To Watch, to Nurse, and to Rear: Women in General Education

Compared with other salaried occupations, the teaching profession has a recent history of being relatively open to women. By the second half of the nineteenth century, women represented a majority of those employed as teachers in both the United Kingdom and the United States, whereas on either side of the Atlantic the individual careers of physicians such as Elizabeth Blackwell and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson were isolated examples in an overwhelmingly male-dominated medical profession. In the same period, Clara Brett Martin and Ethel Benjamin became the first female barristers to succeed in contesting women’s professional exclusion from the British Empire’s legal structures. The prohibition of the employment of women in the British armed forces continued until 1949, and women continued to be excluded from the ranks of the Anglican clergy until 1992, the latter exclusion maintained to this day in the context of the Roman Catholic Church. While the medical, legal, military, and religious professions represented closed avenues for most women of the early twentieth century, teaching in its various guises was a popular and well-travelled career path for women, and had been so since long before 1900.

The issues explored in this chapter have significance across many areas of education, but it is women’s experience and representation in formal, compulsory music education in the classroom that provide the principal focus here. The comparative openness of schools to the employment of women from the early years of general education resulted rather less from a radical commitment to equality on the part of agitators than from the view that for a woman, to teach was to extend her essential nurturing role, and was therefore a ‘natural’ and good thing. The impediments to female membership of the other professions did not apply. Unlike the surgeon, the teacher does not draw blood or delve into open bodies; unlike the lawyer, her domain is not that of adversarial argumentation and logic; unlike the soldier, she does not kill; unlike the clergyman, she holds no responsibility for sacramental leadership; rather, her domain is the raising of the young.

As early as 1829 the American advocate of female education Catharine Beecher made explicit this elision between the practices of teaching and child-rearing, and emphasised women’s lack of preparation for both these vital roles:

Beecher’s view is echoed and amplified in countless texts from the period. The perceived suitability of the female sex for careers in teaching predominates as a societal belief today, even as the corresponding, paternalistic view that teaching is a uniquely suitable job for middle-class women has been eroded. Notwithstanding the twentieth century’s near consensus over the appropriateness of female employment in teaching, it perhaps goes without saying that women’s involvement as professionals in the provision of formal education has also been subject to many of the societal restrictions and frustrations that have arisen across a wide range of occupations. These have included, amongst other barriers, limits on the employment of married women, who were discouraged or excluded by regulation in many jurisdictions before 1945; a variety of discriminatory employment practices; and exclusion from roles of responsibility; not to mention difficulties arising from domestic and family responsibilities.

Justified contemporaneously as safeguards of family and community life, it is now hard to view these restrictions as anything other than self-interested checks on women’s financial and intellectual independence, devised by and for the benefit of a moneyed male elite. In the UK, the Forster Act of 1870, the Balfour Act of 1902, and the Butler Act of 1944 each brought compulsory free education to significant numbers of new students; while in the United States, legislation was enacted mandating elementary education on a state-by-state basis. As new tranches of children were ushered into the scope of universal free education, more women were brought into the workforce to teach them. Statistical analysis of female participation in the education sector in the first half of the twentieth century shows demographic factors relating to students as important determinants of women teachers’ acceptability. Where the students were young, or from low socio-economic backgrounds, the employment of a female teacher was more likely. Thus, universities and fee-paying schools were staffed mainly by men, whereas women teachers predominated in elementary schools, inviting us again to identify expedience as the primary motivation for this setting aside of society’s reluctance to emancipate women through employment.

Late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century society, as it began to educate its masses, had no choice but to deploy its women as educators. Then, as now, women were greatly under-represented in leadership roles. Post-1945, the implementation of universal general education in the developed world, first to the age of fourteen, then sixteen, and in many countries eventually to eighteen and beyond, has required a larger workforce, in which women are increasingly represented, although not always on an equal basis with men. Recent research into the gender pay gap amongst rank-and-file teachers in the UK showed that male teachers’ wages were greater by between 2 (for primary school practitioners) and 4 per cent (in secondary education), while amongst school and college leaders men were on average 17 per cent better paid.² These differentials represent both historical improvement and, clearly, unfinished business. In recent decades, qualitative studies into the experiences of women working in education, both as teachers and leaders, have shown the variety of barriers they must overcome to achieve positions of influence as well as the stereotyping they face when exercising power in the workplace.³ Despite the narrative of female suitedness for teaching, despite the profession’s ostensibly family-friendly working hours and holidays, and despite the evident success of twentieth-century women in building careers in teaching, it is also true that the scholastic environment has presented – and still presents – many female teachers with significant challenges.

Body and Mind: Women Working in Music Education

The opportunities and challenges that apply to women teachers in general are, by and large, shared by those who choose to work in the field of music education. Although the proportion of music teachers who are women has differed very little from the proportion of women working in the sector as a whole, and although the historical imposition of barriers and limits to employment as a music educator have been similar to those experienced by other teachers, certain features are specific to our subject. In order to understand the structures that distinguish the experiences of women teaching music in schools from those of their colleagues in other subjects, it is worth considering the musical realm from a theoretical perspective as well as from the perspective of individual practitioners.

Many persuasive theoretical accounts of gender issues in music and education employ a body/mind dualism,⁴ in which various musical activities and roles are apportioned, facilitated, celebrated, or proscribed according to their being understood either as an aspect of (bodily) display or (cerebral) control, with the former delineated as consistent with femininity, the latter with masculinity. Hence social approbation for women singers – whose display of the body as the physical origin of the voice is consistent with normative ideas of femininity – but opprobrium for female composers and conductors – whose minds are conspicuously deployed in the creative management and direction of others (perhaps especially including men), thereby disrupting feminine norms. A succinct summary of the specific ways in which this theory plays out in relation to music composition is offered by Victoria Armstrong, drawing upon the scholarship of Marcia J. Citron and Lucy Green:

The material and ideological positioning of a key component of musical practice as antithetical to femininity has had implications for women teachers and female students, of course, but also for the curriculum itself. In the first half of the twentieth century, problematic delineated associations of composition with masculinity meant that while many women studied musical performance to a high standard – an accomplishment for the most part in harmony with a socially approved performance of femininity – the opportunities for women to study composition, notable exceptions notwithstanding, were far fewer. When coupled with the preponderance of women working in the profession during this early period, this in turn led to the omission of composition from the school music curriculum.

Problematic ideology (and often inadequate resources) meant that prescribed curricula pre-1970 in the United Kingdom were for the most part limited to – as in many cases even identified as – class singing. The other main focus of the school curriculum was listening and music appreciation, drawing on and simultaneously reinforcing a small canon of music by male composers who worked in the ‘common-practice’ tradition of European art music.⁶ The view expounded by George Upton in 1886 was that while ‘at first glance it would seem that musical composition is a province in which women should excel’, closer examination, evidently, showed women to be ‘receptive rather than creative’ in their engagement with music, having ‘failed to create important and enduring works’.⁷

While women’s compositional output was thus unjustly excluded from the pedagogical canon, women were influential in the development, testing, and publication of pedagogical principles and practices. Sondra Wieland Howe’s recent work has shown how, in the United States, women took the lead in the writing of textbooks and instructional works, with series of texts for schools appearing under the authorship of Eleanor Smith, M. Teresa Armitage, Mabelle Glenn, and Lilla Bell Pitts, while pedagogues such as Angela Diller, Elizabeth Quaile, and Leila Fletcher published popular piano methods.⁸ In Great Britain, meanwhile, the confidence – certainty, even – with which a woman author might address music-pedagogical matters was amply demonstrated in the highly influential and frequently quoted philosophy of Annie Curwen, an Anglo-Irish writer of books for music teachers:

1. 1. Teach the easy before the difficult.

2. 2. Teach the thing before the sign.

3. 3. Teach one fact at a time, and the commonest fact first.

4. 4. Leave out all exceptions and anomalies until the general rule is understood.

5. 5. In training the mind, teach the concrete before the abstract.

6. 6. In developing physical skill, teach the elemental before the compound, and do one thing at a time.

7. 7. Proceed from the known to the unknown.

