This is a paper begun in 1999 and currently in the process of
revision.
WOMEN IN MUSIC: AN EXPLORATORY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
I. INTRODUCTION.
Music is certainly one of women's oldest professions.
In the 8th century, Jamila, an Arabian songstress conducted the
first touring orchestra of 50 female musicians who regularly made
the pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca. Since then, female
contributions to composition and performance have been legion and
are well documented. However the distribution across the range
of musical activities is profoundly skewed with reference to men.
This is as true of the production, distribution and
entrepreneurial fields of the music industry as well as the
'creative' areas. Likely the distribution of earnings is also
highly skewed but there is no hard data to substantiate this.
This is a striking phenomenon as the physicality explanation that
might be adduced in the case of sport and some manual jobs is not
applicable here neither in performing, composition nor in other
areas like studio engineering and production.
This paper examines the role and functioning of women
within the music industry from a broadly economic perspective.
There is relatively little meaningful analytic economic work on
gender differences in attainment levels and employment in the
field of music with the main exception being Towse(1993) on opera
which is distinctive in so far as there are predetermined male
and female roles. The only scope there for factor substitution,
to create employment discrimination, across male-female singing
is through choice of repertoire and, given the texts of
traditional opera, there is not much scope for this. This is
clearly not the case in other genres of music such as jazz,blues,
country, rock and reggae where a female vocalist can create
demand by inducing consumer desire for a record or concert which
may displace spending that would have gone on a male voiced
alternative. There then arises the more sociological (or feminist
economics) question of whether the production, distribution and
marketing of such an artist is reproducing male dominated
archetypes of women. This is dealt with, to some extent, in the
work of non-economists. There are many journalistic and
sociological studies of women in rock and to a lesser extent
jazz, blues and country music with the latter type generally
consisting of fairly unstructured interviews [see Bayton,M.1993,
Bayton,,M 1999, Bufwack,M.A. & Oermann,R.K.1993, Evans,L.1994,
Gaar,G.G. 1992. Greig,C. 1989. McDonnell,E. & Powers,A 1995.
O'Brien,K. 1996 O'Brien,L. 1995. Reynolds,S. & Press,J. 1995.
Shevey,S. 1972,Stewart,S. & Garrett,S. 1984]. The major
equivalent text on classical composers is by Jezic(1989). There
are also some analyses of the gendered content of female rock
music and videos [Negus (1996,pp.123-133), Longhurst (1995)].
The relevant economic work is reviewed in the next section.
Following this we go on to consider the applicability of this to
music and also put forward some other factors.
II. COWEN'S FOUR HYPOTHESES.
Conference papers at the Association for Cultural
Economics frequently give descriptive statistics on the number of
women painters, sculptors, actors etc but the only real 'think'
piece, within cultural economics, in the sense that it goes
beyond descriptive statistics or a Mincerian earnings function,
was by Tyler Cowen in 1996. Without using any econometrics, he
assesses four hypotheses in the context of visual arts: The
genetic hypothesis, the maternal obstacles hypothesis, the parity
hypothesis and the discrimination hypothesis.
HYPOTHESIS 1.
The genetic hypothesis argues that women are, in some ways,
simply not 'cut out for' certain activities and are thus destined
to fail comparatively no matter how hard they try. Supposedly
their brains and bodies may in some important way be 'different'.
The archetypal manifestation of this can be found in the notion
that it is 'not natural' for women to play rock guitar as alluded
to by Robert Christgau in the following passage:
"It is possible to argue -as a function of cultural deprivation,
of course, not innate disadvantage - that women have little bent
for instrumental improvisation. As rock exists now, that may be
true, although if so, it is even more so of jazz. But the deeper
truth, I think, is more unpleasant than any cant about cultural
deprivation. First, women cannot play rock guitar because men
won't listen to them, and there is no need to belabor phallic
analogies to explain why. Second, women cannot play rock because
they cannot and/or do not want to create in blues-based male
styles".
[Christgau(1970) p.367 of reprint in Kureshi & Savage(1995)].
In classical music, the genetic obstacles argument would
focus on the sort of brain activity required for symphonic
composition or virtuosi performances as opposed to run of the
mill instrument playing or single instrument based composition.
