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Women in music, §III: World music

III. World music

The past 30 years have seen an increase in women's social, economic and
political status in many cultures worldwide, as well as increasing opportunities
for women to create, perform and control all aspects of their music-making. In
addition, scholars in fields such as ethnomusicology, anthropology, folklore and
cultural studies have become increasingly interested in understanding the
social and political relationships between men and women in a wide variety of
cultures that foster or restrict men's and women's participation in diverse
musical contexts. This section presents some of the current issues and
research devoted to women's music and, more broadly, to music and gender.
It centres on areas where (1) women's music is the main focus of study; (2)
women are the main cultural informants; or (3) gender is the main context for
the discussion of music. It concentrates on a variety of contemporary cultural
settings, primarily outside the matrix of the Western classical music system.

For further information on women's music in non-Western cultural traditions, see

articles on individual countries.

1. History of research and analysis.

Literature devoted to the study of women's music in world cultures falls into
three historical yet overlapping periods, each marked by different research and
analytical paradigms. The first (c1910–present) dealt with the near invisibility of
women's musical activity in the scholarly literature, concentrating primarily on
collecting, documenting and notating women's music, essentially contributing
to a more holistic view of the world's musical cultures. The second wave (since
c1965), influenced primarily by anthropology and folklore, began to refashion
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c1965), influenced primarily by anthropology and folklore, began to refashion

the question of women's music, framing it instead within the broader context of
gender relations. Scholars looked at various societies' gender arrangements,
ranging from gender hierarchy (where men controlled most aspects of women's
public and expressive life) to gender equality (where men and women had
equal autonomy). They also examined gender styles – ways in which power
and value were negotiated or mediated between men and women, ranging
from coercion to collaboration – and looked at music creation and performance
as contexts for reinforcing, changing or protesting gender relations. The third
wave of literature (since c1985), heavily influenced by postmodern scholarship
in feminist theory, cultural and performance studies, semiotics and
psychoanalysis, has sought to understand the links between social and
musical structures, and how each can be seen as embedded within the other.

A quick glance at the geographical range of the literature shows that not all the
world's musical cultures have been equally researched and that much more
information is needed on all aspects of women's musical behaviour, especially
among the traditional cultures of Central and South America, Africa and Asia.
In all the literature, however, one universal exists: nowhere do men and
women have equal access to all musical opportunities within a culture.
Gender-based restrictions of some sort exist everywhere, from the mildest and
most subtle (such as steering a young American boy away from playing the
harp in the school orchestra) to the most violent (threats of gang rape against
the Mundurucú women of central Brazil who catch sight of men's sacred
flutes).

One of the problems facing the study of women's music in world cultures, and
of gender issues in music in general, is that the analytical tools and models are
largely Western-orientated, concentrating on Western constructs (such as the
bi-polarity of the sexes) and a unitary Western conception of music. Although
all societies recognize two human biological categories (‘male’ and ‘female’)
and use them as a primary basis for the division of labour, gender categories
(‘man’ and ‘woman’) are social constructs seen within specific contexts. Each
society thus invents gender ideologies (often linked to religious, social,
economic and other systems within the culture), which act as models, or
templates, for gender-typical behaviours. Gender categories and ideologies
are thus fluid, and constantly changing across time and space. There are no
societies in which men and women have had total gender equality, that is,
equal access to all political, economic and expressive aspects of culture,
although there are many where men's and women's separate activities are, for
the most part, equally valued or necessary to cultural maintenance. Likewise,
although all societies select certain sounds to perform, and value such sounds
over others, not all would refer to them as ‘music’, a term associated in many
cultures with public, sexual or decadent (Western) values. Thus, it is crucial
that future research takes into account indigenous understandings of analytical
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that future research takes into account indigenous understandings of analytical

categories as much as possible.

