ABSTRACT

Like almost every area of social life, the world of classical music has a sexist aspect. Female musicians, throughout their lives, face all the problems that male musicians face as well as special problems that arise from being women only. These problems arise mainly from a certain system of values that discriminate against women and the prejudices that are part of it and the practices that feed on these prejudices. In our study, we aim to evaluate this sexism with its different dimensions at the level of composers, orchestra artists and conductors with examples from Turkey and the world. When evaluated in terms of composers, the biggest problem is that the education and other opportunities necessary for women to advance in this field are not sufficiently provided. In terms of women who can pass these processes, the male-dominated musical order tries to keep the female composers out of this order with the musical and social barriers encountered in the stages of printing, performing and recording the works. However, despite all the negativity, significant changes are taking place and the increasing numbers of female composers are gaining a place in the world of music that cannot be compared with the old times in terms of quality. Orchestras, consisting of only men in the past, have undergone a significant transformation with the increasing employment of female artists; such that, in the future, it may even be expected that the orchestras will consist largely of women. The area where developments in female musicians are slowest is orchestral conducting. However, despite all the negativities, there are positive developments in this area, even if not at the level of orchestral artists, and the developments are likely to accelerate in the future. Although not enough, with all these developments, positive changes occur in every layer of music in favor of women. However, even though this is a very important social change, there are still very long distances to go. It is necessary to think about the reasons for these developments not in isolation, but in connection with developments in other areas of social life. In other words, it can be misleading to look at the position and developments of women in the field of music only from within the world of music; general developments regarding women’s issue are also influential on developments. In this, besides the special organizations and activities of women in the field of music, the general struggles and achievements of the women’s movement also have an important share. As developments and struggles for these two areas continue, developments in favor of women in the field of music are expected to continue. From the perspective of Turkey, developments in our country are in harmony with developments in the world in terms of women artists working in the orchestras. The development of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra corresponds to the developments experienced in the old times in the world, and the development experienced by our newer orchestras corresponds to the period in which women are more active in the orchestras in the world. In the orchestras in Turkey, anti-women intensive sexist practices have not been experienced much in the past, and our orchestras are better than many orchestras in Europe today, although they are behind orchestras in the US concerning women artists. When evaluated in terms of women composers and women conductors, developments in Turkey is very inadequate and our artists who can meet the universal musical criteria are very limited. When considering the socio-cultural conditions of Turkey, this is not surprising and it will also be unrealistic to have great hopes for the future