8. 8. Let each lesson, as far as possible, rise out of that which goes before, and lead up to that which follows.

9. 9. Call in the understanding to help the skill at every step.

10. 10. Let the first impression be a correct one; leave no room for misunderstanding.

11. 11. Never tell a pupil anything that you can help him to discover for himself.

12. 12. Let the pupil, as soon as possible, derive some pleasure from his knowledge. Interest can only be kept up by a sense of growth in independent power.⁹

Pedagogy was thus understood as a domain in which female authority could be asserted and accepted. Curwen’s role in providing a pedagogical interpretation or realisation of theories and practices developed by a man better established in the public sphere – in this case her father-in-law, John Curwen, the pioneer of tonic sol-fa – was not an unusual one. Two of the leading ‘methods’ popularised in the middle part of the twentieth century, Orff-Schulwerk and Dalcroze Eurhythmics, although ostensibly founded by men, were furnished with pedagogies by female music educators. In the former case, the substantial input of Dorothee Günther, Gunild Keetman, and (especially in the anglophone world) Margaret Murray belies the movement’s eponymous title. Working at the progressive Günther-Schule in Munich, Keetman’s work ‘putting [Orff’s] ideas into practice’¹⁰ resulted in the lead authorship of all five volumes of Musik für Kinder (Music for Children), published in German between 1949 and 1954, and in Margaret Murray’s English editions in the later 1950s. The influence of these volumes on music-pedagogical practice in the coming decades was great. Meanwhile, the practical development of Dalcroze Eurhythmics on the foundations of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s groundbreaking concept was also largely in the hands of women such as Suzanne Ferrière and Marguerite Heaton, who founded the first training centre in the United States; Marie Eckhard, the founder of the Dalcroze Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and Heather Gell, who initiated the lively Dalcroze scene in Australia. The trend for music-pedagogical innovation and refinement to be discharged by women has continued, with significant contributions from writers like Ruth Harris and Elizabeth Hawksley, for example, providing practical elucidations of the ideas normally ascribed to John Paynter, in their highly regarded and much-used text of 1989.¹¹

By the 1950s, individual women teachers were making significant progress, too, in securing positions in higher education institutions. Helen Just, the cellist in the English String Quartet, was in the early generation of women to be appointed to permanent professorial roles at London’s Royal College of Music (RCM), following in the footsteps of pioneers such as Marguerite Long, who became professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1920, and the composer Nadia Boulanger, who worked at the American School at Fontainebleau throughout the 1920s. In common with many other pioneers, Just relied on charisma and the force of her personality to gain acceptance in this male-dominated environment, in which she encountered resistance on a regular basis. In the following account of a postgraduate chamber music coaching session, a male violist provides insight into her dialogic teaching style while also demonstrating, probably inadvertently, the readiness of a young male student to challenge the authority of a female professor:

Helen Just occupied her position at the Royal College deservedly, as one of the most musically gifted, technically able, and frequently broadcast performing cellists of her generation, yet it is illustrative of her experience – and that of other women performers of her era – that published accounts of her success were quick to assert the patronage of her husband, the cellist Ivor James, an RCM professor of an earlier generation.¹³

Mind the Gap: Role Models and Curricula

In the second half of the twentieth century, a clear gap emerged between the distance travelled by individual women and the general stagnation of the music education world where issues of gender politics were concerned. Female educators were central to the flourishing of organisations like the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) in the United States, and the National Association of Music Educators (NAME) in the United Kingdom, as well as to the establishment of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) itself. New opportunities afforded by broadcast media and music publishing were seized by women like the flautist and concert animateur Atarah Ben-Tovim, whose relentless advocacy of high-quality universal music education led her to be viewed first as ‘just another crazy woman with a bee in her bonnet’,¹⁴ and eventually as an imaginative pedagogue with a talent for inspiring children’s interest in all kinds of musical material. Ben-Tovim’s work for the BBC resulted in a number of television and radio series, including Atarah’s Music Box and Atarah’s Band, which aired in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In the United States, similar influence was gained by the conductor and teacher Doreen Rao, whose work encompasses professional performance and pedagogical leadership. Rao’s contribution to choral pedagogy, primarily through the editing of an extensive and popular series of graded repertoire for children and adults, and by regular mediatised appearances, has been significant. Other women have achieved prominence as a result of their ability to match artistry and pedagogical innovation. Lin Marsh’s success as a prodigious composer of outstanding music for children has been unsurpassed since her emergence in the 1990s as a leading British music pedagogue. Practitioners like Mary King, whose work includes television programmes like Operatunity (2003) and Musicality (2004) for the UK broadcaster Channel 4, have made a similarly powerful and long-lasting impact through their writings and music educational leadership.

The success of these individuals in pursuing careers at the highest level has clearly benefited the wider music education community, but in other ways music educational practice has been unhelpfully constrained by narrow attitudes towards women. As Roberta Lamb, Lori-Ann Dolloff, and Sondra Wieland Howe rightly suggest in their review of gender themes as they relate to this discipline, ‘Music education did not demonstrate concern with issues addressed in second wave educational feminism: uncovering sexism in historical perspectives of music education; justifying equal opportunities and affirmative educational programmes; and creating non-sexist curricula in music.’¹⁵ This inaction in relation to feminism’s second wave – that is, in relation to the idea that discrimination in education was structural, and that women’s personal, cultural, and political inequalities were necessarily bound together – is perhaps particularly surprising, given that colleagues in other subject disciplines were grappling with how to rebalance – to detoxify, even – curricula that had focused disproportionately on the white European male experience. Thus, while history educators were engaging in a factional struggle for control of their curriculum,¹⁶ and while sexism and racism were being acknowledged and challenged in English literature,¹⁷ music educationalists were failing to address a number of their own historiographical myths. These included the absence of women in the historical narrative of musical development, and a musical version of the historian Thomas Carlyle’s theory that decisive, courageous, and influential individuals, rather than communities, technologies, or circumstantial factors, are primarily responsible for the advancement of culture.¹⁸ A tendency to neglect these important issues, casting the musical past and present as apolitical and uncontested, has been all too common. Educationalists have done too little to respond to Jane Bowers and Judith Tick’s factual observation that ‘The absence of women in the standard music histories is not due to their absence in the musical past.’¹⁹ In the United Kingdom, for example, the first generation ‘GCE Advanced-level’ examination that functioned as a gateway between secondary and higher education between 1951 and 1986 prescribed the detailed study of a few hundred composers – all of them white, all of them European, none of them women²⁰ – seemingly without a word of criticism at this bias being set down in print.

At the establishment of the UK’s first national curriculum, similarly problematic canon-formation was demonstrated in the preeminent textbooks, and, again, went unchallenged: listening examples were offered from myriad historical periods, genres, and cultures for use with students between the ages of eleven and fourteen; yet the only role models for females as composers were a handful of singer-songwriters.²¹ Syllabuses for public examinations have been similarly problematic. In 2016, a campaign led by the seventeen-year-old Jessy McCabe resulted in one of the main providers of post-sixteen music qualifications in the United Kingdom, Pearson Edexcel, abandoning its plan to revalidate its Advanced-level Music specification with an updated list of exclusively male composers. The publisher’s response to pressure exercised through an online petition was to issue a revised list of set works, following consultation, which now includes pieces by Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Kate Bush, Anoushka Shankar, and Kaija Saariaho.