A surprisingly strong statement comes from Mabel Daniels, a
twentieth century American composer of many full-scale
orchestral works who believed that women "were naturally rather
too weak for the hard work involved in composing large-scale
works" [Fuller(1994),p.102]
For bravura displays, the classical music analogue of the
rock guitar is no doubt the piano. And here, a critic expressed
similar views to Christgau:
"Many women play much more beautifully than men, but men can
provide more of the physical excitement that any audience,
however sophisticated, comes to share" [Schoenberg(1972)].
Musicologists Abeles and Porter (1978) asked musicians and
nonmusicians to rate orchestral instruments in terms of
masculinity and feminity. The rank order of the most feminine
instruments was flute, violin,clarinet with the most masculine
being drums, trombone, trumpet. The piano occupies a sort of
neutral position as the view that it does not look right or is
unfeminine to play the piano has never been expressed; indeed,
piano playing was long deemed to be a lady like virtue. However,
as the quote from Schoenberg shows, there has been some tendency
to claim that when we move from the drawing room to higher levels
that women are inherently disadvantaged. On the managerial side
the argument would be that women are not well disposed to the
activity. However, such sexism could work to produce a pro-female
skew if one believes that it is somehow 'natural' for women to
support and foster nascent talent. In the theatrical area in the
UK, there is the case of Peggy Ramsey whose ministrations to Joe
Orton and others may arguably have been a key factor in their
success. This kind of skew translates into earnings inequality
if investments, of the nurturing variety, receive lower rates of
return than other 'harder' ones such as making deals and handling
logistics which are more the province of males.
HYPOTHESIS 2.
The maternal obstacles hypothesis.
The maternal obstacles hypothesis argues that the burden of
rearing children is not only very time consuming but also of a
nature that it is a severe hindrance to creative activity as the
necessary periods of concentration required may be punctured by
the needs of the child. Further, traditional family structures
have tended to feature an orientation towards support for the
male career taking priority over the female. This is indirectly
suggested by current studies of earnings functions in the general
run of occupations [e.g. Waldfogel(1998),Cameron and Ward(1999)]
which find that there is an earnings deficit of children for
working women but not so much for men. As Cowen(1995) implies
the spread of effective contraception should facilitate a
reduction of maternal obstacles. Rock and roll music has
characteristics which may, compared to the visual arts and
'serious' music, further negate the maternal barrier. The main
one being that the typical rock act has made its major work
artistically and financially by the time the principals are 30
years old. The short duration of pop/rock fecundity is recognised
by major record companies who generally offer seven album or
seven year contracts which they can sever at annual intervals. In
'serious' music it quite difficult to check up on maternal
obstacles as the major reference works often fail to give
domestic background information. However, the general impression
from Fuller(1994) is that women composers have no children or
small families unlike some of the visual artists referred to by
Cowen(1996). There does not seem to be any evidence of women
deliberately finding a rich husband as a means of internalising
the need for financial patronage for the subsidy of art.
Earlier in this century, the typical female composer was a
performing musician who married another musician [or arts person]
and reduced performing with an attendant shift to composing on a
piecemeal basis. Typical women composers nowadays are probably
American university professors of music whose low remuneration
seldom heard art work dovetails with their full-time job.
The existing evidence does not permit clear analysis of the
impact of children on composition. The biographers of Lutyens
[Harries & Harries(1989) swing both ways at times claiming that
they were an impediment and at others a stimulus. There is a
point in Harries & Harries(1989) where Lutyens makes a conscious
decision to get married and have children on the grounds that
musical compositions are not adequate substitutes for children.
There are certainly rock-pop-soul musicians, male and female, who
claim that their works are their babies in a deep sense rather
than the casually metaphorical.
HYPOTHESIS 3.
The parity hypothesis according to Cowen [1995,p.95) is
that:
"female artistic accomplishments in fact have not been
inferior to male artistic accomplishments, or that female
artistic achievements are at least much more impressive than many
individuals realize".
His basic point seems to be that you may not think there have
been any important females in artistic fields but when you take a
closer look you'll be surprised. This is more of an observation
than a hypothesis and he tends to deal in existence of work per
se as opposed to achieved visibility or earnings. Some material
on the 'parity hypothesis' can be found in sections III(i) and
III(ii) below.
