UCLA Center for the Study of Women

There is a persistent assumption that women composers have not contributed to innovations in the field of music composition. This assumption results from the absence of a framework that would allow us to conceive, as a society, of women composers as originators, pioneers, and explorers whose contributions are deemed significant for music culture. This deficiency leads to an unwillingness to consider composition in non-gendered terms, and is therefore a testament to the way in which work is construed on gendered terms. As illustration, I offer the following personal anecdote and a subsequent exploration of the ramifications set in motion by a seemingly innocuous yet ultimately unsettling remark. By providing a description of the contextual environment, this anecdote will be all the more meaningful.