Despite such successes, and perhaps as a result of the failure to recontextualise the historiography of previous generations as, at best, partial, music educators of both sexes have unwittingly reproduced sexist ideas within our curricula. These range from ideas about which instruments ‘suit’ girls and boys respectively – a tedious playing out in the classroom of the wider ‘pink is for girls, blue is for boys’ trope, which has resulted in the gender imbalance observed in some instrumental areas going unchallenged²² – to arguably yet more unsettling ideas about the nature and distribution of human creativity. Green’s research, later replicated in British Columbia by Betty Hanley,²³ showed how inequality in music education was not a simple ‘one-dimensional assertion of power by men over women’ but rather a complex web of ‘tolerance and repression, collusion and resistance, that systematically furthers the … divisions from which musical patriarchy springs’.²⁴ Green reveals an alarming discourse on the nature of girls’ and boys’ aptitude for musical composition amongst music educators themselves. Synthesising evidence from open-ended questionnaires and interviews, she showed how teachers of the 1990s ascribed boys’ success to ‘imagination, exploratory inclinations, inventiveness, creativity, improvisatory ability and natural talent’ while achievement by girls was ‘characterised as conservative, traditional and reliant on notation’.²⁵ While we can only speculate about the significant power of this discourse to discourage girls from engaging in musical creativity, early evidence has already suggested that music teachers’ sexist beliefs of this kind lead to the unfair assessment of musical works that are dependent on the assessors’ perception of the composer as female or male.²⁶ Meanwhile, as Armstrong has demonstrated, composition at secondary school level has become increasingly driven by and mediated through digital technologies and the virtual, rather than by social relationships and the physical. As discussed in more detail below, this ‘technicisation’ of musical creativity, she suggests, risks the further exclusion of girls from what can be characterised, simplistically but influentially, as a uniquely male-friendly domain.²⁷

Women and Pedagogical Debates in the Twenty-First Century

With notable exceptions – the discussions around Pearson Edexcel’s curricular decisions being a good example – gender has hardly been at the forefront of recent curricular debates, at least as far as classroom music education at primary and secondary level is concerned. It would be misleading, however, to cast music pedagogy and curricula per se as uncontested territories, and it is worth exploring the ways in which the debates that are currently being waged advance or impinge upon ideas of progress as far as women working and studying in music education are concerned. Addressing an international conference of music educators in 2009, Magne Espeland set out three ways in which music pedagogy was then perceived to be subject to significant and dichotomous differences of opinion:

It is worth dwelling on these issues, since they represent the foci of the discursive energies of the music education community. In the first case, as suggested above, the debate is evidently one that can readily be construed as highly gendered. The further integration of technology into music educational practices, as Espeland asserts, can facilitate the realisation of individual potential by releasing the expression of musical ideas from the confines of the individual’s instrumental or vocal ability. It also enables practices in the classroom to mirror practices observed in parts of the music industry. On the other hand, an increased focus on technology risks the development of ‘machine qualities as opposed to human qualities in music education’, the loss of ‘practical, aesthetic, and expressive activities involving body and mind’, and even ‘social delimitation, unhealthy individualisation and body de-focused practices’.²⁹ Espeland cites Wayne Bowman’s persuasive account of all human cognition as characterised by ‘the inseparability of mind and body … [and] the indispensability of corporeal experience to all human knowledge’.³⁰ From this vantage, he highlights the potential for delineated meanings around gender – particularly in relation to the body/mind dualism – to intersect in harmful ways with practices that prioritise learning approaches in which individuals work with machines, instead of those in which learning is collective and embodied. In her more elaborated critique of music technological learning in the music classroom, Armstrong shares these fears, adding that ‘male teachers and male pupils dominate social interactions that focus around technological talk [and that] the prevalence of an “ad hoc” way of learning about technology largely favours boys’ ways of engaging with technology’.³¹

A sociological reading of these music education technologies, therefore, must consider the possibility that unthinking enthusiasm for the practice of addressing musical composition uniquely in a digitally mediated context risks a fresh approach to the practice of limiting female creativity in schools. Clearly, neither Espeland nor Armstrong takes an unenthusiastic position overall in respect of computers; the central question for each of them is how rather than whether we should employ technology in music educational contexts, enabling the numbers of women now finding creative and fulfilling roles in this field to be increased further. A key point for the latter writer seems to be that the question of technology should first be understood as a gendered one and that its gendered effects in relation to students and teachers be weighed appropriately as new policies and practices are devised; secondly, as Armstrong sets out below, a crude stereotyping of computers as inherently male business should be firmly resisted:

(For a detailed consideration of women and music technology, see Part III.)

The second of Espeland’s contemporary dichotomies, between formal and informal approaches to learning, rests on the degree to which practices observed amongst learners in non-institutional settings – amongst those who learn in a ‘garage band’, by studying online videos, or orally in the setting of traditional music cultures – should be imported into institutional contexts. Informal pedagogies in music can be understood variously, but many writers have relied on the key principles laid out by Green, drawing upon her research into the learning practices of popular musicians. Informal learning in music, according to Green, is:

1. 1. Learning music that pupils choose, like, and identify with.

2. 2. Learning by listening and copying recordings.

3. 3. Learning with friends.

4. 4. Personal, often haphazard without structured guidance.

5. 5. Integration of listening, performing, improvising, and composing.³³

The Musical Futures pedagogical approach,³⁴ inspired by these five principles and motivated by the perceived stagnation and rejection of traditional ways of teaching music in the classroom, has been enthusiastically received in some quarters and fiercely opposed in others. Many schools in the United Kingdom adopted its brand of self-directed, independent learning, reporting that students who approached musical tasks in this way, while working in friendship groups, showed greater engagement with the subject than those working in a conventional, teacher-directed way. Its introduction has been challenged by critics as signalling a break with the Deweyan concept of ‘democratic’ public education, in that by allowing students to learn with friends – effectively to choose the students with whom they will interact musically, consistent with Green’s third principle – priority is given ‘to egoism and personal priorities as more important in learning situations than altruism and democratic and social values’.³⁵

By relaxing teacher control on the sequencing of activities and the selection of repertoire, students are free to interact with activities and repertoire of their own. This raises two important possibilities where gender is concerned. The first is that individuals can elect to pursue roles within informal working groups that are consistent with their own gender identities and self-concept; playing, singing, composing, or improvising in ways that they choose themselves. Thus, while they might very well still be subject to limitations imposed by society and their own imaginations in their choice-making, they are unlikely to choose roles for which society has adjudged them unsuited. The second is that by allowing students to copy the music of musicians that they themselves select, the number of women musicians and composers brought into the classroom is likely increased; the power of music education professionals to curate ‘role models’ in the ways that have historically resulted in the near elimination of female musicianship from the scholastic canon, meanwhile, is diminished. What can be said about these discussions is that to date very little empirical evidence relating to gender has been wielded either in support of informal learning approaches or in defence of more traditional methods. While we can speculate about the impact of this debate in relation to women teachers and female students, more research is required before conclusions can fruitfully be drawn.

The third contemporary dichotomy, that between the ‘educator/teacher’ and the ‘artist/musician’ is perhaps the one that has evolved most significantly in the decade since Espeland’s address, in the sense that it has been brought into the political realm and has been amplified and extended as part of turf wars fought between factions in the political class, perhaps especially in the UK, where the governments in office since 2010 have unambiguously sought to redefine music education as merely the learning of musical instruments and singing. The potential conflict between the privileging of artistry and the privileging of pedagogy is itself one that can be easily revealed as having little substance; revealed, that is, ‘as a dichotomy of the past, and not as a real dichotomy with strong opposing … views’.³⁶ What has become increasingly challenged in some political quarters, however, is the very notion of a thoroughgoing and comprehensive music education delivered by professional educators and made available as part of a universal compulsory education; which is to say that, in respect of this third dichotomy, the stakes have been raised considerably. While the gendering of this debate might not be immediately apparent, familiarity with feminist accounts of schooling and learning invite us to read its subtexts critically.

On one side of the current debate are advocates of broad musical learning as articulated, for example, in early versions of England’s national curriculum and in the roughly contemporaneous US national standards devised by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) in 1994. In brief, they argue for a universal music education that is creative as well as re-creative, that addresses many styles and genres, and that privileges the sharing of musical experiences of value as the key site of musical learning. On the other side, focus is increasingly directed towards instrumental and vocal expertise, towards individual and re-creative practices rather than social and creative ones, and towards an ever narrower group of acknowledged great works: ‘the best in the musical canon’,³⁷ to echo the words of the current national curriculum in England. Further, those on this side of the debate conceive of the notion of a universal entitlement rather differently, focusing on the idea of sifting and selecting from the student population in order to find those most suited to intensive musical learning, rather than providing a curriculum for all.

