“We always have had women in songs and strings”: an investigation about women’s position in musical corporations

Abstract

This paper is part of a research-intervention project concerning the music and its articulations with identities, carried out in musical corporations from the region of  Campos das Vertentes, specially São João del-Rei and near-by towns. In this region, the music has a significant role on the formation of citizens’ cultural identity and on the municipality history. This research cut presents an investigation about gender determinations, aiming to know how is the women musicians’ participation in bands and orchestras from the region. For that, it was employed the archeological discourse analysis to compare the women musicians’ speeches with men’s from the same corporations and also with masculine voices about woman in philosophy and utopias. It was observed that traditional gender differences are preserved covered in the daily life of the musical corporations. However, it was also observed that the women musicians begin to be recognized in the corporations and, above all, recognize themselves as able to take off.