(Melissa, interview, July 7, 2015)
This chapter sets the stage for an understanding of identity via gender theory. The ways in which gender and identity are intertwined within the arenas of academia, music education, instrument gender, and conducting become
significant if one is to gain knowledge of gendered experience. When studying gendered experience as an important aspect of a person’s understanding of who she is, evidence of such understanding may be revealed in the ways she presents herself verbally, through what she wears, how she speaks, and how she acts.
This chapter begins with an outline of the self, the other, and the generalized
other. Subsequently, I present identity and gender theory, followed by an overview
of gendered expectations within music and music education, gender perceptions in society, music education, and academia.
Conceptual Framework
The tenets of gender theory, role theory, and identity theory frame the objective of this study: to understand the ways three women have experienced gender while identifying as women, university-level band directors. I employed a conceptual framework to “explain, graphically. . . the main things to be studied and the presumed relationships between them” (Maxwell, 2012). A graphic representation of the conceptual framework appears on page 40.
The Self, The Other, and The Generalized Other
An understanding of the self begins in childhood, during primary
socialization. This is when a person learns what behavior is expected in a given situation or arena, and also develops an understanding of how to align with such expectations. Mead (1934) explains the self as a two-part component of a person’s “character,” one that is developed over time and “arises in the process of social experience and activity” (p. 135). In other words, the self is created as a result of social interaction and observation of the myriad environments a person
encounters. Mead furthers the concept by adding that the self develops by dividing into the I and me. Such division is necessary because the I acts as the agent that initiates action to bring about change; the me is the observer of the self, taking in the environments encountered which then inform and regulate
behavior during the course of the action taken (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 21). Thus, individuals learn to initiate action but to also “change their environment as well as themselves and their behavior” (p. 20). For example, consider a musician in an ensemble. Successful membership in an ensemble is dependent on the I and the
me working in tandem as described above. Effective participation is not only
based upon musical skill (the I), but also general knowledge of the roles of the other musicians and conductor, and expectations of behavior (the me). To be a successful member of an ensemble, all musicians must then “take the role of the other (indeed, the whole set of others) in relation to his or her own role and understand his or her own role from the point of view of the organized community of others” (p. 21).
The self can also include the other as its counterpoint. Other refers to a person who is understood to be “not the self . . . an other which is separate and cannot be controlled or comprehended physically or mentally, at least not as much as the self can be” (Schalk, 2011, p. 4). Further, the term, when capitalized (as in Other), refers to those “whose identity is considered lacking and who may be subject to discrimination by a group to which they do not belong” (Staszak, 2009, p. 1; see also de Beauvior, 1949/2009; Krumer-Nevo, 2002). Such practice is considered othering, where groups that include only certain people are created to facilitate said discrimination. Krumer-Nevo (2002) speaks of the arena of othering “as a sphere of power relationships . . . where two reciprocal social images interact, one is perceived as more powerful, the other as inferior” (p. 3). Women have long been considered as Other.
As stated above, when engaged in an activity, a person must develop an understanding of the culture in which that community exists, because
assimilating expectations for behavior play a large part in determining whether a person is to be successful in that culture. Mead refers to such a community as the
generalized other, “the organized community or social group which gives the individual his unity of self . . . the attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community” (p. 154). Within this study, the culture of band
directing is viewed as both an arena of othering and the generalized other, the rules to which participants reported striving to learn and live by. Thus, the
participants had a unique obstacle to navigate: to become part of the group that held women band directors as inferior yet was the very community to which
they needed (and wanted) to belong so they could be successful as band directors.
Identity Theory
An identity is intrinsic to a person’s being. It is the way that a person represents herself to the world (Burke & Stets, 2009) and provides the meaning given in the context of a role (Biddle & Thomas, 1966; Burke, 2006). When someone plays a role, there is an understanding that the role comes with
expectations (Burke & Stets, 2009; Turner, 2002). For example, how people wish to represent themselves is dependent on the ways they understand and perform roles in society. According to Davis (1966), an identity is a “result of all the other positions he holds in major social structures” (in Biddle & Thomas, 1966, p. 67). Thus, the roles one plays influence the identities one holds. In this light, it would seem reasonable that identities shift as roles change.
In this study, I relied on the following definition of identity: “the set of meanings that define who one is when one is an occupant of a particular role in society” (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 3). For example, a music teacher may claim
musician as his/her main identity but describe music educator or band director as
roles, or vice versa.