HYPOTHESIS 4.
The discriminatory hypothesis.
Christgaus's comment above on the phallocentric view of
rock guitar playing contained the notion of intrinsic and
culturally ingrained discrimination in music audiences. Cowen
makes no mention of Becker but many of his fundamental types of
discrimination could appear in the musical arena. Discrimination
can break down into four broad categories: selection biases in
training and education, customer/consumer, co-worker and
employer. In the musical field there is a complex chain of
employment dispersed through various agency functions such as
talent scouts ['A and R'], managers, venue bookers, record label
executives and so on. Overt formalised wage differentials are
unlikely as musicians' trade unions have tended to establish
standard rates by function for orchestral and session work.
However, once an individual steps outside of these routine
functions to become a solo artist or band member then all sorts
of disadvantageous treatment is possible. There is certainly
evidence of some co-worker antipathy in the histories of jazz and
classical music [various examples are given in Dahl(1984)] but
inteview studies of female musicians generally give the
impression that this evaporates once sufficient ability has been
demonstrated.
Let us turn now to consumer discrimination. For a start,
males are a large part of musical consumption and as such may
experience disutility from the mere presence of a female on an
unacceptable instrument to the point where they refuse to spend
or attend. It is of course possible for this discrimination to be
also from females. There may be a vicious cycle trapping women
into specific roles in music through the reflected attitudes of
parents and music educators. That is, the most potent source of
discrimination is inequality of opportunity in training which was
thoroughly explored in general in early feminist writings [see
e.g.Spencer (1913)]. Thus, even if women do gain equal
encouragement and access in instrument playing their horizons
may be selectively limited. Abeles and Porter (1979) asked
parents what instruments they would choice for their children
from a range of eight orchestra items. The response rankings
were: for males: drums, trombone,trumpet, female and, for
females: clarinet,flute,violin. In musical education the
expectation seems to be that women will become educators rather
than performers. Perhaps the motivation here is economic security
trading off mean expected earnings against lower variance and
eliminating the perils of life on the road. In all the more
popular areas of the music spectrum the historical tendency has
been to see women as singers if their entry into music is to be
acceptable at all.
III. EVIDENCE FROM COMPOSITON AND PERFORMANCE.
We now look at some of the evidence germane to the above
hypotheses, in various specific fields of music, along with some
further considerations that may crop up along the way,
(i) Classical Music
The area of classical music features a very strict
demarcation in the roles of women. Women find entry to instrument
playing quite easy and there are obviously predetermined roles
for women in opera. The area of composition is quite a different
matter. The quip of famous conductor Sir Thomas Beecham that
there have been no women composers is patently untrue as the
International Encyclopedia of Women Composers [Cohen(1987)]
lists 6,000 women composers throughout history and the compiler
amassed 7,500 recorded specimens of their works in the course of
this. Impressive statistics, and perhaps a pointer in the
direction of Cowen's parity hypothesis, but a moment's simple
arithmetic reveals this to be 1.25 records per composer. Sales of
female compositions and live performances by full and prestigious
orchestras are yet another matter. One proxy index for this is to
look at the female share in recordings actually in print on
readily available labels. The 1992 Penguin Guide [March et
al.(1992)] runs to 1206 pages of A-Z of recordings listed by
composer and is thus another handy proxy for composer
visibility. Of these an astonishingly meagre one and a half pages
are devoted to female composers consisting of 7 disks from Lili
Boulanger, Hildegard of Bingen, MacConchy, Fanny Mendelssohn and
Clara Schumann. This gives a female share proxy of 0.1244 %
which is a considerable deviation even from parity with respect
to output as Cohen(1987) estimated that, by then, 8% of the
world's classical compositions had been by women.
