The Woman Composer Question: Four Case Studies from the Romantic Era (original) (raw)

This dissertation traces the social myth of woman's innate creative inferiority in music through its many transformations: from its roots in Romantic philosophy, through the writings of turn-of-the-century critics, to past and present psychological theories of musical creativity. The case studies of four exceptionally gifted women composers from the Romantic era (Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth and Amy Beach), which form the central part of this investigation, make clear that the dearth of eminent women composers is due not to any innate deficiency in the female mind, but to ideological and institutional constraints directly linked to the social construction of gender. Such barriers include the role that women have been expected to play in society, the prejudices they have encountered in attempting to establish themselves in the male-dominated field of composition, the critical double standard, and psychological obstacles resulting from the internalization of negative societal attitudes toward women's creative potential.