Why Men Play Instruments and Women Sing

By Josh Middleton 

Whether we believe that gender inequality is a social construct or a natural phenomenon, it is plain that locally, globally, and historically (since a true matriarchy has never existed) it is men who hold the power. Music has always held power too, a power it bestows on those who wield it. On top of this, instruments hold a certain control over music, be it harmonic, rhythmic or melodic. Thus, instruments, and their masters have many social connotations of control and importance. Hélèn La Rue writes: ‘The mere ownership of an instrument may be limited to those of high social status, and these instruments may in turn become insignia of that status.’ This said, there is an interesting correlation between women’s restricted access to instruments in history, and women’s restricted access to power in history. There are many cultures across the world in which men play instruments and women sing. Ankica Petrović’s study of the Dinaric cultural zone of former Yugoslavia reveals women observe ‘a taboo against any direct contact with traditional musical instruments – playing or even touching them’. Even when women are ‘allowed’ to play certain instruments, often there are certain instruments they can play, and certain instruments they cannot, in Swedish folk music for example ‘Women don’t play the fiddle, they play the horn’.

In Western Pop music, we find this division of labour is undeniably apparent. “Ask the average person to think of some famous women guitarists,” writes Mavis Bayton, “and they will be hard pushed to come up with a single name.” Indeed, she goes on to mention that in Issue 31 of Mojo magazine published in June 1996, of the ‘100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time’ only three were women. It is true the world of Pop music is overrun with boys and their guitars, basses and drum kits. There have been many very successful all-male bands and their members nearly always play instruments and are often referred to individually as ‘the drummer from Blur’ or ‘the Guitarist from The Killers’. These men own their music, because they visibly make it with their instruments, and therefore appear to the public as in control. There are also many successful all-female bands though you’d have to look very hard, past The Supremes, Destiny’s Child and The Sugarbabes, and bypass All Saints, the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud (basically all the famous ones), to find a single one of these women playing an instrument. To the public eye therefore, they are not seen as the creators of their music, as is the case with their male counterparts, because it seems the music is created (by men in the industry) for them to sing to, just as their image is created (by men in the industry) for them to wear. It is also difficult to be a sex object when there is a drum kit or guitar between your body and your male consumers, therefore singers/dancers are the more popular choice for female Pop stars. Of course men can also feature in all-vocal ‘Boy Bands’ too such as Westlife and One Direction, and this is considered ‘normal’, however, girls in rock bands for instance The Slits, are labelled by the mainstream as ‘feminist’ bands, many of which came about specifically as a reaction to the problem outlined, and are therefore marginalised from the mainstream as a ‘niche’ market and not taken seriously in the mainstream.

The world of Western Art Music has also historically favoured men as instrumentalists. It wasn’t until the waning of the nineteenth century that orchestras ceased to be strictly all-male, as it was considered ‘socially unacceptable’ for women to perform in public’. Preventing women to perform in public is to deny them access to the power of public music performance, which I will discuss in more detail later.  Even when female instrumentalists finally did start to get work professionally, they were looked down on by male musicians as inferior, as piansist Asta Ek proclaims: ‘Women musicians – They were worth nothing!’ In fact, so strong has this prejudice been that the first female member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra – a harpist of course – only joined in 1997.  Of course female singers have been prevalent in Western Art Music since the birth of Opera as we know it – the earliest surviving score being widely considered as Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, which contains several soprano vocal roles for women.

In rural Turkey, in another place and culture entirely, we find the music, especially that of weddings, gives more proof of the labour-divide in music. For a start, women’s music is described, according to Suzanne Ziegler, as ‘private, for personal purposes only, and not accompanied by an instrument. In rural Turkey it is considered ayip (shameful) if women perform in public’. Women’s music is described as ‘strictly vocal, accompanied by the frame drum’ while men’s music is instrumental. An analysis of both men and women’s music lead to the conclusion that ‘the women perform the song in a strict way, reduced to a simple melody, almost without deviation and a simple form of rhythmic accompaniment. The same song in the interpretation of the davul/zurna (men’s instruments) shows a long-winded, embellished melody, and gives instrumentalists the possibility for individual enrichment.’ Women’s music ‘does not allow individual elements’ while in men’s music ‘everybody is free to execute the piece in his own personal manner’. Self-expression is a powerful thing, and giving the opportunity to men and not women is to deny these women power – the power to present themselves as individuals, rather than simply just another domestic servant with no view or opinion.

