Music and Gender in the Faculty of Music. An International Collective Experience

In late 2019 and early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic froze most of the country’s activities, the UNAM environment was marked by another evil of epidemic proportions: violence against women. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was marked with the sensation of being fed up and by powerful public demonstrations of organized women from different campuses of our university. The voice of the female students, with previously unseen strength, echoed in colleagues from almost the whole of UNAM, demanding security and measures to effectively fight against what “is perhaps the most evident and condemnable symptom of gender inequality: violence against women” (Buquet, 2020, p. 3).

Weariness was nourished by cases that in recent years reached media exposure (see López, 2020, and Portilla, 2020), but also by everything that happens every day but is silenced: the multiple faces of inequality that are manifested in every deed and endeavor of the university and every other realm of life.

Faced with this critical scenario, the university and its various offices had to redouble their efforts and respond with concrete actions, with the review of existing university policies addressing violence, and with strategies to promote gender equality—a critical point in any long-term initiative to eradicate violence.

One of the academic actions aimed at directly impacting education was the idea of creating gender equality content in each UNAM educational center. Given this recommendation, the Faculty of Music (FaM) opted for an educational proposal that would not focus on equality in a general or abstract way but would be applied specifically to our field. Throughout UNAM, content on gender equality (courses, seminars, materials) was being created, but still, there was a topic that was not being addressed, a topic involving all FaM community members: the various inequalities, violences, and gender problems specific to the musical sphere. Thus, under the guidance of FaM’s director, María Teresa Frenk, with a plan designed by Maby Muñoz Hénonin, author of these lines, and through her academic coordination, and thanks to the operational coordination of Mario Alviso Becerril, coordinator of Continuing Education, FaM’s Permanent Seminar on Music and Gender (SPEMG, Spanish initials) was born.

More than a subject for a specific stage, the SPEMG was conceived as an open space for reflection that could gather students and teachers from all our educational levels: propaedeutic cycle, undergraduate program, graduate program, and— why not?—even members of the infant cycle’s community (such as parents and teachers). This way, at the end of that symbolic 2020, the seminar was created as a response “to the lack of spaces for reflection and the absence of actions around the relations of music and gender in our musical, teaching, and research practices” (FaM, 2021). At the same time, this space sought to provide the community with tools for reflection that would contribute in the process of rethinking and transforming musical practices and thus contribute to the “creation of spaces free of violence, sexism and discrimination in our academic and artistic environment” (FaM, 2021).

During the first stage, which would cover the 10 sessions held during 2021, the objective was to provide elements for analysis and reflection on gender problems in music, both throughout history (and the consequent musical canon emanating from it) and in its contemporary practice and its impact on matters such as choosing repertoire and instruments, artistic and academic careers, and general musical practices. The intention was to influence collective musical practices and generate a systematic environment for reflection to lead to concrete actions and initiatives, ideally resulting in more conscious and egalitarian musical relations.

During the first year of the SPEMG, sessions were divided into four blocks: historical topics, the professional experience of women in music today, new theoretical frameworks, popular and urban music, and finally, education. This thematic structure was designed as an introduction to the main points of reflection that, in our opinion, could be useful for the educational community and that, although they have been approached in research, are not always thought of from other musical practices. We also intended to create a communication bridge between women: researchers and practical musicians (performers, teachers, composers, and students in general).

All of this was created by and for the FaM community, but the pandemic’s virtual reality soon revealed that we were reaching an audience far beyond the borders of our community and even those of UNAM. That first year, we had dozens of registrations and hundreds of views from an audience from different states of Mexico and other countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain, and El Salvador.

Impact that was not foreseen, was related to three factors: the confinement situation, the novelty of our proposal, and the speakers we invited. Without this fortunate combination of elements, we might not have reached so many people, but the truth is that, in addition, the SPEMG was covering a latent need in music schools, feminist collectives, and groups: to have a collective space to think about music from a gender perspective. As many attendees told us during the first year, the seminar was unique: it was indeed a meeting place for female performers, researchers, composers, educators, and audiences. In addition, there was a desire and a need to replicate spaces like this in other educational centers. For the SPEMG and for the FaM, this was a cause for rejoicing: hopeful news about the possibility of transforming our musical practices.

In this collective experience, speakers invited to the seminar had a central role, and without exception, they accepted the community-building task starting at FaM’s community. In the first year alone, 20 women from our community and other musical spaces in Mexico, as well as from Brazil, Venezuela, and Spain, answered the call. In subsequent years, researchers—both male and female—from different latitudes and with varying research approaches have participated. They all share their interest in rethinking music and the generosity of sharing their knowledge in this space, which today is also a valuable digital repository of research on music and gender issues. It should be noted that this last contribution was not originally intended, but today it is one of the most valuable features of the SPEMG, as it converts ephemeral sessions in a part of a freely accessible collection that opens the door to future research.

Today, the SPEMG has gathered a representative number of people dedicated to researching issues related to music and gender in the Spanishspeaking world and an audience of multiple backgrounds and interests. We feel honored after having provided a space to create a community willing to transform our practices and propose new paradigms for thinking about our musical work. With these efforts we hope to contribute to the University’s mission of creating more egalitarian realities far removed from violence.

Every SPEMG session, along with the video snippets and other materials produced by the team that collaborates with this space, are available on the YouTube channel of FaM’s Continuing Education Head Office: https://www.youtube.com/@EducacionContinuaFaMUNAM/featured.

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