Sandra L. Curtis (2019). Music for Women (Survivors of Violence). A feminist Music Therapy Interactive eBook. Barcelona Publishers. 495 p.
Sandra Curtis, who is a professor emerita of music therapy at Concord University in Montreal, Canada, has worked for over twenty years as a music therapist at various crisis centers for women and at reception centers for raped and abused women in the USA and Canada. She quickly discovered that music could be effective in therapy when working with women who were processing physical, emotional, and existential traumas caused by violence. Music therapy can offer a rich range of experiences through listening to and discussing music by female singers and songwriters, she writes. By singing and performing these songs together with the therapist and analyzing the lyrics, it became possible for the women to internalize and personalize the songs, write their own songs, process their own recordings, and create their own visual art expressions.
This gave the women a voice after a long time of silence, Curtis writes. It was the creative process that enabled the women to redefine themselves and their own lives, to undergo a transformation to liberate themselves. However, this process was not just a personal, psychological transformation. Curtis emphasizes that such consciousness processes also involve understanding the socio-political currents that women are subjected to. And it is precisely these social and cultural structures that enable women to be subjected to violence, rape, and murder to such a large extent worldwide. Curtis addresses this throughout six chapters before she concretely describes how she works as a music therapist.
An Interactive E-book
Sandra Curtis points to research that confirms that a message is better conveyed when text, images, and music work together. When she summarizes a large knowledge base about how women are treated in today’s society in the first chapters of the book, the points are well illustrated with a music video. I notice this clearly. Even though the points may be familiar, they resonate well in the body and emotions when conveyed by a number of outstanding artists. A small taste of Jane Arden – Not Your Little Girl:
Music Videos as information- and edutainment
As an old popular music researcher, with a small book about music videos on my conscience – Musikk for øyet. Om musikkvideo, (Music for the eye. On Music Video) Gyldendal 1986), these videos were a joyful reunion with a genre that often faces negative prejudice. I must also admit that after writing the book, I lost some interest in these music-visual expressions. The times I have checked in, I have also been disappointed by all the glitz and the sexualized performances. It is also a problem, Curtis writes, that many of these videos that contain misogynistic messages can be very good from a musical standpoint. Such music can deceive even feminists into humming along to songs that actually reinforce misogynistic messages.
However, when I recently wrote about music videos again for Store Norske Leksikon (a national digital free lexicon), I had to update myself. In encountering, for example, Beyoncé’s video universe, I had to admit that I hadn’t kept up with the times. Sandra Curtis has done so to a great extent. Here are videos from the entire feminist spectrum with songs that represent women's experiences and voices conveyed through a variety of musical styles – pop, rap, country, indie, rock, etc. The videos emphasize the power of music, not only to reflect reality but also to provoke and change prevailing cultural mindsets. Through this popular music, we encounter singers and songwriters who use music to tell their stories and to be heard. At the same time, listeners seek out music to experience their own lives reflected in the artist’s songs – they can partake in both their joys and challenges. This feminist pop music really challenges the status quo.
After spending Christmas reviewing dozens of these videos, I see more clearly that the feminist contextualization Curtis provides in the first six chapters of the book makes me a better receiver. Videos that I had previously easily overlooked now reveal a text and meaning that do not necessarily come through clearly with a superficial glance. It also helps that many of these videos are subtitled on YouTube.
Women in a Patriarchal Culture
Despite the fact that the women’s movement has come a long way, and maybe further here in Norway than in the USA and Canada (?), there is still a fundamental difference in how women and men are perceived and treated in society. This involves an imbalance in power relations, how men behave as if they are naturally priviledged, and how the socialization into binary gender roles gives boys and men a particular status. It concerns the way women are spoken about, differences in pay conditions in the labor market, women's health, how women are portrayed and objectified in popular culture and social media, as well as their rightful place within human rights. How this is experienced by women is reflected in several videos, exemplified here by Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy.”
Gender Role Socialization
There are many examples of how socialization into gender roles yields different results. For instance, women are more likely to make excuses than men, which this video clip demonstrates well, albeit without music:
The more irritating and troublesome male gender expressions relate to "mansplaining" and "maninterrupting" – i.e., when men explain something to women that the women know more about themselves, or when men interrupt women. "Manspreading" is well-known to us all, and equally annoying for both men and women; it refers to men sitting with their legs spread wide on buses and trains, forcing others to squeeze in. This is well illustrated by "The Manspreading Song" – an ironic contribution, the only one here from a male singer:
This gender socialization concerns everything from boys and girls being directed to choose toys in specific colors at the toy store to the language we use when women are referenced.
