Women in popular music have created a tremendous history in the wake of feminism. They have made their presence visible by identifying themselves as feminists. Being a woman was hard during that stage. Women were not allowed to do many things due to gender inequality such as the right to vote and to own a property. Therefore, from that moment onwards, women decided to stand up and make some changes. During the early stage of feminism, women developed their skills in popular music to create awareness. They associate popular music with feminism. Although there were racial issues between the black and white during that time, both sides continued to establish in different ways, through different genres of music. Black women focused on ‘black genres’ such as blues, jazz, and gospel, whereas white women performed in musical theatres. Female artists such as Lilian Hardin, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Nina Simone were among the notable exceptions of female instrumentalists during feminism. In this essay, I will assess feminism focusing on the second-wave. Feminism is categorized into 4 main stages, known as the first-wave feminism (early 20th c, second-wave feminism (the 1960s to mid-1980s), third-wave feminism (1990s), and post-feminism (21st c). The emergence of second-wave feminism is distinguished by …show more content…
It leads toward the development of women’s presence and existence in the music industry. This song played a huge role in popular culture and music. Women started to get themselves involved in social media such as television and radio station to promote feminism. Popular culture was one of the site to reproduce gender inequalities. Women’s mind was stored with the idea of false image on femininity. “No more Miss America!” campaign motivated women to eliminate low class status by pleasing audiences with their body and appearance. (‘No more Miss America! [1968] (1970,
I. Introduction Gender plays a big role in music, I became aware of gender role in music when noticing how most songs talks about women and how they are being either exploited or empowered. Most music videos even in the 80s either objectified women or respect sexuality. Women are usually sexually alluring in music videos, stage performances and even in the song lyrics. Most music video uses video vixens or video girls that are usually dressed or performing sexually. For example, “Siouxsie Sioux frequently performed wearing black leather and rubber bondage attire, as well as heavy eye make-up, making overt statements about her sexuality.
Women’s sufferage was at it’s peak with the ratification of the United States Nineteenth Amendment. Women recived more independence after the end of the First World War and took a greater part in the work force. In the 1920s, there were many famous women Jazz artists such as Lovie Austin, a piano player and band leader, Lil Hardin Armstrong, a pianist who was originally a member of King Oliver’s band, and Bessie Smith, an African-American blues singer who inspired women like Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. Although women were also making a difference in the Jazz industry, it wasn’t until the 1930s when they were recongnized as successful artists in the music world.
Nina Simone used music to challenge, provoke, incite, and inform the masses during the period that we know as the Civil Rights Era. In the songs” Four Women”, “Young Gifted and Black”, and Mississippi God Damn”, Nina Simone musically maps a personal "intersectionality" as it relates to being a black American female artist. Kimberly Crenshaw defines "intersectionality" as an inability for black women to separate race, class and gender. Nina Simone’s music directly addresses this paradigm. While she is celebrated as a prolific artist her political and social activism is understated despite her front- line presence in the movement. According to Ruth Feldstein “Nina Simone recast black activism in the 1960’s.” Feldstein goes on to say that “Simone was known to have supported the struggle for black freedom in the United States much earlier, and in a more outspoken manner around the world than had many other African American entertainers.”
Looking back on the dazzling and male-dominant world of music in the Sixties and Seventies, there stood a petite woman who was especially eye-catching. Janis Joplin, the female icon of the Sixties’ counterculture, conquered millions of audiences with her confidence, sexiness, straightforwardness, hoarse voice, and electrifying on-stage performance. To this day, no one can ever compare with her. She is thus known as the greatest white female rock and blues singer. Not only has her flabbergasting singing style innovated the music in the Sixties and Seventies, Janis Joplin herself is also character with most controversial and interesting characteristics.
Women’s sphere was as the homemaker before revolutions sprang in the 1960s. While other sexual revolutions were going on, music strayed from the social norms of this women’s sphere as well. “Another fundamental role of music within the countercultural movement was to provide female artists with ability to forge their own distinctive place within the music business” (“Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Music in the Counterculture”). With this ideal of Rock music challenging group identity for women, female musical groups began to emerge. Martha and the Vandellas was one of many girls groups, which enjoyed the vogue style. Women were given a secure place in the music industry with the emergence of Rock. This new style broke through old “social norms” and styles, creating a new, refined value of
Popular music in the United States throughout the decades have always consisted of different genres of music and during the late 70’s and early 80’s, many of the popular bands consisted of only male artists and members. In an era dominated by male artists, Fleetwood Mac featured their lead female singer Stevie Nicks, who went on to transcend the gender expectations of the time and pursue a solo career in the midst of heavy adversity. Fleetwood Mac’s lead singer, Stevie Nicks, is a prime example of the evolution female artists have endured as they struggled to gain equal footing in this male dominated industry. This essay will examine the different factors contributing to Stevie Nicks’s popularity, along with her breaking these normative masculine roles and the way she combined different genres and personal
This exhibit takes a feminist approach to digital technologies in its engagement with women singers’ covers of blues, jazz, and popular songs, beginning in the 1920s and spanning through recent covers in the 2000s. Building from Angela Davis’ Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, the exhibit presents a genealogy that traces the legacies of the blues women’s black working-class feminist consciousness over time and space, and across genres. It looks to explore how this feminist consciousness set forth by the blues women might have been engaged by subsequent women blues and jazz singers of different races and ethnicities through their interpretations of recorded cover songs. This article considers how digital technologies can be utilized to create useful platforms that can highlight feminist methodologies and epistemologies, particularly through engagement with sound studies and studies of the voice. In tracing the conceptualization of the Women Sing the Blues project, I aim to show that by listening closely to women’s voices on a digital platform, listeners have the ability to understand and interact with different interpretations of cover songs, which then has the potential for audiences to track singers’ engagement with feminist consciousness and social critique through a gendered lens. This article also discusses the benefits and limitations of particular platforms and approaches in the digital humanities, and advocates for the continued development of alternative platforms and technologies grounded in feminist methodologies and epistemologies. I focus on covers of the song “Black Coffee” as present on the exhibit in order to demonstrate these
The origins of Third Wave feminism are highly debated, as there is no clear commonality that this wave uses to differentiate between the First and Second waves that occurred prior. Emerging during the 1990’s, Third Wave feminism sought to build upon the achievements and ideas that were accomplished during First and Second wave’s, by increasing the significance and accessibility of its ideas to a greater spectrum of people.
