'You Can’t Move Mountains By Whispering at Them!': Women Performing Music
Curated by Kathleen McGowan
Ideas and narratives about “women in music” often tell us as much about the times and thinking of the people retailing them as they do about the women making music. The best of these narratives depict women metaphorically moving mountains in the form of systemic biases, gatekeeping, and received historical wisdom about what it means for women to make music. Often it’s the narratives and standards around them that create obstacles and not the art-making itself. The title of the exhibit is a reference to an interview with P!nk about her music video for “F**in’ Perfect” and her advocacy for youth mental health; it seems to be the code that she and many other women musicians have had to live by, especially when they were trying to make music in a world that did not have preordained roles for them.
This exhibit examines some of the ways women in the Western world have performed music at different moments in history, and how they have contended with the restrictions that their societies placed on them. Examining their work this way creates opportunities to see and hear where boundaries break down—many of these women are/were composers, performers, copyists, editors, publicists, and impresarios for their own work long before the “portfolio career” had a name. They also have each had to contend with the gendered expectations of their times and places, and if/how they would conform to them (or not!).
This playlist was curated by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to accompany their Revolutionary Women in Music exhibit.