Beyond the Numbers: Brass Players Hearing Gender in the Music Workplace

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand the experiences of cisgender women, transgender women, and nonbinary brass players. Semi-structured telephone interviews with fifty cisgender women, transgender women, and nonbinary brass players were conducted between January 2019 and January 2020. Participants were asked about their experiences as brass musicians. Many found themselves playing in environments where they felt othered, sexualized, and discriminated against, all of which affect their abilities to play. Even though cisgender women are entering the profession of music and playing in cisgendered male dominated sections in greater numbers, embedded problems with workplace equity are undermining their sense of dignity as credible, valued colleagues. There is more to workplace equity than simply looking at increases in diverse representations of marginalized groups, especially when gendered workplace culture and structures do not change. Our participants described strategies they adopt to exist in these spaces, which illuminate strategies workers deploy to reclaim their dignity at work. Hearing how gender informs the ways these participants envision, seek, and find dignity offers insight into work environments purporting to attract a diverse labor force yet remain rooted in structural and cultural practices that undermine those intentions.