ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief survey of some of the leading feminist musicological theorists and their contributions to feminist aesthetics, women’s representation in music, analysis of musical form as gendered discourse and examining the role of women in music in relation to power and social structure.
This is followed by an analysis of some data on gender parity in the concert hall. Some of the leading women composers in the 20th century are discussed in this chapter along with some contemporary case studies of women who are taking the lead in musical composition such as Elena Kats-Chernin, Sofia Gubaidulina and Deborah Cheetham Fraillon.