None of the female authored works recommended, in the
Penguin guide, are symphonic being rather at the lighter weight
end of the composing spectrum. The fact that these works have
been through a filter of 'excellence' by the three male compilers
speaks volumes in itself, but even if this does skew the
available material it surely does not hide an amazing paucity of
female compositions in recorded versions. It is a fair bet that
the typical branch of the major music retailers in an average
sized town contains no female composed classical music with the
exception perhaps of the odd piece by Hildegard of BIngen or
Clara Schumann. The plain fact is that publishing music costs the
publisher very little and the vast majority of all classical
music is unpublished and unperformed. Whilst this might just
reflect the cruel discipline of the market falling on a minority
within a minority, one might expect those nations that go to
great lengths to protect their national musical heritage might
show greater interest in the works of women composers. Norway is
a good example of such a country, yet the major scholarly work on
the history of Norwegian music [Grinde (1991)] cites only 3 of
the 43 female Norwegian composers unearthed by the exhaustive
labours of Cohen(1987). Focusing on living composers only the
1992 survey of 500 by Collins & Morton(1992) shows equal female
scarcity as only just 0ver 8% [41] of those listed are women.
Returning to the size/length issue: even a dedicated full
time lifelong composer such as Elisabeth Lutyens failed to
produce much symphonic work: amongst her hundreds of pieces the
only one given as a symphony "Symphonies for Solo Wind,Harps and
Percussion" is a mere 17 minutes long and the vast bulk of her
work is in 15 minute or less pieces. Looking at perhaps the four
best known female composers of modern times: Amy Beach lived to
be 77 and produced only one symphony and one concerto, Nadia
Boulanger lived to be 92 and produced no symphonies or large
scale orchestral works, Clara Schumann lived to be 77 and
produced one concerto and no symphonies whilst Elizabeth Maconchy
lived to be 87 producing 2 symphonies, 2 ballets and 5 operas.
All of these women had a large general output. The symphonic or
full scale orchestral work hit rate is very low compared with men
as the landmark male composers tended to produce about 9
symphonies and others produced dozens.
This tendency to produce short works may be part of a nexus
of factors which result in 'blind' discrimination against the
performance of female works. That is, mainstream concert
programming tends to focus on about 3 moderate length (30-40)
minute full orchestral pieces or a longer very well known
[and hence inevitably male] piece. This inflicts a double
jeopardy on women which may radiate from maternal obstacles or
genetic differentials leading them to short pieces in the first
place. Short pieces may also reflect relying on funding from
minor sources of commission funds. In addition to the above
there is historic weight of favouritism toward male compositions
which it is hard to imagine being restituted due to the lack of
copyright in the work of the dead composers (all men) whose work
hogs the small and stagnant market for classical recordings and
concerts. Someone who favoured the genetic hypothesis (such as
Mabel Daniels) might, of course, claim that the short pieces are
indicative of a basic deficiency of women in heavyweight
composition. Against this must be set the fact that some of the
relevant capital for symphonic composition was denied to female
music students: at the Munich conservatory women were not allowed
to attend counterpoint classes until 1897 and Mabel Daniels
caused consternation, in 1902, when she was the first woman to
take part in the score-reading classes. Faced with such a
historical deficit, women's writing would naturally tend to be
shorter as the composers would be either self-taught in
composition or rooted in their own instrument as a voice in
writing.
As we have demonstrated above, female composition is more
voluminous than probably is widely expected but recording
availability slips way below parity. Performance of female
compositions is actually zero for the vast majority of major
orchestras. This has lead to direct action of various sorts. A
number of companies specialize in female oriented publishing and
recording such as Leonarda but the catalogues are small and the
sales likewise. The Women's Philharmonic Orchestra in San
Francisco performs only female works in its seasons. There have
been women's orchestras in the past alhough many were not of full
professional status and/or designed primarily to promote female
musicians rather than female works.
Campaigns are being mounted, in the USA, which presumably
have the end in view of some kind of quotas being targetted for
female compositions [1]. The first attempts [Boone(1995)]
centred on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act 1964 but were
abandoned in favour of seeking an antitrust action against the
National Symphony Orchestra on the grounds that it was
purposefully mounting an "all-male season" which was therefore in
restraint of trade in disbarring females from earnings
opportunities. The U.S Department of Justice rejected this
outright as it felt none of the prohibitions in Section 2 of the
Sherman Act were being breached. At present [May 1999].
there has been a reversion to Title IX of the Civil Rights Act
under a campaign led by Caspar Sunn against the Madison Symphony
Orchestra. Obviously these actions against individual orchestras
are test cases which, if successful, could open the floodgates
for some kind of female quota in orchestral programming. There is
an inherent problem with such action in that quota programming
could lead to a loss of ticket sales and threaten orchestral
viability as orchestral seasons are primarily of the time
honoured classics even in subsidised ensembles. This could, of
course, have the perverse effect of depriving female musicians
of employment.
