Abeles,H.(2009).Aremusicalinstrumentgenderassociationschanging?

Journalof
ResearchinMusicEducation,57(2),127139.doi:10.1177/0022429409335878

In this article Abeles (2009) addresses gender stereotyping associated with certain
instruments. Similar to the world of sports, gender association may impact children
negatively and act as a deterrent to exploring opportunities because they are associated
with the opposite sex. The issues of gender inequality are ever present in society and
have always seemed to be an ongoing, yet sensitive, issue. This is especially troubling
because even nowadays women are perceived as the weaker sex, and boys will go to
extremes to ensure they are not girly. There seems to be a barrier between the sexes,
and this mentality is present in music education too.

A series of studies ranging from elementary to post secondary levels of education

are discussed in the article, and all deliver similar results. Instruments in the high
woodwind family (flute, oboe and clarinet) are frequently viewed as the most feminine,
and at the opposite end of the spectrum percussion and low brass are seen as the manliest.
Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are strings, saxophone and trumpet. Based on
this basic spectrum outlined by the studies, students of all ages seemed to gravitate to the
instrument corresponding to their gender when asked to pick an instrument to play. This
being said, girls are more likely to pick a masculine instrument than their male
counterparts would be to pick a feminine one.

I thought that this was an interesting article and that I wouldnt have necessarily
pointed this out on my own, however my criticism of this is that doing all of these studies
seemed pedantic. This is almost innate knowledge, and I personally dont think that you
need to do any research to find out that people think that flute is considered girlier than
tuba. Because of this the article seemed redundant and I was really hoping that Abeles
(2009) would introduce some more shocking statistics. After reading the article, I
thought about my own experience with potential gender stereotyping in music education,
and I realized that this article was very true. We had not male flute players in my high
school, and maybe one male clarinetist in our concert band. On the other hand we had
one female percussionist and one female tuba player. In the middle of the spectrum, we
had almost equal numbers of male and female trumpet and saxophone players.

My parting remark on the subject is; I dont think that what instrument you play
should effect what your experience of music education is. It makes sense that if girls are
completely missing out on a sports team because its a more masculine activity teachers
need to intervene. However, in the case of music, no matter what you play you are likely
to take part in an ensemble, and experience music education to its fullest.