If we are attuned to the gendered subtexts in all the above we might legitimately raise four concerns. First, by emphasising and narrowing the existing canon of works and (male) composers – that is, leaning in the opposite direction to that which grass-roots pressure has obliged Pearson Edexcel to travel – we deny female students helpful role models and risk limiting female creativity in ways that have already been presented in this chapter. While progress in this respect has clearly been made in tertiary and post-compulsory secondary education, for the vast majority of students for whom music is compulsory, change has been regressive. Second, by focusing governmental funding mainly on instrumental and vocal expertise rather than broader forms of musical learning we move our discipline towards the problematic realm of gendered instrument choice.³⁸ Third, by focusing on individual rather than social learning we privilege behaviours and modes of learning that are often societally approved amongst males but discouraged amongst females, increasing rather than diminishing male advantage. Fourth, by increasing selection within our education systems we risk introducing or reintroducing tools that have been found historically to advance male learners and teachers.

Contextualising the Case Studies: Gender Inequality, the Portfolio Career, and Precarious Labour

While not focused on independent artists, nor Scottish ones as pertains to my PhD research, a report entitled Inclusion in the Recording Studio? highlights some of the disparity across three main creative roles in the United States,⁸ analysing the inclusion of women in 700 popular songs between 2012 and 2018. These roles were: artists, songwriters, and producers, for which the percentage of females were reported as being 17.1 per cent, 12.3 per cent, and 2.1 percent, respectively. A similarly low percentage of female participation was reported by UK publishing organisation PRS for Music in 2018, showing that only 17 per cent of their writer members were female.⁹ Why such a gender gap? While the answer is far from being clean-cut and simple, there are foundational aspects upon which the music industries have been built that may provide a starting point to any explanation. Firstly, there has been a fairly rapid change in the nature of what once was ‘the record business’ through, in part, the impact of technology; and secondly, there is the changing nature of the operational side of working within ‘the business’, more aptly known in academic terms as ‘the music industries’. The operational side I will discuss in this chapter pertains to the types of music work that can be, but is not limited to, the constitution of a music worker’s portfolio, and the work ethic of independent workers; one, I argue, that brings about essential entrepreneurialism. ‘Essential’, through the necessary behaviours required to monetise the music work as a means to sustain a career; while entrepreneurialism is understood to mean the very spirit embodied in the work connected to entrepreneurship, whereby one is alert to opportunities that will render an economic outcome: thus, ‘entrepreneurial alertness must include the entrepreneur’s perception of the way in which creative and imaginative action may vitally shape the kind of transactions that will be entered into’.¹⁰ Thus, as will be presented in the case studies, there is the possibility that there may be a challenge in terms of striking a balance between the artistic decisions being made and the transportation of the art (in these cases, ‘the songs’) to a place of ‘higher productivity and greater yield’.¹¹ Say discusses this shift in relation to ‘economic resources’.¹² As such, one question that may be raised here is whether the women in the case studies consider their art to be economic resources, art for art’s sake, or perhaps something entirely new.

Further, Lewis links the entrepreneurial to the concept of identity construction,¹³ where, in Lewis’s study, women self-consciously adopt a ‘feminised’ entrepreneurial identity: ‘within the institutional context of entrepreneurship, women’s identity is understood as something that is actively constructed and worked upon as opposed to something that is understood as an elemental essence’.¹⁴ Indeed, it is not my intention to discuss the concepts of identity and authenticity in detail here, as the related literature is fairly plentiful elsewhere. However, there is value in drawing some attention to the relationship both serve to the motivational factors connected to working entrepreneurially. As will be demonstrated in the case studies analysed, I highlight the challenges women in the modern music industries face in the navigation and active construction of their identities as part of professional and practice-based role-creation. (For a study of the gendered dimensions facing female freelance musicians in the contemporary classical-music industry, see the Afterword, ‘Challenges and Opportunities: Ways Forward for Women Working in Music’.)

Gender Equality Campaigns in Music

It can be said that positive progress has been made to help undo some of the role-framing and male-dominated operational grounding of the music industries. One such campaign is ‘Keychange’ – which was originally rolled out by Vanessa Reed during her time in a leadership role at the PRS Foundation – which ‘invests in emerging talent whilst encouraging music festivals, orchestras, conservatoires, broadcasters, concert halls, agents, record labels and all music organisations to sign up to a 50:50 gender balance pledge by 2022’.¹⁵ The Women in Music (WIM) organisation, launched in 1985, similarly encourages gender equality in the music industries through raising awareness, opportunities, diversity, heritage, opportunities, and cultural aspects of women in the musical arts through education, support, empowerment, and recognition.¹⁶ Broadly, such campaigning exists as an attempt to even the playing field, serving to improve the working lives of women in music.

However, given Keychange 50:50 aims to achieve gender balance by 2022, it remains to be seen whether such initiatives are fully effective. On the one hand, the very existence of such initiatives could be seen to be a step in the right direction to achieve the gender balance so desired. Coupled with the fact that over 300 organisations have signed up to the campaign, this further underlines that such initiatives are indeed being impactful from the viewpoint of general progress. On the other hand, however, it may be that the practical implementation is more cumbersome if promoters become overly reliant on their existing contacts or networks, which have seemingly come to accept a belief that there are simply not enough female performers out there. As a means to combat this barrier, Vick Bain – the former CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) – has produced an extensive database of female artists on her blog, ‘Counting the Music Industry’, to highlight that there are indeed female artists of a suitable standard available to be booked.¹⁷ Nonetheless, the working environment and opportunities as such for women in music remains somewhat precarious.

Precarious Labour

A very basic example of precarious labour for women in music – one that applies to many people working on a self-employed basis not least in the music industries – is the lack of support for maternity leave. Fundamentally, it is a precarious type of employment to be self-employed within the creative industries. Banks refers to such precariousness as ‘injustices’,¹⁸ whereby creative and cultural work may be overlooked by comparison to other traditional forms of work outside of said categories. However, internal and external factors linked to kinds of ‘practice’, he argues, may help recognise the standing of the work more broadly.¹⁹ When discussing work in the creative and cultural industries, of which the music industries are a part, the notion of ‘practice’ is thus important to consider. The internal and external factors to which Banks refers are arguably key to understanding at least some of the reasons why there may be disparity between notions of ‘real’ work,²⁰ which is economically motivated, and work that renders an outcome of non-economic value. Indeed, music work can and does produce results in the economic sense. We need only look at the finances of major record labels such as Universal Music or Warner Music to see evidence of this. However, in Banks’s chapter focused on the work of musicians,²¹ he states that those who choose to work as professional musicians often do not do so for the money.²² Thus, the precarious work being underlined here is not that pertinent to the roles within the music industries that are relatively secure, those jobs that are to some extent office-based, and that are tied mainly to major record labels; but rather the roles and the practices of those operating at the margins of the major or larger independent record labels, often on an independent, self-employed, or partially self-employed basis. (For simplification, I will refer to this group of workers as independent workers for the remainder of the chapter.) As such, building on the work of Stahl, Sholette, Morgan, Wood, and Nelligan, Eikhof and Warhurst,²³ and the aforementioned Banks,²⁴ this chapter explores and problematises the work of FIMAs as a vehicle for explaining some of the issues linked to topics such as: work ethic and the portfolio career; gender inequality; and perspectives on ‘success’ as mapped to women operating as independent workers in the music industries more broadly. Granted, there are nuances across these areas which apply to non-artists; for example, those working purely in administration. However, the ideas set forth here are designed to help address recurring themes and issues pertinent to independent workers, particularly women, in the music industries. To do so, I present two case studies of real independent artists currently working in the music industries as a means to unpack the said themes and convey live issues pertinent to their work ethic, portfolio careers, and ideas about their own sense of success, while also considering aspects of gender inequality.

