Music and Gender

When I heard the topic of music and gender a few different stories came to mind some personal, others I've heard and some I just found interesting. 

From my personal experiences, I grew up going to Waldorf schools. In a Waldorf school it's required for you to take choir as well as play an instrument. I played the violin in the orchestra and something that I noticed was that most of the guys would play the bigger instruments such as base and cello, whereas the girls primarily played the smaller instruments such as violin and viola. I noticed in viewing other orchestras that these gender roles were very common, as demonstrated in the video I attached below. 

My mother has always been very into music, and she would tell me stories about her in her younger years and how she was really into rock n roll. I remember her telling me that she found it odd that not a lot of girls listened to rock, and some guys would even tease her for it claiming rock n rolls was for boys and girls should listen to other genres like pop.  

Another interesting stereotype I more recently learned was that drums are normally played by males. I found this out when I was doing a research project on Selena (my favorite singer) for a class. It was while I was watching a series about Selena and her life, that not too long-ago came out, that it was Selenas sister who had played the drums in Selenas band. In the show Selenas father Abrham had put together the band "Selen y Los Dinos", making Selenas sister, Suzette, the drummer. It was mentioned many times in the show that Suzette was one of very few women to be a drummer in a band, which was surprising for me to hear because I had never associated the drums as a "male dominant instrument"