Something told me to check Voices as I made the final revisions on my master's thesis: Family Music Therapy: Family Work in Music Therapy from a Feminist Perspective. Am I glad I did.
Brynjulf Stige's Feminists, Postcolonialists, and Other Music Therapists caught my attention immediately, being at the top of my web page. After reading his article, I am very pleased, and not surprised, that we music therapists are coming out/coming together in our "different" perspectives and approaches to music therapy. Thankfully we have this virtual forum to support each other in our world family of music therapists.
Then I read Michele Forinash's Music Therapy and Politics-Do They Mix? I'd like to answer: Absolutely. My work is personal, professional, and political. Politics are a part of life, just like music is. Ignoring politics and its incredible effects on systems, nations, economics, health, families, and individuals (including us as music therapists) would be similar to ignoring music. It is our responsibility as caregivers to continually educate and empower ourselves about politics and equal rights in our local, national, and global communities. This enables us to understand external influences that affect our clients, ourselves, and our therapeutic relationships.
A couple months ago I had read Susan Hadley & Jane Edwards' Sorry for the Silence: A Contribution From Feminist Theory to the Discourse(s) Within Music Therapy. I was completely thrilled to find this information and have looked forward to Hadley's forthcoming book ever since.
But I didn't tell anyone. I have been silent.
Now I would like to thank Susan Hadley and Jane Edwards for breaking the silence. We, as professionals and world citizens, need to talk about feminism and other movements for equal rights. Women and minority groups all over the planet are still belittled, discriminated against, and/or persecuted for being born as they are. These discriminations and persecutions are political. We must acknowledge this so we can work honestly and holistically in music therapy.
And it is so true that we, women, have been silent. After all this time, even with the coming and going of two waves of feminism in the US, female music therapists have been silent about our feminist, political principles that we are entitled to possess and share. The fact that we have been silent for so long is precisely the reason for this discussion. We are still in need of feminist and other equal human rights theories to inform and guide our personal, professional, and political work. We can only work in our clients' and our world's interest by doing so.
And yes, it is a risk to say how we really feel about our work's politics. But we need to take the risk (of being impolitely "unfeminine") if we want to live in freedom and empower our clients to do the same. While writing my thesis these past few months, I have felt isolated in my feminist views in music therapy. But now with this discussion, several issues, and a forthcoming book, I am tickled pink with the sense of community I feel. (Literally, my face is flushed with excitement as I reflect and write this.) Every single one of our voices counts in this endeavor. Let us all speak up!
I am sorry for the silence, too.
Thank you Michele Forinash for reflecting the silence.
I look forward to the ensuing discussions and the political-feminist movement happening in music therapy. We can do it!
Response to "Sorry for the Silence: A Contribution from Feminist Theory to the Discourse(s) Within Music Therapy"
This article struck me when I found it, because it sparked something in me that I hadn’t really thought about before. Feminism is something that was never mentioned to me, both at home and at school. Hadley and Edward’s article pushed me to look at what feminism is, and more importantly, what it is to me.
When I first started contemplating what I had read, I started to get angry. Feminism was never something that I was able to incorporate into my work and my life because I had never learned anything about it. The article pushed using feminism in our work as music therapists, but I would never be able to do that, because I was not aware of what feminism entailed. Why is it that feminism was never discussed at any part of my education? I remember learning about civil rights in school, but the majority of our discussion was about African American rights. We learned the date that women were allowed to vote, but nothing more. Why was this never discussed? If we are all equal, then why are important parts of history being forgotten in the classroom?
This began to drive me into a deeper search on why I did not know anything about feminism or its history. I went to my family to try and discover why I had never learned anything there. I began discussing it with my grandmother, only to discover that she has done many different things for women’s rights. She was one of the first women to graduate from the University of Kentucky with a degree in business and is still active in the women’s club in her community. For over all 80 years of their lives, she and my grandfather had always pushed for equality for all people in their home and in their work. I was astonished to find that my grandmother had been so active in the community and that I had never known about it until I was in college. When I asked her about it she simply stated that it was not something that she felt needed to be discussed, she had just done what she thought was right.
Although I respect my grandmother (especially now that I know all of the things that she has done), I don’t think that she was entirely correct in never discussing these issues with her children/grandchildren. If feminism continues to come across to younger generations as something in the past, or just a bunch of women who are bra burners, then it will not survive. I agree with this article that it is a shame that feminism is not a bigger idea in our female dominant profession, but I think that the problem lies in our education. It is not right that the public school system is leaving out the principles of feminism in our education. I don’t think that every person needs to be a feminist, but that all need to have the education so that they can make their own decisions about how they want to classify themselves.
I still feel that I am not educated enough to call myself a feminist, but I am glad to say that this article has pushed me to investigate and learn more and more about feminism. I am planning on reading Feminist Perspectives in Music Therapy, edited by Sue Hadley, and I look forward to growing and to begin incorporating my beliefs into my work and my life so that my family will not be unaware of the important parts of the history of the United States.