2. Women's music in everyday and ritual life.

In many of the world's cultures, especially those based on traditional agrarian
or exchange economies, women are still primarily defined by their biological
roles as bearers and nurturers of children, and much of their everyday and
ritual activity is either empowered or constrained by these activities. Most of the
existing literature on women's music thus reflects this status, focussing on
music and life-cycle rituals (those associated with birth, puberty, marriage and
death), on women's roles in calendrical rituals and ceremonies, on women's
roles in religious systems and on their traditional roles as healers.

In the Americas, for example, a long history of research on Amerindian women

concentrates on puberty and initiation rituals, or on ceremonies that celebrate
the power of women's fertility and spirituality to sustain tribal life. Similarly, in
parts of Africa, especially among the Venda in the south, the central rainforest
BaAka, and women in Sudanic Africa, as well as in India, Australia, Peninsular
Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, women's powerful and
valued status as mothers and nurturers is reflected in studies of childbirth
songs, and in celebrations of women's specialized sexual and ritual
knowledge. Indeed, in cultures where there is an ideology of gender-equality,
women's music is both necessary and sufficient for maintaining social and
spiritual balance.

Two important genres of music almost universally performed by women and

often linked together, especially in societies that are patriarchal and patrilocal,
are wedding songs and laments. Young women, on marriage, generally leave
the protection of their original homes, families and communities, and many
have historically faced hardships in the homes of their husbands or mothers-
in-law, frequently dying in childbirth. Women who survive the birth of many
children, the death of other family members, and grow into old age, often take
on new, important roles as lamenters within their communities and assume the
responsibilities of communal mourning and burial.

Collections and other documentation of songs of love, courtship and marriage

are found in great numbers in the literature: wedding and other life-cycle songs
among Jews and Muslims in Morocco and Israel; wedding songs performed by
women in North India, Albania and Canada; love songs composed and
performed by Zulu women in Africa and by young, unmarried women, as part
of long rituals of courtship, in the Philippines and in Turkey. Studies of lament,
or of women's roles in funerary rituals, are found predominantly in the literature
on Greek, Finnish and Hungarian women and among the Ga in south-eastern
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on Greek, Finnish and Hungarian women and among the Ga in south-eastern

Ghana (see also LAMENT).

In addition to life-cycle rituals, there are numerous studies that address

women's and men's ritual responsibilities during the yearly agrarian cycle of
planting, harvesting and preserving. Some of the earliest and most important
collections and discussions of folksongs from eastern and southern Europe
and the USA, as well as from northern Thailand, for example, document
women's songs associated with gender-based work activities, such as sewing,
cooking and working bees, and with special ritual contexts accompanying
planting and harvesting. Issues of women's identity and work are also
addressed in a study of Kpelle women in Liberia.

Most world religious systems are male-dominated, in that men generally

control the ritual, legal and expressive aspects of religious activity. Women,
though always present, have often been overlooked in this context, and there
is a small but growing literature documenting women's musical roles in major
religious systems worldwide. The most extensive documentation outside the
Western Classical music system (itself largely based on early Christian musical
practice) is found in the literature on black American gospel and other church-
related musics; Jewish liturgical and para-liturgical musics; and Muslim women
in Saudi Arabia, North India and Pakistan. In addition, the ‘feminine spirit’,
often seen as crucial to the efficacy of ritual, is frequently celebrated in
traditional Amerindian culture, as well as within the Hindu and Buddhist
traditions, primarily in Cambodia and Java, as well as elsewhere.

In many societies women take on the role of shaman and often practise
outside the sanctioned religious systems of their communities. Part-healer,
part-musician, spirit-guide and actor, the shaman is frequently called on to cure
individual, family and community illness. Women are often regarded as more
powerful than men in this role, as their fertility and perceived psychological
openness seem to make them better adapted to mediating between the spirit
and human worlds. Nowhere has this tradition been more fully documented
than in Korea, with major studies on mudang (female shamans) and the ritual
known as kut. Other studies have also appeared documenting female
shamans in Siberia, Haiti and the USA.

