Humanity requires music. For most individuals and groups--circumspect of culture, time, or space--music is metaphor for heartbeat. Music is ensconced with the soul. The female role in the development of music over the millennia surely must have been dramatic. Today, women's voices fill the air all around us. However, their voices seem reduced to commercial opportunism in our material culture—deprecated by the color of money and MTV. The reasons for this gender paradigm are still alive and well as America enters the 21st century, women are still subjugated to whatever role provides for the optimum profit of the dominant group running the music industry. The reproduction of gender stereotypes, myths, and role models by this media perpetuates and mirrors the view of women in modern society.…
