Shauna Caffrey
TO WHAT DEGREE DOES A SOCIETY’S GENDER IDEOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR AFFECT POPULAR MUSIC? Shauna Caffrey
The ideologies and behavior of a society affect popular music and its production in a multitude of ways, so much so that to state the exact degree of their effect is almost impossible. The sale, production, and presentation of popular music and the artists who create it are all bound by a series of ideological codes, a large number of which reflect upon gender. In Frock Rock, Mavis Bayton states that traditionally, women have been positioned as consumers and fans, and in supportive roles (wife, mother, girlfriend), rather than as active producers of music.1 The following essay seeks to investigate this phenomenon within popular music, examining the methods of exclusion faced by female musicians and music producers in popular music, and the ideologies that they result from. The question of gender identity and the transformation of gender in relation to music technology will be discussed, as will the power attributed to genders. The position of women in technology in popular music will be briefly contrasted with that in experimental music, as will the factors that define women’s entry into both. A large number of references used in this paper adhere to a Marxist theory of ideological relations; founded on the principle that a society’s superstructure is pervaded by the ideologies established by the ruling class, transmitted through the workings of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs).2 The ISAs, though seemingly neutral agencies or institutions, reinforce societal norms through religious, educational, legal and communications systems. John Fiske states that, although ‘they are all patriarchal’, Mavis Bayton, Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 1. 2 Vincent B. Leitch, ‘Marxism’ in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch (ed.) (London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001), pp. 13–17 (p. 14). 1
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