Stereotyping
There are many examples of the stereotyping of women, and they are easy to ridicule, as in "Stupid Girls" by Pink:
or to challenge, as Jenny Lewis does with "Not One of the Guys":
When Donald Trump decided that the women in his staff should "dress like women," this led to strong reactions on social media:
Objectification
The objectification of women is another theme that occupies many female artists. Being fixated upon by a male gaze as sex objects, encouraged to dress and behave in certain ways, provokes reactions. This is a particularly important topic, especially since many women objectify themselves through their socialization. A good contribution from the country and western genre can be found in "Girl in a Country Song" by Maddie and Tae:
More explicitly, Daya sings "No, I don’t wanna sit still, look pretty":
A Research-Based Presentation
Curtis goes into detail to document the injustices women face. She spends six entire chapters before describing how she works as a music therapist, a topic I will return to. Curtis writes in an accessible language, although she constantly supports her arguments with research. I also see that she has a long list of publications behind her as one of the leading feminist researchers in music therapy.
I will let the music videos illustrate the arguments and knowledge and strongly recommend going to the actual text. And this is not just a book for music therapists. It is aimed particularly at women who are victims of violence from men and those who work with women who have experienced violence. For music therapists in general, it is an important book. For those who want to work with women who have experienced violence, it is essential, a treasure trove. This is especially true because of the extensive curated selection of songs described in the last 200 pages of the book, all with links to videos and lyrics.
Self-Esteem, Confidence, Resistance, and Resilience
How this culture affects women is described by Curtis through the psychological impact of violence. Women’s self-esteem is attacked, creating insecurity. The desire to improve appearance through cosmetics, weight loss programs, and surgical procedures is well-known.
Alicia Keys attempts to set music and lyrics to women’s worth in the video "A Woman’s Worth." Here are important points, but she doesn’t quite succeed with the first line of the lyrics: "And a real woman knows that a real man always comes first, and a real man just can’t deny a woman’s worth.”
Curtis makes an important distinction between self-esteem as an individual psychological phenomenon and the collective self-esteem that develops from belonging to the group "women," which will also influence how women see themselves. Confidence is a more specific term that pertains to action, what we feel about our own abilities, what we can do and achieve. Men often have a stereotypical perception of masculine confidence measured against decisiveness and assertiveness—something that does not resonate as well among women. "Does one have to be an asshole to be confident?” Curtis refers to.
"Shake It Off"
But confidence is important, it’s the substance that transforms thoughts into action, as Curtis further states. For women, it’s about shaking off all the negative perceptions of their own worth, lack of self-esteem, and confidence. “Shake it off,” sings Taylor Swift (and then you understand why Swift is such a great artist):
The pressure of beauty that women are subjected to is heavily influenced by how models and today’s influencers are made up and presented. Supermodel Cindy Crawford must have experienced this cosmetic photoshopping so intensely that she has said, "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford,” Curtis refers... Once again, women push back, here in the video "Try" by Colbie Caillat.
Resistance and Resilience
There are numerous examples of music videos where women have reacted to the beauty pressures they are subjected to. Here are three videos with somewhat different starting points. First, in "Video" by India.Arie, where she challenges a standard idealized image of white women:
Mary Lambert may come closer in her rebellion against objectification with the video "Body Love (Parts 1&2)":
"Bald Headed Blues" by Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women, perhaps hits hardest of these three videos.
Not least, there are strong music videos about resistance and struggle. “The Greatest” by Sia was her response to the shootings that took place in a nightclub in Orlando in 2016, which took the lives of so many from the LGBTQ2S community. A music video at its best. A reminder never to give up:
Empowerment
"Power" is, of course, a central issue in the women’s movement. Curtis devotes many pages to depict how inequality in power relations appears in numerous contexts. It concerns having power over, power with, and the power to implement. Some forms of power are visible, but much is invisible, as we have touched upon. It is not surprising that "empowerment" has become an important term in feminism.
There are several ways to understand this term. For Curtis, it means "a process of growth and development enabling individuals to become agents of change in their lives and in the world in which they find themselves.” Additionally, it is emphasized that empowerment involves both enduring individual and collective rights necessary to create a just society.
Curtis sees a difference between "liberal" and "liberating" empowerment. In other words, liberating empowerment requires a collective effort to change the system to achieve power and empowerment. In other words, empowerment is linked to economic, social, and political aspects. Again, intersectionality becomes a key term here, where women may have entirely different experiences of "disempowerment" than men.
