Música y género

Music and Gender

OVERVIEW
Scholarly studies of gender and sexuality became highly visible during the late 1980s and 1990s, constituting an unusual conjunction of music research and political involvement. When female scholars wrote from feminist perspectives, or self-identified gay, lesbian, and bisexual scholars wrote from anti-homophobic perspectives, the research was also personal,highlighting aspects of individual identity.
Studies of gender became especially important in historical musicology and ethnomusicology. Various fora emerged, including the series of biannual conferences, "Feminist Theory and Music," that began in 1991. Monographs and edited collections appeared (Bowers and Tick 1986, Koskoff 1987, Citron 1993, Solie 1993, Cook and Tsou, 1997). A journal, Women &Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, appeared from 1997. LGTBQ studies became visible and well-organized in historical musicology (Brett, Wood, and Thomas 1994). From 1997, the American Musicological Society offered an annual award, the Philip Brett Prize, for LGBTQ studies of music. The second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001), the leading English-languageencyclopedia of musicology, added articles such as "Feminism," "Gay and Lesbian Music," "Gender," and "Women in Music."
Work on gender and sexuality in popular music studies mostly developed independently of academic musicology and ethnomusicology, partly through connections between popular music studies and sociology, partly through journalism (Frith and McRobbie 1978, Gill 1995, Whiteley 1997).Meanwhile, some scholars in historical musicology extended their analysis of gender and sexuality from classical music to popular music (McClary 1991).
Any socially-oriented study of music-making deals with social life that is structured by differences of gender and sexuality. The history of European art music includes the frequent exclusion of women from careers in composition, the acceptanceand power of female performers in certain restricted contexts, and the prominence in twentieth-century Europe and America of gay male composers. Popular music industries offer distinct roles for men and women (Leonard 2007), and have made complex use of the imperfectly-hidden presence of gay men and lesbians as pop performers. Popular music audiences and fandoms typically involve aspects ofgender and sexuality. The groups described by ethnomusicologists often have different musical practices for men and women; until recently, ethnomusicology gave less attention to women's musics. Musical practices reflect and contribute to the gender and sexuality arrangements of their social settings.
Relations of gender and sexuality to musical meaning may be less obvious. Still, at least whenmusic has representational aspects, there are relations to gender and sexuality. Male/female difference and heterosexuality are central in almost all operatic plots. In song or program music, gender and sexuality are often pertinent. Schumann's Dichterliebe and Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony articulate masculine perspectives on heterosexual love. The male protagonist in each work expressesresentment toward the woman in the story because she fails to return his desire; this displays his assumption of masculine entitlement. When audiences or critics treat such works reverently, rather than questioning the protagonist’s understanding of his situation, they show unselfconscious misogyny, which feminist criticism can appropriately disparage.
Representational aspects may seem to belong tolibretti, song texts, and programs rather than to "music itself." But criticism treats music as expressive in these contexts, and music helps to create gendered personalities for operatic characters and other characters depicted in musical works. An account of gender in such representational works should extend to consider the contribution of music to the representation of gender.
Instrumental,...