 So why is it that the musical instruments are monopolised by men? First we must look at the associations between men and instruments. ‘The traditional view of the male gender role in western societies emphasises power, strength, aggressiveness, competitiveness and logic, while the female role involves nurturing, cooperativeness and emotion.’ Power leads to control, and musical instruments have the power to control music. As Ellen Korskoff writes: ‘Although all performance may be regarded as a locus of power, performance on musical instruments is often bound up with cultural notions of gender and control in ways that vocal performance is not.’ Women on the other hand, like singing, are associated with emotion. ‘Femininity involves socially manufactured psychical, mechanical and technical helplessness, while Masculinity involves a display of technical competence.’ Instruments are technical, and require technical competence and so are often associated with men. Doubleday talks of ‘male monopolies over weapons and mechanical tools’ and ‘long established traditions whereby women are not expected to acquire the necessary technological skills for making, maintaining, tuning and playing complex musical instruments’. This was demonstrated by the Turkish women being given the simple frame drum to play, while the men can play the more complex and technical davul and zurna. Again we come back to control as a major factor in the realm of musical instruments as a male area. Men are expected to learn the technical skills required and therefore acquire control over the instrument, women are not given this chance.

So how do men achieve this monopoly on musical instruments? Exclusion is a good way to ensure this, from the earlier mentioned social rules regarding playing instruments in many societies – forbid a women from touching an instrument and it is unlikely she will master it – to the culture of musicianship, we find exclusion a powerful tool for men. Mavis Bayton refers to informal male friendship groups as crucial learning environments. ‘‘Teenage women are not often welcomed into male music-making cliques thus do not generally get the insider information and tips which are routinely traded within them. Male musicians tend to be possessive about such technical information.’ Knowledge is power, and this information becomes a source of power and control not accessible to women. This same point is stressed by Doubleday too: ‘When any class of people wishes to maintain control over a particular musical instrument, an exclusive instrument-human relationship is developed, forbidding outsider access. On a general level, this pattern has been common among male professional instrumentalists… Some professional monopolies are hereditary, and even caste-related, with specialised knowledge being handed down from father or uncle to son or nephew. Ideally at least, these musicians work within closed systems in which masculine power and prestige can be maintained and guarded.’ This is strikingly similar to Bayton’s comments on Rock music and it seems this method of closed male groups ‘guarding masculine power and prestige’ is apparent in many western and non-western cultures, and goes some way to explain how it is that men have managed to keep instruments as their province.

Another key element of musical performance which men can control is space. Space is what gives power to performance. For example, a group of actors performing a scene on stage hold much more power than a group preforming the same scene on the street, or rehearsing at a friend’s house. Daphne Spain states ‘By controlling access to knowledge and resources through the control of space, the dominant groups’s ability to retain and reinforce its position is enhanced.’ This is also mentioned in Doubleday’s writings in relation to instruments: ‘The control of public space, or ritual or sacred space for the performance of instrumental music has important implications, perhaps most notably the assignment of prestige and honour to those occupying it. Moreover, musical instruments may be stored in male-only space, and this is one of several possible techniques whereby males maintain gender-exclusive control of instruments’. Examples of this everywhere, from guitar shops in the West, which are often considered ‘male’ spaces, to instrumental music of the Middle East, to the ‘sacred flutes’ of Papua New Guinea. There have been and still are many laws (religious and otherwise) which restrict women’s access to public space. For example during the Qing dynasty in China (1644-1911) women were entirely excluded from public spaces,  and in Iran today the performance of solo female voice is banned in public to the chagrin of female vocalists like Gissoo Shakeri.

