Until quite recently scientists took it as accepted fact that only male birds sang. In truth, no one was listening closely enough. Female birdsong has, for years, simply been understudied. In fact, scientist Karen Odom found that “female song is present in 71% of surveyed [bird] species.”
What took so long to figure this out?
Writer and Ph.d candidate Emily Hutcheson observed of Odom’s discovery in her article “Female Birds Sing, Too” :
“Historically, Western human social institutions have oppressed women’s voices. Similarly, female songbirds were theoretically robbed of their ability to sing by the faulty interpretations of predominantly male scientists. This example shows how the social relations of science shape theory, and why science needs to include a diversity of perspectives.”
This paralleled so much my experience of of women in music. See Book More Women for a detailed analysis of gender imbalance in major music festivals. Or the work of San Francisco’s awesome Women’s Audio Mission (who I’ve referenced here before), which was founded to address the reality that “fewer than 5% of the people creating the sounds, music, and media in the daily soundtrack of our lives are women or gender-expansive individuals,” and the “70% decline in women/gender-expansive students enrolling in college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) programs since the year 2000.”
This all tracks with being a woman in general, be it in music or science or life.
More than three million women participated in the national Women’s March in 2017, putting their bodies and voices on the line to protest the inauguration of a sexual predator. We showed up (and continue to do so), but our worst fears were realized, despite voting that predator out, when Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June of this year.
Being a woman and having and using my voice: If there’s anything that’s my life’s work, it’s this. My piping up took some time. What has kept me going over the years of learning, fear, external and internalized oppression and discouragement, is knowing that my silence isn’t the truth. And the fact is there are a lot of women like me (just like there’s a lot of female birdsong out there), continuing to make music despite so many obstacles.
I know more than a few of those artists.
In the months since that Roe ruling, songstress Aireene Espiritu and I have been putting our heads together about how to support the moment with our music and voices. We landed on organizing a benefit concert — the first in what we hope will be a series — featuring a fraction of the great Bay Area women/non-binary artists making music today. This Sunday, nineteen women/non-binary artists — all who have figured out ways to persist and insist on honing and using their unique voices — will be taking the stage in support of women having access to the reproductive care they choose. Meet us there at Casements Bar in San Francisco. We’re ALL donating our time because we know how hard-won the ability to use our voices is, and what’s at stake.