2.2 Philosophical bias

In the first section of her article ‘Gender, professionalism and the musical canon’, Marcia J. Citron focused on the practical ‘obstacles’ that women composers have faced which combined to exclude them from the canon. In the second section of the article, she moves on to consider ‘philosophical bias against women as creators’ (Citron, 1990, p. 110). She identifies a book by nineteenth-century American music writer George Upton, Woman in Music (1880) as having had a significant impact on subsequent generations of music scholars and commentators. Citron describes how Upton saw a paradox between ‘woman’s innate emotionalism co-existent with her inability to channel it effectively into creativity in music, that most emotional art form’. She summarises his view that a woman’s true musical role was not as composer but rather as ‘helpmate, or muse, to successful male composers, and also as performer’ (Citron, 1990, p. 111).

Citron goes on to show how views such as those expressed by Upton, which she argues summed up widely held nineteenth-century beliefs, dominated thinking about music for many decades. Her work is not, however, solely concerned with documenting and analysing the historic practical and philosophical reasons for the exclusion of women composers from the canon. She also advocates change and offers a range of critical ideas towards achieving this.

Given the reasons for the exclusion of women’s music, Citron cautions that we have to get away from the mindset that ‘assumes that if a piece has not survived it is automatically unworthy of consideration for serious performance and study’ (Citron, 1990, p. 112). Secondly, she asserts that in attempting to make an informed judgement on whether a particular woman’s compositions should be included in the canon ‘other factors must be taken into account: sociological, cultural, historical, economic, political’ (Citron, 1990, p. 112). Thirdly, she highlights that when we are choosing works to include, ‘we have to confront the issue of what criteria we are imposing’ (Citron, 1990, p. 112).