Contesting ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ difference in emotions through music use in the UK

• This article builds on social psychological critiques of ‘hardwired’ gender difference inemotions, looking at the topic through the emotional use of music. Starting from thepremise that gender differences in emotion are socially and discursively constructedrather than innate, it moves on to challenge existing work in which masculinity andfemininity are treated as singular, oppositional concepts, that are ‘normally’ attached toideas of existing sex differences. Drawing on data, generated from a UK-based onlinesurvey of 914 respondents (male = 361; female = 553), this article highlights thatwhilst gender plays a significant part in shaping the emotional experience of music, thisis often mediated heavily by age and personal experience. It suggests that music is apractical means of moving beyond ideas of differences in gender or sex differences inemotional display, towards ideas of diversity, especially given that existing face-to-face research has often found men to be ‘unable’ to communicate emotional experiencein particular ways. Both inductive quantitative trends and open-ended fragments frompeople’s emotional experiences of music are included in order to demonstrate howemotions and gender intersect discursively.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musikvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Musicology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

gender

emotion

masculinities

music

age

Musikvetenskap

Musicology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)