Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T23:24:33.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Composing Women’s History

Beyond Suppression and Separate Spheres

from Part I - Themes in Studying Women Composers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2024

By
Matthew Head
Edited by
Matthew Head  and
Susan Wollenberg
Matthew Head
Affiliation:
King's College London
Susan Wollenberg
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

In her lecture ‘The public voice of women’, Mary Beard begins with Homer’s Odyssey and the ‘first recorded example of a man telling a woman to “shut up”’. Penelope, patient wife of adventuring Odysseus, requests that a bard sing happier tunes; her son, Telemachus, is not impressed. ‘“Mother”, he says, “go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff … speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this household”’.1 With this moment, Beard highlights continuity between antiquity and the present, revealing the importance of female silencing to male identity. Telemachus, she observes, becomes a man by confining Penelope, setting her out of sight and hearing. Her silence amplifies his voice.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers , pp. 50 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Beard, Mary. Women and Power: A Manifesto (London: Profile Books, 2017).Google Scholar
Citron, Marcia J. ‘Feminist Approaches to Musicology’, in Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music, ed. Cook, Susan C. and Tsou, Judy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 15–34.Google Scholar
Cusick, Suzanne. ‘Gender, Musicology, and Feminism’, in Rethinking Music, ed. Cook, N. and Everist, M. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 471–98.Google Scholar
McClary, Susan. ‘Foreword: Ode to Cecilia’, in Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music, ed. Cook, Susan C. and Tsou, Judy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), ix–xii.Google Scholar
Reich, Nancy B. ‘Women as Musicians: A Question of Class’, in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. Solie, R. A. (Berkeley: California University Press, 1993), 125–46.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×