ABSTRACT
Men’s narratives provide considerable insight into the demarcation of singing sites and issues of public vocal display and gender. Several Icelandic men make claims for their singing as biological function along Darwinian lines. Sex role theory has been one of the most significant concepts in gender discourse for half a century and Robert William Connell explains how its origins are found in sex difference research and in the concept of social role, both clearly influenced by the ideas of biological difference. Men-only clubs are rarely as homo-self-sufficient as men like to pretend; men’s partners play the stereotypical ‘coffee and fund-raising’ role for this male voice choir, as they do in many other so called men’s clubs. The most compelling story of women’s musical involvement thus far is that of Baldur’s mother: initially, she appears to be an exception to the hegemonic binary divisions of locally gendered musical behaviour where men perform in public and women in private or in church.
