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Whose Playground, Which Games, and What Rules?: Women Composers in the Digital Playground

Paper presented at the International Computer Music Conference, September 1995. Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference: Digital Playgrounds. Banff, Alberta, 1995: 563-570.

From 1993-94, I interviewed fourteen Canadian women composers of electroacoustic music. Montreal: Claire Piche, Lucie Jasmin, Pascale Trudel, Monique Jean, Helen Hall and Kathy Kennedy; Toronto: Gayle Young, Sarah Peebles, Wende Bartley, Elma Miller, Ann Southam, and Carol Ann Weaver; and Vancouver: Hildegard Westerkamp and Susan Frykberg. Both technology and music composition are stereotypically male domains. The gendering of electroacoustic music begins at the symbolic level, in the language and imagery of the publications and software that composers use. It is reproduced through institutional processes and practices, and expressed individually. This paper draws from feminist theory on technology (Harding 1986; Hacker, 1990; Haraway 1991), linguistics (Kittay 1987), and musicology (McClary 1991; Citron 1993) to discuss my consultants' experiences and practices, and how these relate to symbolic, structural, and individual gender. In particular, I concentrate on the discussion of women composers' experiences in the electroacoustic studio, and in educational contexts as teachers and students.


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"Inventing Images: Constructing and Contesting Gender in Thinking About Electroacoustic Music."

Leonardo Music Journal 5, 1995: 57-66.

In this article I explore symbolic imagery in the world of electroacoustic music, as presented in both popular technological music publications and in the language of 14 Canadian women composers. While mainstream discourse uses imagery that emphasizes power and control, these composers use metaphors of painting, dancing, sustenance, addiction, wilderness, meetings, circuitry, curses, locks, boxes, blessings and desire to describe their work. This imagery suggests different ways for artists to think about their interaction with technology.


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"The Science and Technology Careers Workshop: Integrating Feminist Perspectives in Residential Science Education."

Resources for Feminist Research 20(2), 1991: 50-51.

This paper describes a three-day residential science careers workshop for high school girls (Grades 9 and 10) designed to encourage their interest in science and technology. I initiated, developed and ran this workshop at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, from 1987-1992, with the cooperation of university faculty, speakers from the community, corporate sponsors, and undergraduate student workshop facilitators. The article discusses how we integrated feminist pedagogical techniques into the design of the workshop, and quotes the students' reactions to our approach.


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