3. Music in the court and harem.

From about 1000 CE to the present day, many societies, especially in Europe,
the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, developed intricate religious and
politically centralized court systems, where the ruling nobility or élite, usually
defended by a warrior class, owned and controlled the land. This socio-
economic system proved advantageous for the arts, especially for music, as
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economic system proved advantageous for the arts, especially for music, as
court rituals and ceremonies required many elaborate performances and a
constant stream of musicians and composers. The patronage system that
developed in these areas disappeared with the rise of the urban middle class,
where musicians, especially in western Europe, often acted as free agents and
gained more control over their musical activities. But the legacy of the politico-
religious court system still lingers in many of the world's cultures.

Women were frequently drawn from surrounding villages and farming areas to
participate as courtesans in court life, as musicians, singers, dancers and
composers. Indeed, many of the world's classical music systems developed
and grew within court contexts, especially in Europe, India, China and
Indonesia. In most societies, however, courtesans (but not courtiers) were
viewed with some ambivalence. Contrary to the norm, these women were often
highly educated, professional musicians, singers and dancers, who were also
viewed as public women, that is, women who publicly performed not only their
music but also their sexuality, primarily for male patrons. Courtesan traditions
have been fairly well documented, especially in China, Korea, Japan,
Indonesia, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Tunisia, Cyprus, and within the medieval
Arabo-Islamic courts and the Christian courts of Europe (see COURTESAN ).

4. Popular and commercial music.

The 20th century has seen the unprecedented growth of technology and
spread of Western music throughout the world, via the importation of Western
styles of teaching and through the commercial recording industry. Thus, it is
not uncommon today to see Western-style schools of music in many parts of
Africa and Asia, or, even in the most remote villages, to hear the latest hits
from American, Asian or European groups on radio, cassette tape or CD.
Women, long associated with singing and dancing within the courtesan
traditions (if less so as instrumentalists), have often become articulate
spokespersons for cultural change and modernization, or for protesting their
gender status.

A tremendous amount of popular literature exists that chronicles the lives and
times of female singers, especially in the West; the scholarly literature,
however, is relatively small by comparison. Most work centres on black
American blues and jazz singers, especially in the first half of the 20th century
when women such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were stars. Blues lyrics,
especially, provided a context for women to protest various gender issues,
such as infidelity, abandonment and other abuses. Other work on popular
female singers includes publications on women-identified (i.e. lesbian) music
in the USA, on popular singers in Mali, South Africa and Croatia, and on the
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in the USA, on popular singers in Mali, South Africa and Croatia, and on the
great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, a powerful icon of Egyptian nationalism
and modernization in the first half of the 20th century. See also POPULAR MUSIC,
§II .

5. New research.
Since about 1985, new, postmodern studies addressing the issue of gender in
song lyrics and in musical structure itself have begun to appear, most
prominently within the literature on Western classical and popular musics.
These studies examine song texts, sound structures and actual performances
as materializations of gender relationships and, in openly political ways, try to
understand and address the power imbalances found between men and
women in virtually all world cultures. Some literature, such as that on the
popular performers Madonna, Annie Lennox and other contemporary Western
singers and songwriters, focusses on the strategies used by these powerful
women to subvert or overthrow male domination by questioning and playing
with the bi-polarized constructions of gender in Western culture. Similarly,
recent scholarship on rock, rap, blues and American balladry, and on women's
musical life stories, openly addresses questions of sexual identity politics
within music, the music industry, and within such contexts as the home and the
Internet. Outside the USA, scholars working on a number of areas – the Arab
Middle East, Jewish communities in Israel, female singers in Ethiopia and
Turkey, folksingers in north India, Australia and among the Maori – are
examining the ways in which culture-specific constructions of gender and
resulting inter-gender relations are actually performed through the musical and
sexual body.

