08/03/2019 – KIEM x Music Matters: International Woman’s Day Symposium

Lecture with L.J. Müller: ‘Hearing Gender Dynamics in Music’

Feminist musicologists have long struggled with normative analytical methods and seemingly neutral music conceptions that tend to exclude bodies and feelings (e.g. Cusick, McClary). Even further, feminist epistemologies, like Donna Haraway’s situated knowledge, draw into question traditional conceptions of music as objects of study. Eventually with the expansion of popular music studies, theorists found it necessary to widen established perspectives and conceptions of music, to forge models which focus more on relations between subjects and sounds (e.g. DeNora, Shepherd/Wicke, Wicke). Yet still conceptions related to gender alongside wide-spread examples of sexism seem difficult to grasp when considering the more ephemeral qualities of sound. Therefore, from a feminist standpoint, the question arises whether normative conceptions of music and analytical methods might still tend to veil aspects of music that are relevant for the reproduction of gendered inequalities.

In my presentation, I first pose questions about the (possible) aims of music analysis and then deliver a feminist critique of normative conceptions. Inspired by a feminist approach, I’ll discuss some alternatives and propose new ways of hearing gender and sexist dynamics in the sound through representative examples of popular music. With these examples, I argue that a male gaze and performative gender production continually takes place in music and can be meaningfully discussed not only through socio-cultural contexts but also within forms of music analysis. I not only hope to broaden the understanding of the cultural re-/production of sexist dynamics embedded in sound, but also to increase reflexivity about music-analytical tools and to motivate creativity in the finding of alternatives.