African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans. First is about the effect of slave music on American history and African American music. The slave music’s
Historically, women have faced oppression in the music industry. Regardless of genre, women have often found themselves in a world of patriarchal domination. Two genres, punk and hip hop are especially known for male dominance. The two articles I will be comparing are as follows: The Expansion of Punk Rock: Riot Grrrl Challenges to Gender Power Relations in British Indie Music Subcultures by Julia Downes, and The Spirit Is Willing and So Is the Flesh: The Queen in Hip-Hop Culture by Leola A. Johnson. The articles focus on the Riot Grrl movement and the ‘Queen’ in hip hop and its accompanying culture respectively. The ‘Queens’ and the Riot Grrl movement defied political, social and sexual norms. They both had similar goals but somewhat different backgrounds and approaches. Both articles examine ways in which each group of women fought for gender equality and how they challenged and rejected traditional roles in music.
Common expectations seem to indicate gender roles on every individual. The males will play their part in being masculine while the females act an as object. There are several ways one can see how gender roles are played. A way is through hip-hop and rap music in the black community. Joan Morgan, an African American feminist and hip-hop and rap music fan, shows us how gender roles are being played in her community through music. Since Morgan is a feminist, she voices her opinion on the way black men treat black women in her article, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos.” Morgan states her argument that black men write lyrics ranting about black women to give a self-reflection. The males feel oppressed and express it through music. There are many reasons a male can feel oppressed, whereas one reason is becoming masculine. Michael Kimmel, a sociologist professor at Stony Brook University and the author of “‘Bros Before Hos’: The Guy Code” states that guys tries their best to show that they are manly. To clarify on how the men portray their oppression is to sing of misogyny and self-hatred in disguised hatred toward women. Men expressing their oppression through music tie the guy code of acting masculine and Morgan’s view of men feeling oppressed. Morgan describes black men express their oppression by objectifying black women sexually in music. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence” and an activist on advertisement based on public health problems and violence against women agrees with Morgan on women being sexually identified. Kilbourne and Morgan connect to Kimmel by showing how males are seen to be masculine and females are soft and emotional. Morgan’s claims, in “From Fly-Girls to Bi...
Throughout history, women’s only function in music was as a muse, as a man’s “impulse support, and consolation”. However, through Amy Beach, “one of America’s leading composer”, we know that women can be more than just an inspiration for men. Despite being tied down by her aristocrat background, she went against the expectations imposed on her by society and succeeded. Her life remains an example that it isn’t women who are incapable of becoming great composer and musicians but rather the societal limitations that are hindering their success.
Some critics say this is the moment Aretha was established as, “The Queen of Soul.” Prior to the songs release, African-Americans were going through many societal changes such as creating the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s- 1960’s. Due to the timing of the song’s release Respect became much more than a catchy R&B tune, it developed into a powerful political statement, for African-Americans. As referenced in, The Sound Of Soul, published in 1969 music critic, Phyl Garland referred to the song as, “the new black national anthem.” In the same manner women were also struggling to receive equal rights. After the release of Respect, females became empowered to change the way many of them were viewed by society. This song is considered a landmark for the feminist movement, some critics have even called the song one of the best songs of the R&B
Although women’s civil rights have come a long way from being unable to vote or hold a job, there is still room for growth and progress. Women are unequal in the workplace with their pay, in pop culture in which they are held to unrealistic beauty standards, and in a society where one in five women will be raped and only 54% will be reported. Society has proven we are able to evolve in our mind sets over time, and it may take another 50 years but we will see the changes being made to a new and fully equal world.
In today’s society, dancehall music is one of the most popular forms of music, however, the themes and lyrics of many songs that fall in this genre tend to be vulgar, offensive, violent and sexist. Sexism in dancehall music is one of the main topics of this paper and is apparent through the negative portrayal of women found in both the lyrics and music videos of such songs. This is an important issue because since dancehall music is so popularized today these negative representation of women, are being popularized to a huge majority of people, potentially giving them the idea that it is acceptable to treat women in such demeaning ways.