The Changing Nature of the Music Industries: Mobilising the ‘Portfolio Career’

The modern music ‘business’ is complex. We now talk about the ‘music industries’ as this term better reflects its multifaceted nature, which extends beyond the ‘record industry’,²⁵ technologically and economically speaking. One such complexity is the underlying layers of ‘people work’: the fragmented roles people undertake, such as that of promoter, artist manager, self-managed artist, community music practitioner, label manager, or studio owner, that ultimately fuel these industries. As such, the case studies in this chapter take a closer look at the work of women in the music industries, primarily that of so-called independent music artists. Its perspective is drawn from a UK standpoint and more specifically, addresses the work of FIMAs in Scotland. The women in each of the case studies are Glasgow-based and share something in common: the ability to make their careers in the music business (and beyond) ‘work’: to make these careers meaningful and significant to them, amidst the challenge of juggling a portfolio of artistic endeavours that make up a rich tapestry of artistic being against the backdrop of our modern and somewhat intricate economy. My fieldwork in this area has thus far suggested to me that the unusual patterns of creative and precarious labour tied to the role of FIMAs in Scotland are indeed a key challenge in terms of making such careers ‘work’ – and indeed, of making them sustainable. Perhaps this is often because there are various levels at which such artists work in terms of the components that make up their whole ‘portfolio’. There is no ‘one size fits all’, necessarily. The multifarious nature of portfolio work can be chaotic. It can also offer flexibility. Organising oneself across various roles requires diligence and a great deal of autonomy. My own work in this field, perhaps more aptly defined as that of a ‘music practitioner’, has certainly taught me this. What has been important in operating autonomously in this portfolio capacity has been steering and maintaining a moral course, arguably core to any and all related decision-making. Often, this means mulling over of the value of the type of work involved in a project before engaging in it.

Collinson Scott and Scott discuss the portfolio career in practice,²⁶ raising valuable points in relation to the generation of two types of esteem in creative practice: creative esteem, where there is value attached to the creative work and professional practice; and self-esteem, where there is enjoyment of music making.²⁷ Both, they argue, are particularly important to artists operating broadly on an independent level.²⁸ As such, the case studies presented in this chapter will seek to unpack some of the issues tied to self-management in terms of decision-making in this sense, and consider key issues at the forefront of creative practice for each.

The first of the two case studies in this chapter addresses the idea that motherhood may hinder opportunities in the progression of a career in the music industries, particularly for independent singer-songwriters. The second case study also looks at an independent music artist, but one with a career spanning over thirty years, comprising a history of major record label engagement. In both cases, the notion of independent work – often linked with precarious labour – is discussed: this is a core element when considering the contemporary work of women’s freelance roles in the music industries.

Navigating the Case Studies

Each case study provides background information on the independent music artist in question, followed by an analysis of their current operation within the music industries. Broadly, the key areas for consideration pertain to: (i) ‘work ethic’ – where ‘essential entrepreneurialism’ is given some attention; (ii) components of their ‘portfolio career’ – where self-management is considered in connection with some (though not an exhaustive list of) ideas linked with identity, gender inequality, and, again, entrepreneurialism. Finally, I conclude with (iii) perspectives on the notion of ‘success’ in the context of independent working and music making – in this section, I provide the briefest of commentary on what this means to artists and their conflicts with commercial operations.

Case Study 1 – Emma Gillespie: Mothering and Music Making

Analysis

Independent artists without management in place arguably have a dilemma: the inevitable conflict between art and commerce. While this is not a new discussion, it makes sense to take stock of it given that, as I will argue, independent artists with a desire to be ‘successful’ must adopt one or more aspects of entrepreneurship – and the inevitable consequence of this is a practice–purpose dissonance. For Emma, this would pertain to subsequent and essential behaviours related to her work as a songwriter and performer. For example, proactively sharing her new songs on online platforms such as Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Music Glue, or Facebook, required Emma to consider which were the best techniques to use in order to attract the attention of existing and new audiences. There are two key facts here: (i) Emma would like people to listen to and buy her music; (ii) Emma understands that if in order to optimise online sales opportunities, the evidence within her online engagement analytics suggests there would be value in employing business-like skills in order to maximise music views, streams, listens, and sales. Thus, there is an apparent manner of acting entrepreneurially. What may prove problematic for Emma, however, is the notion of another ‘self’ that governs her creativity in the crafting of her songs. This self writes ‘freely’ without any concern about the songs’ economic success. As such, any reluctance connected to profit seeking unlocks a dissonance between the freedom of her writing process and the economic value attached to the practice of songwriting. The qualitative research of Haynes and Marshall underlines this idea, stating that ‘while the musicians in our study are routinely involved in activities that could be construed as entrepreneurial, generally they were reluctant to label themselves as entrepreneurs’.²⁹

Indeed, Emma self-labels as an artist rather than as an entrepreneur. It is part of her identity. In recent years, Emma became a mother and, as an independent worker in the contemporary music industries, had to negotiate creative space (physically and mentally) with mothering. The practicalities of breastfeeding in the context of independent music making, for instance, should not be underestimated. The image in Figure 16.1 depicts Emma cradling her toddler while attempting to capture a vocal take in the microphone. Here, Emma, as prime carer for her child on this particular day, had to make a decision about taking an opportunity – the kind that can come and go quickly in the music industries due to the competitive nature of its fringe³⁰ – to juggle a typical act of mothering (holding and comforting a child) with a typical act of recording a vocal take. (On the practicalities of working as a freelance musician and parenting, see also Chapter 11, ‘The British Folk Revival: Mythology and the “Non-Figuring” and “Figuring” Woman’.) Governing Emma’s music practice are the two principles of creative esteem and self-esteem, whereby value is being sought for the music-making practice and where Emma engages in the practice for the enjoyment of it; and also essential entrepreneurialism, where Emma is utilising her voice as an economic resource with which to render an output of economic value, beyond art for art’s sake.

Figure 16.1 Singer-songwriter Emma Gillespie and her son, Oscar.

Photo credit: Thomas Brumby

The sustaining of Emma’s music career is, in her view, what makes it a ‘success’. However, the reality is that to do this in the current music industries on an independent level requires sufficient income to be generated. Given that musicians in the UK earned an average income of £23,059 in 2018,³¹ and statistics reported by WIM highlight that ‘50% of freelance women earn less than £10,000 annually in the UK’,³² there is concern that women – and arguably mothers even more so, given that no maternity pay exists in this freelance context – may be experiencing more barriers than non-female musicians in terms of mobilising their creative resources into an area of greater yield. In other words: mothering could be perceived as a prohibitive measure in the progression of a FIMA’s music career. While campaigns for positive discrimination are increasing awareness of gender inequality, given the current structure of the music industries, it will likely be difficult in the short term to effect a scenario whereby mothers are afforded a version of maternity leave more closely matching the conditions set by other more favourable industries, such as in the ‘teacher, training and education sector’ in the UK. Indeed, short-term contracts exist here, too. An HM Revenue and Customs report outlining personal income statistics for the period 2016–17 stated that ‘there were more male than female taxpayers in every age range and males had higher median income throughout’, further suggesting that self-employed women in the UK may well be in a more precarious position,³³ due, in part, to the meagre or non-existent pay received during maternity ‘leave’.

Case Study 2 – Carol Laula: A Career Spanning Over Thirty Years

Background

The second case study looks at the work of singer-songwriter Carol Laula. Carol’s career spans over thirty years, having signed a development deal with Chrysalis Records in 1989 followed shortly by a record deal with Iona Gold³⁴ in 1991 and subsequent reviews in Billboard magazine. Carol took some time out to complete a university degree after her contract with these record labels had drawn to a close, then revived her music career with a series of self-releases and smaller label releases, as well as organising a range of live dates, all the while being heavily involved in community music projects. Carol’s community music projects, alone, vary widely. For example, her weekly operations as a practitioner in this context see her function as a songwriting tutor to young carers and to female prisoners (some of whom are more broadly under some form of surveillance), and as a training co-ordinator for BookBug, a programme run by the Scottish Book Trust; she has also previously held roles as a project co-ordinator for Scottish youth music initiative, Hear! Glasgow.

Figure 16.2 Singer-songwriter Carol Laula featured on the front cover of her eighth studio album, The Bones of It, released in 2016 by Vertical Records.

