Music and Gender

I believe that music (songs, rather) are viewed in gender terms, and that there are certainly certain genres that seem to be geared more towards a particular gender. For instance, males do not typically want to listen to love songs--at least in public. I do not doubt that somewhere, at this very moment, there is a man singing Bette Midler's "The Rose" and moved beyond words. However, society frowns upon men having emotions because apparently it renders them useless and weak. Society also does not enjoy women listening to heavy metal because it seems much less refined than a lady should be--and indicates that surely she must have grown up without a father figure or is most assuredly gay. Consequently, society would have us like things and act as if we are part of some larger formula to a perfectly balanced society. Oh, society. Silly society. If life were this easy there would be no mistakes and certainly even less fun. Life is about balance--not encompassing the traits deemed necessary by your gender or the music dictated by the same.

I have zero experience with instruments, or any prior experience with band or band members. However, I definitely think that there are certain types of instruments (such as the drums, which Dr. Vaneman mentioned in her blog) that are viewed as more masculine and instruments that are viewed as more feminine (such as the flute, or violin). The reasoning being that, in my experience, people equate the sound made from the instrument with that of the person (and their gender specifically) playing it. For instance, the drum is louder and stronger than the flute, but the flute seems more poetic, with varying degrees of softness and shrillness. As Dr. Vaneman has mentioned Disney's saturation into our world, I feel compelled to mention the Disney cartoons that have various instruments animated, and certain ones have male voices and others have female.

Defining instruments/music in terms of gender is not inherently bad--however it is imperative to realize that it should never be exclusive. Maybe you could say that certain instruments would seem Male if you were to assign them a gender, however you can see certain feminine traits such as (fill in the blank). We tend to compartmentalize and want to stick labels on things to better understand them without having to delve into our own psyche or further research something to understand it on its own merit--which is why we label things with male/female, black/white, good/bad. Perhaps less time should be spent on whether an instrument would seem male or female, rather--why we care?