Far more research and far more understanding of the wide variety of gendered
musical and social behaviours and contexts are needed. Women have always
been at least one half of the world's population, yet little of their music or
musical performance has been documented within the Western academy, itself
a male-dominated institution. This is changing as more women and men
become sensitive to the diversity and creativity of both gendered constructs
and the varied musical sounds the world offers, but much more research and
analysis is needed in order to balance the picture.

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Fertility Songs as Crystallized Expression of Central Cultural Values (Affalterbach,

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E: North Africa, Middle East

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Y. Avishur: Women's Folk Songs in Judeao-Arabic from Jews in Iraq (Or Yehud,
Israel, 1987)

E. Koskoff, ed.: Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Westport, CT,

1987) [incl. L.J. Jones: ‘A Sociohistorical Perspective on Tunisian Women as
Professional Musicians’, 69–84; H.L. Sakata: ‘ Hazara Women in Afghanistan:
Innovators and Preservers of a Musical Tradition’, 85–96]

S.M. Sawa: ‘The Role of Women in Musical Life: the Medieval Arabo-Islamic
Courts’, Canadian Women's Studies, viii (1987)

V. Doubleday: Three Women of Herat (London, 1988)

S. Weich-Shahak: Judeo-Spanish Moroccan Song for the Life Cycle: Recordings,

Transcriptions and Annotations (Jerusalem, 1989)

M. Herndon and S. Ziegler, eds.: Music, Gender and Culture (Wilhelmshaven,

1990) [incl. E. Brandes: ‘The Relation of Women's Music to Men's Music in
Southern Algeria’, 115–30; C.T. Kimberlin: ‘ “And Are You Pretty?” Choice,
Perception and Reality in Pursuit of Happiness’, 221–40; U. Reinhard: ‘ The Veils
are Lifted: Music of Turkish Women’, 101–14; S. Ziegler: ‘ Gender-Specific
Traditional Wedding Music in Southwestern Turkey’, 85–100]

V.L. Danielson: ‘Artists and Entrepreneurs: Female Singers in Cairo during the
1920s’, Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender,
ed. N.R. Keddie and B. Baron (New Haven, CT, 1991), 292–309

I. Heskes: ‘Miriam's Sisters: Jewish Women and Liturgical Music’, Notes, xlviii
(1991–2), 1193–1202

S. Gergis: ‘The Power of Women Musicians in the Ancient and Near East: the
Roots of the Prejudice’, British Journal of Music Education, x (1993), 189–96

K. Van Nieuwkerk: “A Trade Like Any Other”: Female Singers and Dancers in
Egypt (Austin, TX, 1995)
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Egypt (Austin, TX, 1995)

V.L. Danielson: The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthūm, Arabic Song, and Egyptian
Society in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1997)

I. El-Mallah: The Role of Women in Omani Musical Life (Tutzing, 1997)

S. Zuhur, ed.: Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts in the Middle
East (Cairo, 1998)

V. Doubleday: ‘The Frame Drum in the Middle East: Women, Musical Instruments,
and Power’, EthM, xliii/i (1999), 101–34

V.L. Danielson: ‘Moving into Public Space: Women and Musical Performance in
20th Century Egypt’, Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female ’Public’ Space
in Islamic Societies, ed. A. Afsaruddin (Cambridge, MA, 1999)

B. Diamond and P. Moisala, eds.: Music and Gender: Negotiating Shifting Worlds
(Urbana, IL, 2000) [incl. C.T. Kimberlin: ‘Women, Music and Chains of the Mind:
Eritrea and the Tigre Region of Ethiopia’; U. Reinhard: ‘The Image of Woman in
Turkish Ballad Poetry and Music’]

F: Europe
B. Bartók and A. Lord: Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs (New York, 1951)

