The Alto as Gendered Construction

I served as a panelist today for a conference on Gender and Vocation. One of my reflections was that I've been surprised at various points by the weight of gender on my experience. Changing my name for marriage brought an unanticipated sense of loss, despite years of doodling potential married names when I was a girl and young adult. Once I was hired for my dream job and was befuddled when my gender played such a prominent role in institutional marketing for my appointment. I never saw gender coming. Perhaps like a lot of painful realities, I wasn't looking...or listening.

As a vocalist, I sing alto. As I think about the songs I'm preparing this week alone, each is saturated with gender expectations. Someone Like You,from Jekyll and Hyde, is a lovely, lilting piece that perfectly fits my vocal range. The song is the signature piece for Lucy, "Hyde's scarlet woman lover" as she fantasizes about a relationship with the gentle Dr. Jekyll; if scarlet woman singing that she'd "feel so alive if someone like you loved me" isn't gendered, I don't know what is. I'm also preparing Losing My Mind, from Follies, which is Sally "carrying a torch for a long-dead love that probably only existed for her to begin with". I'm singing the perspective of a woman who can never really have "her man", because he is incapable of love, and thus she's wondering if, perhaps, she is on the brink of insanity. Gendered? Hm. Can't imagine a man singing about a woman he loves who he can never really have because she is incapable of love. Even Taylor the Latte Boy, a comedic piece I'm preparing, is essentially a woman attributing the "extra foam" of a triple Latte when she ordered a double as an expression of the undying love of a Starbucks clerk.

I probably rehearse every song I prepare hundreds of times. I sing at home. I sing in my car. I'm surrounded by a liturgy of unrequited love steeped in gendered constructions.

And this morning I was surprised by gender.