One of the arguments, of Caspar Sunn, is that women have
established themselves as legitimate workers in the field of
classical composition and therefore deserve protective employment
rights. A casual scan of the International Encyclopedia of Women
Composers [Cohen(1987)] suggests that the current wave of US
female composers are to a large extent college professors and
hence being subsidised out of a cognate job. Over the course of
history women composers are drawn primarily from occupations in
teaching and the arts. In a broad sense then it would be rather
hard to make stick the legal case that the non-performance of
their compositions constitutes a curtailment of their employment
rights.
As already mentioned, women seem to be well represented in
instrument playing despite their ghetto status in recorded and
performed composition. However they are not to be found in
dominant positions. The main leadership function within the
orchestra namely conducting is beyond all shadow of a doubt a
heavily male preserve. One need look no further than the entry
'Conducting' in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music
[Kennedy(1980),p.144]:
"There is no explanation, beyond the obvious one of psychological
personality, for the way in which a conductor can, often with a
minimum of rehearsal, impose his own style on an orchestra he may
not have encountered before...".
Whilst there have been notable woman conductors: such as Imogen
Holst and Nadia Boulanger (who was the first ever woman
conductor in 1937) and there are currently women conducting major
orchestras, such as the Halle in the UK, they are not only not in
the elite of superstar conductors, which is a heavily cartelised
system which is not easy to break into, but also tend to be
occasional junior conductors rather than in full positions.
Indeed, the picture of Imogen Holst conducting, shown in
Fuller(1994), is with the Snape Maltings Training Orchestra which
has an 'exception that proves the rule quality' however worthy
the aforesaid outfit may be. Ultimately it might be claimed that
this all reflects the implicit patriarchy of the role of leader
of an orchestra which is very much 'fatherly' rather than
'motherly'.
Another heavily cartelised position of high profile status
is the virtuoso pianist. Only 6 of the 37 pianists featured on
the CD sampler [Phillips(1998)] from the project of 'classic'
twentieth century piano performances are women and even then they
are the less well known names. Still today, this is a
substantially male preserve, and the main female pianist [Joanna
McGregor] is, as has been the case with cello and violin players,
marketed with a sizable quotient of appearance orientation in the
presentational campaign.
(ii) JAZZ.
Like classical music, Jazz is a minority interest with
limited sales growth potential. The foothold of women in this
sector is largely through the emergence of singers in the 1930's
who overcame the initial reluctance of the male bandleaders to
carve out careers of their own. Since that time there have been
notable amounts of women in all instrumental departments even
including a few jazz harpists. However, despite the fact that
prevailing factors are favourable for more female representation,
the share achieving recogition in jazz is small and still
strongly skewed towards the archetypal icon of the 'hard living
done wrong' chanteuse. Examining the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz
(1995) shows a total of 75 separate female entries. However, a
rough estimate of their share in the total text of the book comes
out at around 6.66%. Within this, around 56% of the entries are
for singers in the 'traditional' [i.e. verging on blues or
cabaret] mould. Only 3 of the 75 women receive text entries of at
least one page and these are the above characterised chanteuses:
Ella Fitzgerald, Bilie Holliday and Sarah Vaughan [2]: very much
icons of a specific bygone epoch. Scarcity of prominent females
in the instrumental areas of jazz does not seem to be due to
overt discrimination by male musicians as the women interviewed
in Dahl(1984) are at pains to point out that once they had
demonstrated their ability any initial instance of this
evaporated.
