ABSTRACT
This well-known drummer joke clearly makes fun of the supposed minimal moneymaking potential of drummers, implying, moreover, that they need girlfriends in order simply to have a roof over their heads, that they are ‘spongers’ and cannot provide for themselves. Another underlying assumption of this joke is that drummers are male. Or maybe lesbians, but probably male. We expect to see female singers – this is feminine behaviour because is it perfectly normal for women to sing. Valerie Wilmer (1977, p. 206) comments that ‘it is as singers that women have traditionally secured their place in the jazz hierarchy’; as well as in jazz, this norm extends to all forms of music, as Lucy Green (1997) discusses in her book Music, Gender, Education. We also expect women to dress prettily/glamorously/sexily, and to wear make-up. When female singers do this they reinforce the cultural norm for themselves and for their audiences. When, instead, women sit behind a drum kit and play it, this is distinctly less feminine because it is not something that females, generally, do. If women drum in un-glamorous clothing and without make-up it is a more masculine performance, as would be expected of a male. If, on the other hand, a female drummer wears dazzling outfits, high heels and make-up when she performs (as highly successful drummers Cindy Blackman and Sheila E do) this presents more of a challenge to the gender norm because they reinforce their status as females through overtly feminine performances, and simultaneously disrupt this by presenting masculine performances.