P. Szirmai: ‘A Csángó-Hungarian Lament’, EthM, xi (1967), 310–25

I. Markoff: ‘Two-Part Singing from the Razlog District of Southwestern Bulgaria’,

YIFMC, vii (1975), 134–44

M.P. Coote: ‘Women's Songs in Serbo-Croatian’, Journal of American Folklore, xc

(1977), 331–8

A. Caraveli-Chaves: ‘Bridge between Worlds: the Greek Women's Lament as

Communicative Event’, Journal of American Folklore, xciii (1980), 129–57

T. Rice: ‘A Macedonian Sobor: Anatomy of a Celebration’, Journal of American

Folklore, xciii (1980)

A. Giurchescu: ‘Power and Charm: Interaction of Adolescent Men and Women in

Traditional Settings of Transylvania’, Yearbook of Traditional Music, xviii (1986),
37–46

E. Koskoff, ed.: Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Westport, CT,

1987) [incl. S. Auerbach: ‘From Singing to Lamenting: Women's Musical Role in a
Greek Village’, 25–44; P. Shehan: ‘ Balkan Women as Preservers of Traditional
Music and Culture’, 45–54]

J.C. Sugarman: ‘The Nightingale and the Partridge: Singing and Gender among
Prespa Albanians’, EthM, xxxiii (1989), 191–216

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M. Herndon and S. Ziegler, eds.: Music, Gender and Culture (Wilhelmshaven,

1990) [incl. A. Czekanowska: ‘Towards a Concept of Slavonic Women's
Repertoire’, 57–70; A. Johnson: ‘ The Sprite in the Water and the Siren of the
Woods: on Swedish Folk Music and Gender’, 27–40; A. Petrovic: ‘ Women in the
Music Creation Process in the Dinaric Cultural Zone of Yugoslavia’, 71–84; E.
Tolbert: ‘Magico-Religious Power and Gender in the Karelian Lament’, 41–56]

E. Tolbert: ‘Women Cry with Words: Symbolization of Affect in the Karelian

Laments’, Yearbook for Traditional Music, xxii (1990), 80–105

M.P. Coote: ‘On the Composition of Women's Songs [in the south Slavic oral
tradition]’, Oral Tradition, vii (1992), 332–48

J.C. Sugarman: Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa Albanian

Weddings (Chicago, 1997)

B. Diamond and P. Moisala, eds.: Music and Gender: Negotiating Shifting Worlds
(Urbana, IL, 2000) [incl. N. Ceribasic: ‘Defining Women/Men in the Context of
War: Images in Croatian Popular Music in the 1990s’; H. Jarviluoma: ‘Local
Construction of Gender in a Rural Pelimaiuu Musicians' Group’; P. Moisala:
‘Gender Negotiation of Composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: Woman Composer as
Nomadic Subject’; M. Meyers: ‘Searching for Data About European Ladies'
Orchestras, 1870–1950’; I. Runtel: ‘Past and Present Gender Roles in the
Traditional Community on Kihnu Island in Estonia’]

G: Asia
J.O. Becker: ‘Music of the Pwo Karen of Northern Thailand’, EthM, viii (1964),
137–53

Soedarsono: ‘Classical Javanese Dance: History and Characterization’, EthM, xiii

(1969), 498–506

B.C. Wade: ‘Songs of Traditional Wedding Ceremonies in North India’, Yearbook

for Inter-American Music Research, iv (1972), 57–65

U.H. Cadar: ‘The Role of Kulintang Music in Maranao Society’, EthM, xvii (1973),
243–49

M.J. Kartomi: ‘Music and Trance in Central Java’, EthM, xvii(2) (1973), 163–208

B.W. Lee: ‘Evolution of the Role and Status of Korean Professional Entertainers
(Kisaeng)’, World of Music, xxi/2 (1979), 75–84

H.P. Huhm: Kut: Korean Shamanist Rituals (Elizabeth, NJ, 1980)

R.B. Qureshi: ‘Islamic Music in an Indian Environment: the Shi‘a Majlis’, EthM, xxv
(1981), 41–71