It could be said that the decline of the highly successful
female jazz/blues singer is indicative of fame and profit
seeking woman deserting this arid zone for the more lucrative
rock/pop/soul areas. Nevertheless, the overall picture seems to
pour cold water on the optimistic views in Dahl(1984) that the
presence of role models like Carla Bley [who has spanned avant
garde composition, record label ownership and management of bands
including men] and the proliferation , since 1970, of all women
jazz festivals will promote acclaim for women as musicians per se
on the serious end of the jazz spectrum. As with classical music,
a trip to the record shops or label catalogues would reveal a
female minority presence even more scant than the above Who's Who
statistics have shown.
Jazz provides an interesting case study of the 'solidarity'
or sectarian approach to furthering women's position which goes
back much further than the recent phenomenon of all female jazz
festivals. It might be thought that forming all women groups is a
means of overcoming certain obstacles such as male band member
prejudice and apprehension about this by potential female band
members. However, female jazz performers have expressed at least
3 reservations [Dahl(1984)]: the impact of lesbian connotations
on audiences, manifest gimmick or novelty value and a greater
tendency for bickering between band members. The all female jazz
band has only been of limited success. The International
Sweethearts of Rhythm, who lasted from 1938 to 1948, may be
judged a success. However there were few others. The UK ensemble
lead by Ivy Benson ran for over thirty years but remained
something of a novelty as instanced by their failure to release a
record until the end of their career. There is an additional
economics of 'thin markets' problem in forming female bands,
which may be caused by past discrimination, in that the small
amount of women in total may make it difficult to find suitable
quality replacements when members quit. Notwithstanding, there
have been solidarist outfits in modern times, such as the
Femininist Improvising Group in Europe and Alive! on the west
coast of America, as the baton of male subordinated all girl
groupdom has passed to rock/pop/soul performers [see below]. By
their very nature, these groups will not be likely to expand
audiences as this is in any case minority music.
(iii) COUNTRY AND WESTERN MUSIC.
The situation here is quickly summarised. There have been
many huge selling females but generally in the context of singing
male written songs espousing a reactionary view of women. Futher,
to this the industry is centred in Nashville with almost all
other aspects of the music being male dominated [Bufwack &
Oermann(1993)].
(iv) ROCK/POP/SOUL MUSIC
I am lumping together all genres of music [aapart from
country and western] in which the focus has generally been on the
verse-chorus-bridge-middle eight song intended for mass
consumption and will use the abbreviation R-P-S below. Taking the
genres together in this way facilitates division of the
discussion into songwriting and performance. Following this I
will consider the role of women in integrated writing-
peformance-recording units [IWPRU] viz. the template set by the
Beatles.
THE FEMALE SONGWRITER.
Throughout the history of popular music, the independent
songwriter has always existed but the major revolution due to the
success of the Beatles was the usurpation of this form to a large
degree by an integrated touring-writing-recording unit [see
Cameron & Collins(1997) for a full analysis of this]. At the
dawn or rock and roll, there were notable female songwriters
particularly inside the almost literal 'factory' of hits : the
Brill-Building ; Carole King, Elie Greewnich, Carole Bayer Sager,
Cynthia Weil. However they tended to work with their actual
marital partner in churning out songs to order for their
employer. The major pop-rock exception to this syndrome, in the
1960's was Jackie De Shannon who has had her own compositions
widely performed, often to great success, by a range of artists.
She often wrote alone but also on occasions with male writers
from very diverse sectors of the rock/pop field. She also made
many records in her own right of her own and other's material.
Some modest success, in the USA, was obtained from these but not
comparable in scale to the sales of covers of her compositions.
In the pre-rock era the nearest equivalent of a mixed writing/
performing/covering artist Peggy Lee who began, like the Brill
writers, composing with a marital partner then with other men.
Various subsequent product life cycle waves have spawned
highly successful individual female writer-performers. This can
be broken down into three broad marketing strands:
(1) The Troubadour. The singer-songwriter [generally travelling
solo with an acoustic guitar and/or piano], with its antecedents
in folk music, boom of the late 60's-early 70's produced such
women with Joni Mitchell being the most successful [3]. Broadly
speaking this continues with country music crossover artists like
K.D.Lang, Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
(2) The 'kooky' or eccentric variant of the above whose songs
plough the same confessional furrow but veer off into the surreal
or incomprehensible. Such artists will tend to have had piano
lessons at an early age : the genre starts with Kate Bush and has
its greatest current sales performance in Tori Amos.