All of these restrictions, laws, taboos and social rules regarding women and music are based on the restricting women’s power. Ankica Petrović’s study of Dinaric women shows how women’s freedom of public expression corresponds to their status in society, which, while born ‘second class citezens’, changes during different stage in their lives. The first public performance of a girl corresponds with her transition to womanhood (and the social and sexual power she receives from being a single woman available for marriage). Her freedom of expression then ‘comes to a halt with marriage’ (and the subservient role she acquires as a domestic servant obedient to her husband). After menopause, women ‘undergo an upgrading of social status’ and this allows them much greater freedom of expression publicly. Social status (power) in this case therefore directly correlates to freedom of expression. Tullia Magrini writes how in many Mediterranean cultures music provided the opportunity for women to ‘assert a different, more empowered female identity,’ showing music as a means of empowerment, and addressing why in patriarchal societies (most societies) men have higher social status than women and therefore women are not permitted the opportunity of musical empowerment to the same degree as men. Musical empowerment is addressed by Doubleday as she writes ‘there is also a political dimension to male public instrumental performance, and prestigious male instrumental ensembles have frequently sustained and enhanced images of male authority and leadership’ and Carol Robertson notes that public instrumental performance can be a ‘ritual enactment of male supremacy’. Though there are many instruments that are the sole province of men, ‘women mostly play instruments that men also play’, and there is ‘no evidence’ of women prescribing when instruments men may play.

There is also the association with music, and musical instruments, and women with sexual power. ‘Music is very often concerned with the arousing and channelling of desire, with mapping patterns through the medium of sound that resemble those of sexuality’. Musical instruments too have long been sexual symbols, demonstrated from the ‘Three Ages of Man’ by Titian to Prince’s ejaculating electric guitar on his 1984 tour. ‘The power of instrumental sound attracts attention and may express sexual aspirations. Instruments may be treated as sexual symbols, and beliefs in the sexual power of instrumental music help to explain why instrumental music is a strongly male preserve’. Often the reasons for forbidding the use of instruments are based on sexual grounds. The reasons given by men for the taboo on Dinaric women touching musical instruments are not clear other than that it would be ‘a disgrace’ and the ethnomusicologist concludes that ‘instruments are in some way associated with sexuality, or that the instruments may actually be seen as sexual symbols’. In Middle Eastern music, the control of female sexuality is closely linked to restrictions on their use of instruments. Korskoff writes that ‘cultural beliefs in women’s inherent sexuality may motivate the separation of or restriction upon women’s activities.’  This is clearly the case as we see in Iran, the Art Censorship programme declares that ‘prohibited are inappropriate lyrics, especially those that declare love for anyone but Allah, grammatical errors, solo female singers.’ This give further example of the repression of female sexuality, and men’s fear of the female voice to wield sexual power over men. This ties in with the Islamic notion that women are feared for their disruptive potential to create fitna (chaos) provoked by sexual disorder.’  Women’s singing in public is prohibited in some Orthodox Jewish societies too for the same reasons – associations of the women’s voice with sexuality. The reason for religious or political degrees regarding women’s public musical performance stems from ‘the desire to control female sexuality.’  This leads me to conclude that to prevent women from performing music in public is to deny them wielding of sexual power which could threaten the power of men in patriarchal societies.

 Gender is learned and performed according to the society in which one exists, It is ‘real only to the extent that it is performed.’ It is ‘a project with social survival at its end’, and stating that: ‘Performing one’s gender wrong initiates a set of punishments both obvious and indirect, and performing it well provides the reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after all. That this reassurance is so easily displaced by anxiety, that culture so readily punishes or marginalizes those who fail to perform the illusion of gender essentialism should be sign enough that on some level there is social knowledge that the truth or falsity of gender is only socially compelled and in no sense ontologically necessitated.’ This holds many parallels with many cultural attitudes towards music being socially compelled and in no sense ontologically necessitated. People perform and accept their musical gender roles as ‘natural’, by not, for example, playing the instruments designated for men, and beliefs may be held that women lack the technical or physical competence to play a certain instruments. Just as it is clear that a man is equally capable of fulfilling a ‘woman’s role’ in society (domestic work and childcare) and that traditional roles are, as Butler says, a performative fiction, so of course when a woman gains access to an instrument that ‘only men can play’, it soon becomes clear that she is equally as capable as any man at the task. However, when something is the social ‘norm’ it is accepted as it is, and not questioned, simply because it is ‘normal’. A ‘lack of role models means that even if women wanted to play electric guitar they wouldn’t believe it possible. To do so would ‘break the norms of femininity’. Doubleday notes the circular nature of the argument ‘This instrument is played by men, it is therefore masculine, and therefore men have the right to play it, and to exclude women from access,’ which is also used about gender roles in general – ‘Cooking is done by women, it is therefore a feminine activity, and therefore cooking is women’s work, and not that of men.’ The root of all these roles and attitudes are not in truth or reality, but in social compulsion.