Photo credit: Julie Vance. Sleeve design: John Eaden

In Carol’s more recent activity as a singer-songwriter, she works more independently. Gone are the marketing team; gone are the people that spent large parts of their day in a ‘full-time work’ capacity seeking out live dates and synchronisation opportunities on Carol’s behalf. Now, Carol works with a part-time music manager to help tackle some of these administration-based tasks. Her most recent record (and eighth studio album), The Bones of It, was released in 2016 by a small Scottish folk label, Vertical Records. Carol largely funded the record, from its production through to manufacturing – and its marketing, too. Alongside her commercial musical output, Carol supplements her income through a separate role as a community music practitioner, working across Scotland with a range of (mainly) young people delivering songwriting workshops. These tend to be funded by Creative Scotland, local councils, and/or small charitable funds such as Cashback for Communities.

Conclusion

In my contextualising introduction I referred to several key areas at the heart of the issues facing contemporary women operating within the music industries. The case studies were subsequently used as a means to draw closer attention to the sea of women working in music who identify as independent music artists, not least to shine a spotlight on the complex nature of their operations as a whole, and perhaps more aptly, the work they engage in as ‘music practitioners’. It is this term that more closely embodies the components that make up the portfolio career. It comprises an unusual compounding of various music-making activities that serve in the production of the enjoyment and value aspects pertinent to the practice itself. I have argued that as part of negotiating the portfolio career, the independent workers presented in the case studies enact essential entrepreneurialism as a means to sustain their music-making activities, but they often do so reluctantly. For women in music, the decision-making attached to their practice sometimes, if not often, must incorporate childbearing and/or childcare concerns, which may compromise opportunities to progress their music careers. Put simply, the physical and mental pressures attached to mothering appear not to be best catered for in the modern music industries for independent workers. Thus, this may be a significant contributing factor to the gender gap across the music industries more broadly.

For the women depicted in the case studies, their attempts to make a ‘success’ of a music career appears intrinsically linked to notions of sustainment. Furthermore, what drives the proficiency of career sustainment, at least at an independent level, appears, in both case studies, to be the aptitude for, or the art of, juggling a number of separate yet connected roles in music: this is the lifeblood of the portfolio career.

Introduction

Mark Banks asserts that too little is known about the conditions under which the creative cultural worker produces their work, often because it is regarded as ‘fun’ and not work at all.¹ It is described as a ‘vocation’ because it is committed to values of a ‘higher’ nature whereby creativity is seen as a ‘calling’.² David Hesmondhalgh and Sarah Baker argue that, ‘some of the celebrations of creative labour are deeply complacent about the conditions of such work and the reality of the labour markets involved’,³ in which a highly skilled workforce is expected (and deemed willing) to endure the vagaries of a precarious, insecure, and often poorly paid working life to pursue their ‘calling’. This lack of criticality serves to fetishise creativity,⁴ while simultaneously invoking a neoliberal economic ideology that emphasises individualism, competition, and entrepreneurialism, whereby the individual is held responsible for their own successes and failures, and where hard work pays, and success is rewarded.⁵ Problematically, neoliberal orthodoxies redirect our gaze away from the sociopolitical sphere and towards the self: it is the self that is deemed lacking and in need of change and improvement, so a lack of work or opportunities is read as ‘self-inflicted’.⁶ As Rosalind Gill rightly notes, ‘sexism, racism and other patterns of structural discrimination remain unspoken because there is a reluctance to puncture neoliberal mythologies of individual achievement’.⁷

Too often, governments and policy makers are quick to laud the success of the creative industries and its contribution to the UK economy,⁸ while ignoring the working conditions of those who contribute to its success. In 2012, income from musical theatre and classical ticket sales to overseas tourists visiting London was estimated to be £67 million, with British orchestras alone generating a total income of £150 million during that period, and yet, having surveyed 2,000 musicians across the UK, a report by the Musicians’ Union (MU) found that 56 per cent had earned less than £20,000 that year and 60 per cent reported working for free in the previous twelve months.⁹ This lack of critical engagement with cultural work results in a failure to acknowledge the structural inequalities in these industries, where their gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic background can profoundly shape cultural workers’ experiences because they rely on a model of production which can exacerbate social inequalities in the workplace.¹⁰

Women account for 32 per cent of all music-industry-related jobs in the UK, but in comparison to men they earn less, experience greater barriers to progression, and exit the workforce sooner.¹¹ Women also experience both vertical segregation, such as being under-represented in positions of authority, and horizontal segregation, which, in the classical music profession,¹² results in a persistent under-representation of women in the fields of composition, conducting, and music technology.¹³ In contrast, Dawn Bennett notes that women are over-represented in the teaching profession, which is viewed as both less prestigious and less desirable as a career.¹⁴ Therefore, in a cultural economy that insists individuals take personal responsibility for their successes and failures with little or no regard for the material challenges and constraints in which they work, women warrant particular attention because gendered structures, attitudes, and cultures inevitably shape and inform their experiences of work in ways that are significantly different to those encountered by men.

‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Work in the Cultural Industries

Despite the inequalities and discrimination they are likely to face together with the uncertainties of pursuing a professional career, female musicians assert there are significant rewards and challenges which enable them to forge meaningful, successful, and fulfilling musical lives and careers.¹⁵ Herein lies the contradiction at the centre of recent critiques of cultural work, in that the very qualities which supposedly attract people to this type of work also form the basis for exploitation and self-exploitation in an already precarious and insecure labour market.

As noted earlier, within policy discourse, cultural work is invariably presented as a neoliberal ‘ideal’, whereby the (mainly) self-employed, freelance, ‘protean’ worker develops and thrives within a competitive marketplace. These self-improving ‘entrepreneurs’ are continually networking,¹⁶ and constantly generating new projects and ideas while taking personal responsibility for their success or failure.¹⁷ This ‘permanently transitional’ work is characterised by self-advancement and self-reliance,¹⁸ and the desire to embrace the supposed ‘freedom’ that labour mobility brings with this peripatetic career. In this conceptualisation of cultural work, individuals seamlessly move from job to job, developing ‘DIY biographies’,¹⁹ their rewards derived from finding outlets for self-expression and creativity. It is argued that cultural work is attractive because of its potential for personal creativity, autonomy, self-actualisation, self-expression, and personal growth. Taken together, these characteristics offer a validation of creative work as a model of what Hesmondhalgh and Baker describe as ‘good work’.²⁰

In contrast, recent critiques focus on the precarious, insecure nature of cultural work, which is invariably determined and constrained by factors beyond the individual’s control. In fact, cultural work can result in low self-esteem, overwork, boredom, risk, poor-quality work, and frustrated self-realisation, which Hesmondhalgh and Baker suggest characterises ‘bad work’.²¹ Recognising the precarious, insecure nature of cultural work, which is invariably determined and constrained by factors beyond the individual’s control, challenges the romantic and over-celebratory notions of creative work as a ‘calling’, or a ‘self-actuating pleasure’.²²

In the remainder of this chapter, I will explore this model of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ work drawing on data from my recent UK-based ethnographic study into the working lives of twenty-four professional, classically trained female composers, conductors, and performers through an examination of the subjective, lived experiences of their working lives. Their portfolio careers involve juggling numerous roles and jobs under challenging conditions; dealing with the uncertainties of irregular work; having to engage in considerable strenuous self-activity to market and promote themselves, while ensuring they are always ‘work ready’; and dedicating regular time to practice and preparation. Their musical lives may appear to be characterised by high levels of autonomy, which supposedly makes creative work desirable, but, as Hesmondhalgh has commented, ‘All autonomy is limited, in that individuals and groups are, to some extent at least, socially constituted by others beyond themselves. Total autonomy in any sphere of a life is an impossible ideal, because there is no life without constraints and determinants.’²³

Consequently, while the women in my study did experience much of their musical lives as rewarding, fulfilling, and as providing opportunities for creative and personally satisfying work – what would be considered ‘good work’ – their narratives revealed that certain factors (the constraints and determinants outlined above) could significantly alter their perception and subjective experiences of work previously characterised as ‘good work’ and turn it into ‘bad work’. (For a study of the gendered dimensions facing female freelance musicians in the contemporary popular-music industry, see Chapter 16, ‘Women in the Music Industries: The Art of Juggling’.)