A. Catlin: ‘Speech Surrogate Systems of the Hmong: from Singing Voices to

Talking Reeds’, The Hmong in the West: Observations and Reports, ed. B.T.
Downing and D.P. Olney (Minneapolis, 1982)
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Downing and D.P. Olney (Minneapolis, 1982)

L. Kendall: Shamans, Housewives and other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean

Ritual Life (Honolulu, 1985)

A. Catlin: ‘Apsaras and other Goddesses in Khmer Music, Dance and Ritual’,
Apsara: the Feminine in Cambodian Arts (Los Angeles, 1987), 28–36

E. Koskoff, ed.: Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Westport, CT,

1987) [incl. A.K. Coaldrake: ‘Female Tayu in the Gidayu Tradition of Japan’, 151–
62; J. Post: ‘Professional Women in Indian Music: the Death of the Courtesan
Tradition’, 97–110; M. Roseman: ‘ Inversion and Conjuncture: Male and Female
Performance among the Temiar of Peninsular Malaysia’, 131–50; R.A. Sutton:
‘Identity and Individuality in an Ensemble Tradition: the Female Vocalist in Java’,
111–30]

J. Becker: ‘Earth, Fire, “Sakti” [female power] and Javanese Gamelan’, EthM, xxxii
(1988), 385–91

L.G. Tewari: ‘Sohar: Childbirth Songs of Joy’, Asian Folklore Studies, xlvii (1988),
257–6

M. Herndon and S. Ziegler, eds.: Music, Gender and Culture (Wilhelmshaven,

1990) [incl. G. Schwörer-Kohl: ‘Considering Gender Balance in Religion and Ritual
Music among the Hmong and Lahu in Northern Thailand’, 143–56; N. Yeh:
‘Wisdom of Ignorance: Women Performers in the Classical Chinese Music
Traditions’, 157–72]

I. Srivastava: ‘Woman as Portrayed in Women's Folk Songs of North India’, Asian

Folklore Studies, l (1991), 269–310

S. Addiss: ‘Text and Context in Vietnamese Sung Poetry: the Art of “Hát á Dào”’,
Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, ix (1992), 203–34

I. Fritsch: ‘The Social Organization of the “Goze” in Japan: Blind Female Musicians
on the Road’, CHIME: Journal of the European Foundation for Chinese Music
Research, no.5 (1992), 58–64

S. Weiss: ‘Gender and Gender’, Rediscovering the Muses: Women's Musical

Traditions, ed. K. Marshall (Boston, 1993), 21–48

A.K. Coaldrake: Women's Gidayu and the Japanese Theatre Tradition (New York,
1996)

H: Australia and the Pacific

GEWM, ix (’Music and Gender’, A.L. Kaeppler)

K.A. Gourlay: Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society: a Study of

Esoteric Instruments and their Role in Male-Female Relations (Port Moresby,
1975)

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L. Barwick: ‘Central Australian Women's Ritual Music: Knowing through Analysis

versus Knowing through Performance’, Yearbook for Traditional Music, xxii
(1990), 60–79

C.J. Ellis and L. Barwick: ‘Antikirinja Women's Song Knowledge 1963–1972: its
Significance in Antikirinja Culture’, Women, Rites and Sites: Aboriginal Women's
Cultural Knowledge, ed. P. Brock (Sydney, 1990), 21–40

M. Herndon and S. Ziegler, eds.: Music, Gender and Culture (Wilhelmshaven,

1990) [incl. A.L. Kaeppler: ‘The Production and Reproduction of Social and
Cultural Values in the Compositions of Queen Sálote of Tonga’, 191–220; J.M.
Rossen: ‘Politics and Songs: a Study in Gender on Mungiki’, 173–90]

M. Orbell: ‘“My Summit where I Sit”: Form and Content in Maori Women's Love
Songs’, Oral Tradition, v (1990), 185–204

Ellen Koskoff

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2008.

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