(3) The angst ridden self styled 'bitch' who has resentment of
self and/or men as pioneered by Liz Phair but only taken to the
market fully by Alanis Morisette.
In all these areas, record companies have flocked to sign
up legions of emulators proving the acceptability of the
integrated female singer-writer as a marketable product.
PURE PERFORMANCE.
(a) Singing.
Singing is no doubt the most accepted and perpetuated
archetype of women in music across all genres. Women who do not
compose have inevitably been not only managed and directed by men
but also usually singing male compositions given the skew of
authorship in the industry. R-P-S brought a clutch of solo
artists but more notably the 'girl group' [see Greig(1989)] who
tended to wear similar clothes and have distinctive dance
routines but basicaly no musical input other than singing on
records written, arranged and produced by men. Following the
Beatles revolution, the girl group subsided: even in black music
the lead female tended to be taken away to a solo career. Within
current bands, singing is far and away the major role of women.
Very few women singers are also musicians and even one with
formal training such as Annie Lennox tended not play on stage.
The most aggressively marketed icon of female independence.
Madonna, is credited on some of the compositions she performs but
is never seen in the company of a musical instrument let alone
playing one. Those women who have appeared as singer-players in
R-P-S music have generally been no more than perfunctory
instrumentalists.
(b) Playing.
Within largely male or mixed rock ensembles there has been
instrumental specialization. Notable female drummers do exist:
the first being the instrumentally awful 'Honey' of the
Honeycombs who had a major UK hit with 'Have I the Right' in 1965
plus 3 smaller hits. Within the less commercial sphere there was
Mo Tucker of the Velvet Underground and Lindy Morrison of the
Go-Betweens: bands with huge critical esteem and next to no record
sales. But overall, drumming and other significant instrumental
roles as full-time members of bands are few and far between for
women and there is no marked tendency for an increase in this
especially in the mainstream of mass market R-P-S acts.
INTEGRATED WRITING-PERFORMANCE RECORDING UNITS [IWPRU]
Let us make one simple overwhelming fact clear at the
outset. This mode of production pioneered by the Beatles, despite
its amazing endurance and powerful record sales for the all male
band, has never been notably emulated by all female ensembles.
An alternative modality has emerged of the female lead singer
with male backing where the woman has some songwriting and general
creative input.
In the UK in the 1960's there were a number of 'girl
singers' (Lulu, Sandie Shaw) who had male backing bands who were
basically frustrated blues musicians. Integration of their musical
aspirations may have been possible but was not permissible
because of the control of record companies and managers. The
pivotal outfits in breaking this barrier were Blondie and the
Pretenders whose leaders weres clear role models for the next
wave. This shift in the industry was due to the success of 'punk'
in breaking the established order of things which was dominated
by ostentatiously serious resolutely all male combos playing long
winded solos in 'progressive music' which had broken away
spectacularly from the 'love and sex' core foundations of popular
music. This Blondie-Pretenders product line of a desirable female
plus anonymous male members has endured through several versions
up to current ones like Sleeper and Catatonia. Whilst this might
be seen to be some step up for female autonomy in music it does
tend to be stereotype reinforcing to some extent and record
companies see the long term viability of such artists in
launching a 'mature' career for the female leads which is likely
not too far removed from the traditional blues/jazz/show music
chanteuse.
Women have also featured in some immensely profitable
groups where there is an internal relationships dimension. This
does not come about very often as it is obviously hard for a
record company to locate a replication of the formula. Fleetwood
Mac [Mk.II] are one of the all time biggest selling artists and
were unique in featuring two female and one male songwriters who
all wrote separately and had featured vocals: all in the context
of a tangled web of internal sexual relationships.
Let us now return to the bold statement at the start: that
the total IWPRU is almost non existent in terms of all female
bands. There is no such band, of even moderate succes, in the
1950's or 60's. In The Guardian 'Weekend' magazine for November
14,1998 a picture is shown of a never-heard-from-since ensemble
called 'the Ladybirds' in a New York club in 1967. They are
visually like a 50's Spectoresque vocal girl group apart from the
fact that they play guitars and have their breasts fully exposed.