Overview of the Study

The study involved twenty-four freelance, classically trained, professional female musicians, aged between twenty-three and sixty-five, working in a wide range of genres and contexts both at national and international level, and was undertaken during the period 2012–2017. Many of the subjects described themselves as composer-performers and adhered to Bennett’s notion of a musician as ‘someone who practices within the profession of music in one or more specialist fields’,²⁴ and were located in London, the South East, and South West of England, encompassing both city and rural locations. The aim of the study was to gain insights into their subjective experiences of work, and their ‘day-to-day’ experiences of building and sustaining a freelance career.

Given the itinerant nature of their professional commitments, it was not possible to take the ‘traditional’ ethnographic approach, where the researcher embeds herself in the lives of the participants. To address this I developed a digital ethnographic approach, which involved each participant generating her own weekly ‘digital diary’ over a five-week period, uploaded to a designated Dropbox account. This resulted in a rich and diverse array of ‘found’ data, including photographs, audio clips, marketing and promotional material, written diaries, screenshots of scores, and rehearsal and performance videos that they felt best represented their working lives; this method gave ownership of data generation to the women, and allowed them to decide what was important and relevant to them.²⁵ At the end of this five-week period, the data was used as a basis for a one-to-one interview lasting from around ninety minutes to two hours. Stephanie Taylor suggests that a career is largely about identity; asking ‘who am I’, and positioning oneself in relation to others in the field.²⁶ The notion of professional identity is very strongly presented in my participants’ narrative and can inform whether work is experienced as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In the remainder of the chapter I will focus on four themes emerging from the data: professional identity relating to paid and unpaid work; the affective qualities of work; motherhood and caring responsibilities; and aesthetic labour.

Paid and Unpaid Work

While the ‘gifting of free labour’ is common amongst creative workers,²⁷ generally rationalised as investing in the future in the hope that it might lead to paid work, for the composers in my study the lack of payment for their work profoundly shaped their sense of self, in ways that resulted in them feeling ambivalent about their status and that led them to question whether they could even call themselves professionals:

Despite the lack of payment for their compositions, these women’s works are regularly performed nationally and internationally, often by well-known players, but as funding is difficult to obtain, ensembles and performers rarely bother to apply for commissioning fees; it is time-consuming and more often than not futile. Therefore, what should have been experienced as ‘good work’, takes on aspects of ‘bad work’ for the composers, because being paid for their creative work is strongly associated with self-perception: when judging themselves against the criteria of what constitutes a professional, they feel they do not match up.

This sense of professional identity can also be undermined even when work is paid, in that it may not be experienced as ‘good work’ if the composer feels she has compromised over artistic quality. Libby (Composer/performer, 20s) had been taken on by an agency who commissioned music for TV indents and jingles, work that she viewed positively for the following reason:

To secure more paid work in this field, Libby was required to react to the needs of the client, resulting in a significant lack of creative autonomy and relinquishing artistic control. Consequently, the financial security this work afforded was counteracted by elements that are characterised as ‘bad work’, such as frustrated self-actualisation and limited control over the artistic product.

Affective Labour

The allure of creative labour, even when poorly paid or even unpaid, is said to lie in its affective qualities, which results in the work being experienced as ‘good’: feelings of satisfaction, connectedness to others, a sense of well-being, and emotional involvement. Angela McRobbie suggests that these affective elements have become a normative requirement in cultural labour,²⁸ leading us to overlook less appealing and potentially exploitative aspects of such work. For my participants, the reality was more complicated and could not easily be categorised as simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Mia (Composer, 40s) received a large grant to ‘write music for people who know nothing about music whatsoever’ supported by ‘a couple of millionaires who own properties all over the world’. Despite being paid well she felt no emotional connection to the work she was producing, stating that, ‘although I was earning money it wasn’t really where my heart was’. At that point, Mia said that she had started to wonder: ‘Why I was even doing it? Why was I writing this stuff?’ Shortly after, she was commissioned by an all-female international ensemble, for which she was less well paid, but she expressed a great deal of pride in this work as she felt it was ‘useful’ and ‘purposeful’, turning what might be considered ‘bad work’ (because it was poorly paid) into ‘good work’.

This affective element was also discernible in Charlotte’s (Composer/performer, 40s) description of successfully running singing workshop weekends held at her home. Her digital diaries were dominated by preparations for one of her madrigal weekends. She noted that the amount she earned from the event was not commensurate with the amount of effort required to make it a success. Few of the attendees could read music, so she spent a whole week recording the separate vocal parts, which she then sent to them in advance. She observed:

This highlights how paid work also has the potential for self-exploitation and therefore constitutes ‘bad work’. Charlotte vehemently refuted this notion because she considered this ‘personalised service’ gave her singers ‘a better experience’ from which she took great pleasure, also offering ‘that extra bit of attentiveness’, which included providing home-made cakes and biscuits. When I pointed out that it sounded like very hard work, she replied, ‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it’. For Charlotte, the opportunity to engage in fulfilling music-making activities, underpinned by the affective qualities of relationship building and care, and the ability to run this from her home, outweighed the relatively poor financial return.

Motherhood and Family Life

As also discussed in Chapter 16, ‘Women in the Music Industries: The Art of Juggling’, freelancers operate outside of conventional employment models which protect workers’ rights, as they have limited access to social welfare and associated benefits such as maternity leave. Perhaps not surprisingly, the creative industries are dominated by workers without children, as they are perceived as more willing to accept poor working conditions involving long and irregular hours (in my study, nearly two-thirds of the participants did not have children). This reinforces McRobbie’s point that the ‘traditional conditions of youthfulness are normatively expected’,²⁹ where the cultural worker, irrespective of age, is expected to be independent of family, flexible, mobile, and able to work beyond the confines of the nine to five. As Gill argues, it is not motherhood that is the ‘issue’, but the fact that caring responsibilities largely remain in the hands of women, a situation which is rarely challenged.³⁰

This certainly characterises the experiences of those participants with children, who combined childcare with working long and unsociable hours involving extensive travel. When coupled with the need to juggle childcare, the rhetoric of ‘choice’, agency, and autonomy, as positive characteristics of cultural labour, become problematic. Stephanie Taylor and Karen Littleton observe that ‘many women would now claim to be freed from the constraints which society placed on former generations but these supposed freedoms can be questioned’.³¹ This point is exemplified in Adele Teague and Gareth Dylan Smith’s study of five London-based professional drummers, in which the authors argue that men also have to ‘reposition’ their careers to accommodate changes in family circumstances.³² However, it was telling that one of the male participants, who regularly played at gigs but stated he no longer toured due to family commitments, acknowledged that it was his wife who undertook most of the childcare responsibilities and it was she who had taken a nine-year career break from her performing career to bring up their family.

Without exception, those with childcare responsibilities powerfully describe a range of factors which have profoundly impacted hard-won professional achievements and work that had previously been experienced as fulfilling and rewarding. Earlier in her career, Margaret (Conductor, 50s) was appointed as the first female music director of a major organisation, a much-coveted position, which coincided with the birth of her child. She recounts the challenges of juggling family and professional life, and how this impacted her ability to maintain the professional standards necessary for the post. She believed this was one of the main reasons she ended up relinquishing the role:

In contrast to her accounts of trying to maintain an acceptable work–life balance and not having sufficient time to prepare, she recounts that her male predecessor would just ‘block out’ the time prior to rehearsals two weeks before the rehearsals started; ‘nobody was allowed to call him or speak to him unless the house was burning down’, but ‘it was impossible for me to do that given what was happening at home’. He too had a family but, from Margaret’s perspective, there appeared to be little expectation that he should be similarly encumbered with domestic responsibilities. He appeared to be able to prioritise his professional responsibilities without recrimination and, from Margaret’s description, it was accepted that he should not be burdened with additional responsibilities while preparing for rehearsals. The difference between their two experiences is stark, as Margaret explained:

While many women are likely to experience challenges juggling work and childcare due to the continued expectation that they, rather than their male partners, will take on the majority of caring responsibilities, for these self-employed freelance musicians, taking maternity leave is a luxury few can afford, not only due to financial concerns, but also because they are worried about being viewed as ‘unavailable’, which might result in work ‘drying up’. Martha (Performer, 30s) completed her digital diaries during her maternity leave, but her fears about turning down work and not being asked again meant she was working regularly during this time, often driving long distances to rehearsals and performances, and getting home in the early hours of the morning. During the period she was uploading data, she had to take her baby to a concert as her babysitter had let her down, and her musician husband also had work commitments that he could not cancel. Her innate professionalism compelled her to honour her contract, but her fear of losing future work was an even greater incentive. This was prestigious, well-paid work, playing with other well-known and respected musicians, and a regular fixture in her concert diary, and Martha felt she could not ‘send a dep’ (i.e. find a deputy musician to replace her), in case the ‘dep’ was offered the work in the future. This left her with little choice but to take her six-month-old baby with her to the performance. About this three-hour journey and the subsequent rehearsal, she wrote in her digital diary:

This regular high-profile work, which she had always looked forward to and which fulfilled the definition of ‘good work’, was transformed by the stress and anxiety of having to manage childcare alongside fears of not being offered the gig again if she did not honour her contract.