Identity and roles. Because research shows that roles influence identity (see, for example, Burke & Stets, 2009), it was important to consider both in the context of this study. The distinction focused on identity as the meaning
occupied, one that had expectations. For example, a band director might state that occupying that role meant she was responsible for the musical integrity of that group, while the expectation of that role involved characteristics or traits typically associated with men, such as assertiveness, ambition, and decisiveness.
McCall and Simmons’ (1978) version of role-identity theory maintains that people create identities with the role as the central concept (Burke & Stets, 2009). Roles have sets of expectations to be met but are ultimately influenced by the experiences one has and the importance placed on that role (Turner, 2002). Thus, people may interpret and negotiate their roles differently from the ways that they expect roles to be played. In this way, people become the roles that they perform. How the women in this study explained their identities and their meanings brought clarification to how such identities were formed or negotiated as members of a culture that remains dominated by men. Throughout this study, I sought to determine if each woman interpreted the role of band director
differently from the anticipated expectations for that role, and if so, how that interpretation may have been related to gender.
Gender socialization. There are five key theories of socialization with relation to gender. Each helps frame how to understand the ways in which a person inhabits gender roles, a central locus in this study. In social learning
theory, gender roles are learned when children engage in gender conforming and non-conforming activity or behavior (Wharton, 2012, p. 38). A parent’s role in responding to such behavior is key: a child’s ability to conform to a gendered
expectation invites reward or retribution, setting the stage for learning how a man or woman is expected to act.
Cognitive developmental theory, first developed by Kohlberg (1966), offered
the view that children “develop stereotypic conceptions of gender from what they see and hear around them” and that they have the ability to do this from the age of six (Bussey & Bandura, 1999, p. 677). A child learns early that women are expected to be pleasant nurturing, and men are to be assertive, ambitious, dominant, and self-centered (Babcock & Laschever, 2003, p. 62). Children understand their relationship to gender as they mature and seek out activities through which they can experiment with displaying gendered characteristics. Once a child develops an understanding of the gender to which they ascribe, they may strive to behave in norms deemed consistent with that gender (Bussey & Bandura, 1999, p. 677).
Bem’s (1981) gender schema theory is based upon the idea that children are capable of developing associations with gender as early as age two and that, as they “learn the contents of the society’s gender schema, they learn which
attributes are to be linked with their own sex and, hence, with themselves” (Bem, 1981, p. 355; see also Egan & Perry, 2001; Powlishta, Serbin, & Moller, (1993). A
schema is “a cognitive structure, a network of associations that organizes and
guides an individual’s perception” (p. 355). A gender schema then, is an organized set of gender-related beliefs that influence behavior. Identification theory is a psychoanalytic theory which holds that people develop a sense of their gendered self when they develop an emotional, and sometimes unconscious, bond with a
same sex parent (Wharton, 2012, p. 44; see also Chodorow, 1978).
Finally, Bussey & Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1999) contributes a different perspective, combining aspects of experience and independent thought to explain the ways gender is created: “gender conceptions and roles are the product of a broad network of social influences operating interdependently in a variety of societal subsystems” (p. 1). Awareness of gender types and
stereotypes in children and adults fluctuate, even with allegiance to one gender.
Gender Theory
Perhaps the most intriguing of recent gender theories is that of doing
gender. In 1987, West & Zimmerman proposed that gender was something one does as opposed to something one is. They maintained that gender was created
socially by “normative conceptions” of what it means to be male or female in a particular culture, at a particular historical time; that is to say, people act, or “do” male or female based on roles or characteristics learned through interaction (p. 129). Butler (1988) expanded upon this, stating that gender evolves according to “a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time” (p. 523). In an updated version of this theory, however, Butler (2004) contends, if one can do gender, then one can undo gender (see also Deutsch, 2007). In this vein, Butler asserts that doing gender perpetuates gender differences created socially. Difference remains, even when creating one’s own version of gender. In undoing gender, social interactions can be re-imagined to undo difference. Through various forms of resistance and subversion, one can challenge normative concepts of gender, creating situations where they may encourage others to act
similarly (Deutsch 2007, p. 121). If women take up positions strongly associated with male attributes (band director, college professor) and produce results that are gender-less (quality music making, exemplary teaching) then, as Risman (2009) points out, maybe “the old gender norms [will lose] their currency” (p. 84). Using this model, I sought to find out the ways in which women band directors may have encountered gender inequality on an individual basis, in experiences with the student ensembles they led, with their fellow band directors, as
members of the community of the academy, and how they did and undid gender. Figure 1 provides a graphic representation of the interaction between the three theories comprising the conceptual framework employed in this dissertation.
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework