Humboldt University of Berlin

Institute of musicology and media science

Winter Semester 2018-19
Course: Music and Gender
Lecturer: Dr. Saida Daukeyeva
Student: Zaher Alkaei

Commentary on the Seminar (25-10-2018)

At the beginning, Dr. Daukeyeva presented a short introduction of the Feminism history. This
historical background was very crucial to put the development of the movement in a historical-
social context. Then we discussed two texts: Sherry Ortner’s “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to
Culture” and Judith Butler’s “Performative Acts of Gender Constitution”. I liked both texts, found
them quite interesting. Both writers question the so-called “Biological determinism”,
“Structuralism” and “The binary model”. I understand their writing within a bigger context of
“Deconstruction”. I totally agree with their critic of a specific version of “Essentialism”, (which
constitutes of the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and
function, in case of gender these attributes are determined.) Anyway, my problem is the following:
If the Gender fluent, performative and social constructed, then it does not mean it has no essential
attributes, but rather that its essential attributes are fluent and flexible. So, what is inherited in
biology is not specific varieties of gender/s but the ability to interact and adopt multiple social
patterns which leads to construction of Gender.

Commentary on the Seminar (01-11-2018)

In this Seminar we discussed the Theme “Gender” in musicology. The pioneer feminist
musicologist criticized the limitation of research method in historical musicology, methods which
excluded social and cultural contexts of music. Historical study of music excluded the musics of
others as well. It made a distinction between high art, and low folk music with many judgments
connected to it. The focus was on music as an object rather than a process. Male’s music as norm,
and female musical expression as inferior, this represented a model of oppression in musicology.
Comparative musicology, emerged as discipline breaking away from historical musicology, and it
claimed the importance of studying non-western musics. But Ethnographic research, which
includes recording music, and bringing it back to study it, by using comparative methods was
Eurocentric. The model was European music, with a notion that different musics can be compared
with the same analytical elements. The social context was absent here as well. Scholars realized
that it was obviously a very colonialist, and limited approach. So, they started adopting methods
of anthropology. The pioneers in the 1950 argued and suggested a model to study music in culture.
Later it evolved, so it became not the study of music in culture but as culture.
John blanking point of view is that music is humanely organized sound. This view is stressing
music as human activity and the study of people making music. Dr. Daukeyeva pointed out that
Ethnomusicology at its beginning focused on men’s music. This happened because of various
reasons: The dominance of males in the majority or researched societies. The difficulty of
accessing female music, because it was restricted mostly to private spheres.

Commentary on the Seminar (08-11-2018)

In this Seminar we discussed how musical Instruments become gendered, and how the professions
in the society become gendered as well. Then we discussed the creation of canon. Dr. Daukeyeva
pointed out that the canon is not about what really happened, but it reflects power relationships in
society. The institutions reflect the gender roles as well, for example: The church, where women
occupied marginal role. Even secular institution reflected the male dominance.
Dr. Daukeyeva pointed out also that Musical works which could be fixed in notation and could be
presented as a product became associated with male world. Our conclusion was, that there are
many layers of information behind the frozen text. Our mission as researchers is to deconstruct it.