Trudy (Performer, 60s), a specialist in twentieth-century and contemporary repertoire, had made several successful recordings during her career, touring frequently in the UK and abroad. During the first two years following the birth of her first child, she managed to continue playing and touring, but it was proving hard to sustain, artistically, emotionally, and financially. To eke out the time needed to learn this demanding and time-consuming new repertoire, she paid for a part-time nanny. This extra time was crucial for maintaining her international playing career, but it was not financially sustainable in the long term, as the cost of childcare exceeded the income generated from her concerts. Echoing Margaret’s experiences above, without this additional time, she was unable to prepare or perform to the standard required to sustain an international career. After the birth of her second child, she took on sole responsibility for childcare, relying on the income from her husband’s ‘stable’ job. Trudy stopped accepting concert invitations and set up a private teaching practice at home; she did not perform professionally for another sixteen years. Of that time, she says:

While her concert career had been demanding and not always well paid, she relished the musical and intellectual challenges of the repertoire; but due to her change in circumstances, her paid work became a source of anxiety and stress because she felt she was producing poor-quality work which was therefore no longer creatively fulfilling, both characteristics of ‘bad work’.

Aesthetic Labour

The role of ‘aesthetic labour’ and the different ways it shapes and informs attitudes towards work was also apparent in the women’s narratives in relation to self-promotion and marketing. Chris Warhurst, Dennis Nickson, Anne Witz, and Anne Marie Cullen describe aesthetic labour as placing particular importance on a person’s physical appearance.³³ It relies on an individual’s embodied capacities, which are deliberately geared towards appealing to the senses of ‘the customer’ and managing physical appearances potentially to enhance career prospects. In her recent work on early-career female classical musicians, Christina Scharff notes that selling and marketing oneself may evoke the spectre of prostitution for some musicians.³⁴ Although this particular concern was not raised by my participants, the ways in which they negotiated and rationalised the use of often hyper-feminine and sexualised images were very diverse, ranging from resistance to acceptance or even denial. For others, particularly the conductors in the study, this focus on their embodied capacities and perceived level of attractiveness was unwelcome and actively resisted.

Sexuality, as a dimension of aesthetic labour, was especially evident in the promotional images of the younger women in my cohort. Conventional images of femininity and heterosexuality would often involve shots of slim legs, short black dresses, or long dresses with thigh-high splits in marketing material. Only two of the participants had representation, so publicity shots were paid for by the musicians and they were in control of which images to use. The digital diaries included many of these images and there was some resistance to the idea that they might be using their bodies to sell their ‘product’. This is exemplified in Martha’s interview (Performer, 30s) in which she initiated a discussion about the marketing materials used by her all-female quartet (they did not have representation so were responsible for their own publicity materials), all aged between their late twenties and early thirties. Without prompting, Martha pointed to one of their publicity photos, in which they were wearing short, black dresses and high heels while holding their instruments, and asserted:

While Martha acknowledges that the dresses in the publicity shot were ‘short’, it is interesting to note her use of language, and there was a sense that she felt she had to ‘defend’ their choice of clothing. She refers to what they wore as ‘classy short’ (looking stylish and sophisticated) as opposed to appearing ‘tarty’ (an informal term used to describe a woman dressed in a sexually provocative manner). Martha was at pains to downplay the potentially sexual interpretation of their clothing choices, but it was evident from her later comment that she was aware that the ensemble may project a certain look that makes full use of their ‘embodied capacities’ and that has a level of commercial usefulness. She noted that, ‘it just so happens that none of us are particularly large in size [and as we’re] doing a lot of evening and drinks parties and corporate events it seems more natural to wear a shorter dress’. This suggests that she assumes corporate clients will have certain expectations of how a young, all-female ensemble should dress, and her allusion to adhering to notions of conventional femininity (young and slim) appears to collude with this.

However, others were more overt about the benefits of explicitly engaging in aesthetic labour, asserting their image could help raise their profile:

As a woman without an agent, looking to self-release a CD, it is perhaps not surprising that Alisha rationalises the use of her body to market herself in monetary terms. (The sexualisation, image, and marketing of female classical performers is also discussed in Chapter 6, ‘Soloists and Divas: Evolving Opportunities, Identity, and Reception’.)

The issue of aesthetic labour for the conductors in the study revealed a completely different problem: the need to downplay and minimise their femininity for fear that their looks, bodies, or clothing choices might contribute to not being taken seriously, potentially undermining their professionalism. This was reinforced by their experiences of being a ‘female conductor’, and the very fact of them being a woman in the role resulting in discontent or resentment by others with whom they worked. This ranged from passive-aggressive behaviours such as being ‘stared at the whole time by the male lead cellist as if being conducted by a woman was the worst thing that had ever happened’ to gendered challenges to their authority, ‘if a man is insistent, he’s strong, if a woman is insistent, she’s a bitch’ (Margaret, Conductor, 50s). The conductors in the study expressed the need to ‘emanate authority’ when in front of an orchestra and were conscious of their clothing choices, not wearing anything tight-fitting where ‘things are going to move around and be a distraction’ (Kay, Conductor, 40s).

In contrast with Martha’s narrative above, a (perceived) lack of attractiveness was considered a professional asset for conductors. Layla (Conductor, 20s), a talented young conductor in demand in the UK and Europe noted:

Layla deliberately downplayed her femininity and made careful choices about her clothes on the podium, insisting she was ‘grateful’ she was not conventionally attractive; she felt it gave her an advantage because she felt her professional abilities were taken more seriously by the players. How women respond to the demands of managing personal aesthetics appears to vary across age and stage of career, and the type of musical activity in which they are involved, shaping their professional experiences in important ways. (The image of female conductors – with particular reference to Ethel Leginska and Marin Alsop – is also discussed in Chapter 5, ‘On the Podium: Women Conductors’.)

Conclusion

Regardless of the uncertainties of such work, there is significant pleasure to be gained despite the long hours, financial insecurity,³⁵ and other challenges outlined above. As my study suggests, it is possible for women to sustain a fulfilling and rewarding career in music.³⁶ It is important when undertaking critical work about the creative industries to take into account that there are opportunities for positive and rewarding experiences, which should not be simply dismissed ‘as the product of ideology or disciplinary discourse’.³⁷ In particular, paying greater attention to the affective aspects of cultural work provides interesting and more nuanced insights into how this work is experienced. Acknowledging this ‘affective messiness’ neither celebrates nor denies the negative aspects of cultural work but, instead, recognises ‘the far more common quotidian problems and strengths of negotiating creative employment’.³⁸ In attempting to interrogate both the challenges and opportunities women experience in their working lives it becomes evident that there are serious limitations when defining work as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because, as discussed above, the context in which work is undertaken is key to understanding how it is experienced.

However, while recognising there are positive aspects to work in the music industries for women, this should not detract from the fact that this work is experienced as highly gendered and can result in discrimination and exploitation. Much is made of personal autonomy in policy discourses, and having freedom to make choices about one’s life is the marker of an autonomous individual and important in the notion of agency. But the contexts in which the women undertake their work demonstrate the gendered dimensions of cultural work, and emphasise the importance of engaging with, and trying to understand, the materiality of their musical lives in order to uncover how these contexts shape and inform women’s working lives.