Empowerment also has a public aspect, concerning work, economy, and political participation. Empowerment is a facet of interpersonal relationships among friends, in families, with partners, or in marriage. In the private sphere, empowerment is about women’s relationships with themselves, in other words, self-esteem, confidence, and physical and mental health.
Here too, there are plenty of music videos that reflect women’s desires for greater freedom. Everything from the classic "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," which Cyndi Lauper sang about more than thirty years ago – (“It just means that girls want to have the same damn experience that any man can have”):
Beyoncé also puts lyrics and music to this tradition of "empowerment anthems," songs that celebrate women's right to live their lives without the limitations imposed by society—here in "Flawless":
Diversity
Of course, the diversity among women is immense, even though many common conditions have been pointed out here. Lady Gaga (she must be included) has set music to this and acts as an advocate for equality and LGBTQ+ rights—rights for all who are marginalized. Because we are "Born This Way," as this more complex video is titled:
This diversity can be quite specific, as when Solange sings that "Our hair means so much more to us than people understand – it’s our history, our struggle, and our beauty":
Men's Violence Against Women
It is not until chapter six that Curtis describes the extent of men's violence against women. Here, the statistics are not pleasant reading. Curtis has structured the book so that this violence is not seen only as the individual cruelty and lack of impulse control of certain men. The social and cultural context she has painted throughout the first hundred pages makes the violence more comprehensible. The presentation is also entirely in line with Curtis’s feminist standpoint—the personal is political; feminism is about enacting social and cultural change, not just personal liberation.
For those who have found there to be too little rock with proper intensity so far, I recommend the following video—“Hunted” by Cowboy Junkies. Here unfolds the feeling that many women must experience of being hunted, on their way home on a dark evening, alone with the boss at work, or with a violent partner—“hunted”:
How women must live in a culture of fear is well emphasized by Lady Gaga in the video "Till It Happens to You." There are two recordings here; first a video, and then a similarly powerful performance Lady Gaga gave at an Oscars ceremony in 2016. I recommend both:
Is there hope? In this last video before Curtis writes about music therapy, she has selected the video "The Beginning" by Kesha:
Feminist Music Therapy for Women
Chapter seven opens with the powerful Christina Aguilera singing "Can’t Hold Us Down," before Curtis begins to explain what music therapy is about for other health professionals in the field, for women who have experienced violence, and for us music therapists.
Curtis emphasizes that there are many forms of feminist music therapy, and she chooses to present her own version here. Her feminist approach is based on a socio-political understanding of the experiences that women and non-binary individuals have within a patriarchal culture. Feminist music therapy combines a feminist understanding of the oppression of women's voices with a creative approach from music therapy. This approach is particularly well-suited when it comes to giving women and all marginalized individuals a voice.
In music therapy, we see that feminist music therapy has focused on women, both in practice and research. These can include women with chronic pain, women with immigrant backgrounds, abused teenage girls, women who have undergone traumatic experiences, women in mental health fields, and, as here, women subjected to violence by men.
Based on her many years of work with women affected by violence, Curtis has developed some guiding principles and guidelines. These include 1) the personal is political. This slogan means that our own lives and those of our clients, both within a private and public sphere, are influenced by the socio-political context we live in. This is important because the clients we work with have often been encouraged to seek personal solutions. In feminist music therapy, the focus is on the socio-political sources that affect individuals. There must be work aimed at achieving personal change to address the harm caused by socio-political conditions. Additionally, the work should involve social change.
2) Interpersonal relationships should be equitable. This encompasses the relationships the client engages in as well as the relationship between the client and the therapist. An imbalance of power characterizes relationships involving violence. Although the therapist-client relationship inherently involves an imbalance of power, feminist music therapy strives for a balanced relationship. This distinguishes feminist music therapy from therapies that emphasize the therapist as an expert and the clients as passive recipients.
3) Women's perspectives should be valued. We have plenty of examples of how women blame themselves when they are subjected to violence, that they take on guilt, and that they think they could have done something to avoid what happened. Curtis has also provided numerous examples of how more subtle forms of power undermine women's expression—here, 'mansplaining and manspreading,' objectification, and self-objectification are mentioned. The result is often that women are blamed and their perspectives are not respected.
Goals
Curtis outlines four goals for her feminist practice. 1) Firstly, she aims to increase understanding of the socio-political background of women, men, and non-binary individuals. Curtis has shown clarity regarding this through the first chapters of the book. The knowledge she has acquired is integrated into the concrete therapy work, where the therapist and client work together to explore the many themes we have encountered and which are illuminated through the music videos.
