Few women in Jazz? The notion of inferiority, gendering of the instruments. The Mexican case

Abstract

This is a theoretical trail on the role of women in jazz history,
and it offers reasons on why there is such a reduced
presence of females in this kind of music. Also, this research
exposes a series of interviews to Mexican women who belong
to the jazz guild, as an experiment to determine if they
perceive a reduced presence of women in the Mexican jazz
circles and possible reasons for it. It is scientifically proven
that there are no differences in the musical capacities
between men and women. Even so, this study shows that
in Mexico women are still a minority in the jazz ecosystem
(less than 10% of the total jazz players). Some causes are the
instruments gendering, the tendency of women being lately
acknowledged as professional jazz musicians, the scarcity
of promotion of female jazz players in media, the shortfall of
women preparation in this field, the dependence on the work
of men, the shortage of media representation, the fear of nocturnal
work, the fear of exposure and criticism, the rejection
from projects created by men, and sexual harassment. It was
also found a strong consideration that most jazz women in
Mexico tend to be hired (and promoted) mostly when they fulfill
a physical standard of attractiveness. Finally, this analysis
revealed that for every two female singers there is a female
instrumentalist of jazz in Mexico. However, most of the jazz
singers lack (somehow or even completely) of education on
the jazz language.