Women's History, Feminism, & Rights: Women in Music

As in other genres of music, women have been active in folk music as performers and composers throughout history, although until the 20th century they got little credit for their efforts. This lack of credit has much to do with the ways that folk music is created and performed as well as the secondary place of women in public spheres. This article explores the role of women in folk music and articulates their place in contemporary American folk music performance.

While second-wave feminism stands as a hallmark of women's public activism and participation, their simultaneous presence in the earlier workers’ rights movements that hail back to the beginning of the 20th century can been seen in the community of protest folk singers and folk song composers, including Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, among others who came into prominence in American culture beginning in the 1930s and culminating with the integration of folk and popular music in the 1960s with the rise of Bob Dylan.

Women performers have been active in the music genre identified as “indie,” or independent, throughout its current incarnation, which can be recognized as having developed an identity in the 1970s and reached its zenith of popularity in the 1990s. Indie music is identified by the record labels that release its music. Indie labels traditionally are small, upstart companies that record new and niche music, in contrast to the “majors,” which record mainstream popular and classical music. An earlier generation of indie labels grew in popularity beginning in the late 1940s, including such notable early labels as Chess, Atlantic Records, and King Records, in response to the abandonment of “race” music recordings by the major labels, but they essentially shared the concern of the major labels on mainstream popular music genres. Indie music beginning in the 1970s has been a reaction to mainstream popular music in an almost political fashion, contrasting itself by means of social identities and musical aesthetics. This article will trace the roles women have played in the formation and development in indie music genres from its roots to its height of popularity and conclude by summarizing the role of women in indie music in the early 21st century.

Founded in 1995, the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) remains one of the most important organizations for women in music in the world. The scope of the IAWM includes a broad range of projects—such as concerts, publications, conferences, advocacy initiatives, and opportunities for professional networking—in order to encourage and support compositions, performances, and scholarship by and about women in music. Because of long-held ideologies of domesticity and “proper” womanhood, women traditionally have faced substantial obstacles to pursuing professional careers in music, particularly before the mid-20th century. One way that women attempted to combat these difficulties was by forming organizations, and there is a long tradition of societies, clubs, and professional organizations for women in music that precedes the second-wave feminist movement. One such example is the Society of American Women Composers, founded in the mid-1920s by several women including Amy Beach (1867–1944), the first American woman to sustain an international career as a professional composer.

Jazz, the musical style that originated in the American South and Midwest during the first part of the 20th century, is a union of African, European, and North American music traditions. Women have played a prominent role in jazz since its beginning, with female singers especially prominent in the genre's development. Social expectations and the difficulties of living on the road somewhat limited women's opportunities in jazz, especially during the first half of the 20th century. Despite this, women have contributed to every style and era of jazz, and today they continue to play a prominent role in the field.

As both singers and composers, women have been a driving force in opera for hundreds of years. However, women's influence in opera has often been affected by the inequalities and discrimination women have faced in society as a whole. In the past few decades, scholars have begun to consider a number of issues regarding women in opera in greater depth, such as recovering and analyzing works by female composers, examining the careers of famous opera singers, and exploring the ways in which women characters are depicted in operas (by both male and female composers).

Political movements such as universal adult suffrage opened up new opportunities for female singer/songwriters to become more public and to gain access to funding and other types of support that would increase their presence in music. For example, in 1903, seven women in Ann Arbor, Michigan, established the international fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI), an organization dedicated to encouraging and supporting the art of music. In the late 1960s to 1970s, the singer/songwriter movement in the United States was spearheaded by women such as Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell, among others. However, despite their long history of participation in the field of music, women are still not equally recognized for their work and creativity. While many women have successful careers as performers/singers, few are found working behind the scenes as writers or as leaders in the creative process. They are less visible than their male counterparts, receive little recognition for their work, and do not earn as much as male cohorts.