Music & Gender

The connection between music and gender can be complicated. In the past in western classical operas, women were not allowed to play roles. Men would be castrated in order to be able to sing the roles of women. There are no longer castrato, but there are countertenors, which are men who sing in their falsetto and they may sing women's songs and roles. There are also pants roles, which is a role in which a woman sings a men's role, usually a young man's role. Since I am a mezzo-soprano I have sang many songs written for a male to sing. For example, the last aria I learned was Che faro senza Euridice from Gluck's famous opera, Orfeo ed Euridice. In the aria the male, Orfeo, mourns the death of his wife, Euridice. To me, the gender lines are very blurred in the world of western opera.

In my experience from middle and high school, there are certain associations made between certain instruments or voice parts and femininity or masculinity. Most girls wanted to play a melodic instrument like the flute, or clarinet. If a girl wanted to play something else like the tuba or percussion, her peers would think it was weird. If a boy wanted to play the flute, that would be considered weird by his peers. In the same way, higher voice parts were more desired by the girls in choir, and lower voice parts were more desired by the boys/young men in choir.

Also in this age group, certain songs were admittedly listened to by the girls, and certain songs by the boys. Girls most commonly listened to love songs and boy bands like Hanson and N'Sync. It was more common for boys to listen to hip hop and rap. I think this is because those certain types of music convey the characteristics that the media deems to be either feminine or masculine.