There was a Sacramento based band, in the 1960's called 'She',
who finished in 1971, who held out against male control of their
career in order to function in a 'garage punk' style. Yet, they
had few record releases let alone substantial sales. A slightly
bigger splash was made by the American group Fanny, touted
somewhat falsely by their record label as the "first all female
rock group", who seem to have been the only all female band with
a sustained recording contract, at that time. Their career only
lasted until 1975 but they have left little trace in the form of
sales, critical plaudits or songs that anyone remembers: their
biggest achievement being two small US top 40 45 rpm hit singles.
The insurgent climate in the independent music sector
conssequent on punk allowed women from non-musically oriented
backgrounds to start playing as a gesture of definance and
subversion of the traditional 'girlie' musical sterotype. This
has left little impact in the works of such individuals.
In the restricted genre of 'heavy metal' a band called Girlschool
who had one major UK hit in 1981 and four fairly minor ones.
There were a few post punk all female bands of modest success in
a light pop vein such as Amazulu and the Belle Stars. The Bangles
had an era of commercial success from 1986 which was largely over
by 1988. The played their own instruments in the basic
guitar-bass-drums format largely eschewing the male fetish of
soloing. However, their successful songs were largely male
compositions: one large self written hit was produced by their
prinicpal member [albeit with outside members].
IV. DISCUSSION
To circumvent not seeing the wood for the trees, and other
cliches, I will simply conclude with a set of numbered points/
observations which encapsulate the above.
(i) Women are strongly represented in musical activity.
(ii) There is little evidence of explicit de facto wage
discrimination.
(iii) There is a profound skewnsess to the distribution of
female musical activity relative to male.
(iv) It is not readily apparent whether this skewness is due to
discrimination in musical training, overt prejudice or intrinsic
female preferences for some areas of music over others.
(v) In 'serious' music areas the performance and recording ratios
to publication for women falls markedly below parity with men.
(vi) One factor in (v) may be that women composers have tended to
the experimental and avant garde. They have purposefully eschewed
the lush-romanticism or neo-religious simplicity which is
probably needed for symphonic music to reach a wider audience.
Indeed the term 'comwpat music' to denigrate the likes of Ralph
Vaughan Williams was coined by a woman.
(vii) Attitudes of women in pop-rock tend to differ from those of
men. There is less of the adoption of being a 'musician' as a
personal identity label and the attedant fetishising of the tools
of trade like guitar strings, instruments etc in a way that
represents male treatment of cars, computers and hi-fi equipment
although there are some specifically female musicians magazines [
Lorelei, RockGrl].
(viii) Through all genres and eras of music there is a
conspicuous lack of cooperative work of females with other
females which is in marked contrast with the legions of all male
IWPRU's and male songwriting duos. This does crop up in other
cultural areas: for example in UK television sitcom writing there
have been highly successful male writing duos but no female
analogues [4]. One notable area of female cooperativeness has
been the annual Lilith fair, in the USA, which features only
female rock-pop artists [albeit with male backing musicians].
A comradely air is exhibited at this gathering by the better
known figures guesting on each other's sets. However this has
still to spill over into any joint songwriting of note.
NOTES.
1. It is not possible to tell from the documentation what kind of
restitution is anticipated if orchestras were found guilty of
male bias in programming.
2. All figures from page counting are approximate as I have not
taken explicit account of the small number of pictures which do
have a female bias and I have also rounded up samll entrries to
1/4 of a page.
3. There were folk based female singer-songwriters such as Joan
Baez earlier in the mid-60's.
4. It is a curious contrast to the male rock band scene which
seems to thrive on large cities usually near the sea side [in
the UK at least] that popular current female artists across all
niches have a strong tendency to be drawn from very small towns.
[Sutcliffe(1998)] with no music 'scene' as such.
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WOMEN IN MUSIC: AN EXPLORATORY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
Samuel Cameron
Department of Social and Economic Studies
Richmond Road
University of Bradford
Bradford BD2 1BL
West Yorkshire
England
Tel: 01274 384772
e-mail : samcameron@lineone.net
website: http://website.lineone.net/~samcameron