2) Curtis will also work to promote empowerment among clients. Again, it is essential to gain a full understanding of what power entails, in what form it appears, and how to confront it in personal relationships and how it is recognizable in culture.
3) Here, it is about supporting the person in their recovery from harms stemming from oppression and marginalization. The support should help the client process the physical, emotional, and existential strains that women are subjected to, which have left profound marks on their lives. Music therapy should increase the likelihood that women are given the opportunity to create meaning in life and build a new life.
4) Work towards personal and social change. Sending women back to society after supporting them in their personal growth would be poor practice if there is not simultaneous work towards transforming a harmful patriarchal culture. This activist aspect is vital for the feminist music therapy Curtis has developed.
Approaches
The music therapeutic approaches Curtis works from include demystification, feminist analyses of gender and gender role socialization, validation of women and all marginalized individuals, and social activism. This is integrated into working methods such as text analysis, songwriting, and song production, singing, as well as vocal and instrumental improvisation, music performance, and other music therapeutic experiences that help give women a voice, in addition to music-centered relaxation.
Demystification involves, as in all music therapy, demystifying the music therapy process for the user. This means informing clients about what music therapy entails and involving women in decision-making processes at all levels, namely in goal-setting, mapping, choice of working methods, etc. This is crucial for creating as much equality and balance as possible in the client-therapist relationship. Here, consideration must be given to how much the therapist should share of their own experiences and to what extent group music therapy can enrich the processes. Group therapy is significant, especially considering that women experience that both the artist they listen to and other women in the group have had the same experiences, and that groups provide opportunities to share experiences.
The feminist text analysis and listening to music is perhaps the most effective experience that music therapy can provide, Curtis writes. When the music touches emotionally, cognitively, and physiologically, the message penetrates and effectively leads to a reflection and awareness process. Here, we also see the value of having a large repertoire to draw upon, both musically and thematically in relation to gender socialization.
Curtis's advice regarding a procedure involves first listening to the music in its original form, and then singing the song in the group. This could be singing along with the recording or to the therapist's accompaniment. Afterward, relevant themes that have arisen in the song can be discussed and then connected to any personal experiences that may come forth. Finally, the group sings the song together again.
Songwriting provides a means to tell one's own story, to present one's own perspective. The song can serve as a counterweight to the objectification that women are subjected to and can support the development of self-esteem and confidence. When writing songs, one can rely on previous song analyses, looking closely at the words used in songs and the structure or form the song has. It is essential that the focus is on the client’s attempt to find an authentic focus, not to be guided by creating something that is "correct," Curtis writes.
The process should be slow and gradual. Curtis often starts with a "fill-in-the-blank" musical "cloze," a song with five lines built around the structure of a 12-bar blues. Within this framework, the women write a song about themselves. In the first line, the client inserts their own name, two new words are added in the second line, three words in the third, and so on. The client then writes a 12-bar blues with three lines of free form, where the first two lines can be the same. After experimenting with such structured exercises, therapists allow the women to try writing their own completely original songs. This process can culminate in a recording. One can also attempt to create a video. It can be done simply, as 11-year-old Jadyn Rylee has done with the song “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover”:
An Eight-Week Program
Curtis generously shares her experience from presenting an eight-week program for women who have survived violence. To illustrate with excerpts from the first session, she starts with a short introduction of the participants, chooses an opening song—for example, Alicia Keys' "Brand New Me":
Next comes a text analysis followed by individual work to formulate a goal for what one wants to gain from music therapy. Songwriting is introduced and followed by listening to music, possibly group singing, and an appropriate song about empowerment that can conclude the sessions. Each session has its own theme, and they should be adapted to the participants and their backgrounds.
200 Songs
At the end of the book, Curtis presents 200 songs performed by women. Although not all are written by the women themselves, Curtis points out that these are songs they can stand behind. The songs are presented alphabetically in lists by artist, based on themes, or sorted by genre. By clicking on a song from a specific artist, you will access the artist's homepage, links to videos or audio, as well as the lyrics. An impressive piece of work!
There is no doubt that feminism continues to thrive in popular music. The importance of music to women is particularly evidenced by watching this video from the opening of the Grammy Awards in 2019—with Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Michelle Obama on stage simultaneously—sharing how important music has been in their lives:
Translated from Norwegian by AIChat - and slightly edited...
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