majors these days, the way it's not seen as an abnormal thing. Despite this, I still felt some pressure to be just a little bit louder and a little bit more assertive than I would need to be if I was a guy. I feel that this is something faced by women all over the conducting world, and I hope to see it continue to change.
Besides participating in music, I have also observed the way gender roles affect what we listen to, and how those genres are then viewed. This is not a new take by any means, but I do believe that music commonly enjoyed by teenage girls and young women tends to be less respected than many other types of music. It's certainly okay if cheesy pop music is not your cup of tea personally, but I think it's a little reductive to automatically write it off as something that has no value. That kind of thinking is what prevented me from having my One Direction phase earlier in life. That being said, here's one of their fun boyband songs that I now can enjoy unashamedly:
I enjoy seeing that sections are starting to become more diverse. It’s so good to see the shift in sections becoming more inclusive of gender and sexuality. I had never thought about how certain teaching jobs were seen as more feminine or masculine, but that has definitely been true throughout my schooling. I remember when my first band director left my high school and a new woman director took over a lot of people talked about quitting the band because she was a woman and they thought marching band wouldn’t be good because she would be too nice to run it.
ReplyDeleteI also think how it's interesting how the perception of an instrument becomes more masculine or feminine over periods of time. Over this past summer I got to perform in a concert conducted by three amazing women. Afterwards I got to talk with them and they talked about having to be a woman in conducting. I think it's really great that these areas are starting to become more diverse!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in eighth grade, my highschool had a male color guard instructor, which a lot of the band students would make comments about, but the color guard loved him, and he was on of the best guard director we had regardless of his sexual orientation or gender. And now it makes me very happy to see such a diverse collection of people of doing music in our school and all over!
ReplyDeleteIt's so cool the way stereotypes in high school bands are becoming less and less true. Our color guard director my freshman year was a woman, but she moved away and we ended up with a gay couple who is very good for the group.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to being a female drum major and how it is nice now that it is not an abnormal thing. Even back when I was in high school, four years ago, it was not common to have female drum majors. I always felt kind of by myself. I was the second female drum major in well over 20 years at the high school I graduated from. It was nice to break some "traditions" and spice things up.
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