What’s a Girl Gotta Do to Get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

By: Alexandra Apolloni (UCLA Center for the Study of Women, Los Angeles, CA) // Each year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (henceforth Rock Hall) announces a new list of inductees: artists that are deemed worthy of commemoration—and canonization—as rock greats. And in 2016, none of the inductees were women. The underrepresentation of women …

Song of Myself: Autobiography in Pop Music

By: Kendra Leonard (Loveland, OH) // Many artists draw on personal experience when they create art, and music is no different. Like Tennessee Williams’s plays, Hemingway’s stories, or Van Gogh’s self-portraits, composers and songwriters often include elements of autobiography in their works. Female composers have had to make their way in what was traditionally a …

Women Can’t Do That: Delia Derbyshire and Electronic Music

By: Kendra Leonard (Loveland, OH) // British composer Delia Derbyshire (1937–2001) was probably one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, but most people—including professional musicians—have never heard of her. Derbyshire’s best-known work was the theme music for the original Doctor Who, as well as the sound effects for the TARDIS, the title …

The Innovations of Ruth Crawford Seeger

By: Kendra Leonard (Loveland, OH) // What does it mean to be a “female composer”? Even today, in our music history books, women who compose music are often called out because of their gender; in some books, women hardly even get mentioned at all. The reason isn’t because we don’t know much about women who …