Starka kvinnor? Förebilder och tjejer i musikproduktion och musikkonsumtion

Abstract

This article focuses on the concept of ”strong women” in popular music and interrogates the idea of role models. Ideas of ”strong women” are analysed in the context of a contemporary Western society characterised by neo-liberalism and post-feminism. Advocacy of role models is regarded as an example of a political strategy that places the responsibility for social change on the individual. This is done from a feminist cultural theoretical perspective where discourse is seen as having an impact on material subject positions and where post-feminist culture is seen as part of contemporary discourse about Western women. The issue is discussed through the analysis of two empirical materials consisting of interviews; one about teenage girls’ music use and gender in everyday life and the other about female rockmusicians, mainly in their early twenties, participating in feminist music associations. In both studies the participants testify to a positive influence from female singers and musicians as role models, where these artists and musicians in different ways provide strength to the individual girl/woman. The authors regard this mediatised discourse as problematic but it is juxtaposed against the individual narratives where role models are regarded as very important. Questions concerning authenticity, politics and identification are vital themes in our analysis of these narratives. Popular music is, in some respects, described as an arena dominated by white men. Furthermore the research and public discussion about “strong women” and role models take part in reproducing the hierarchies of popular music genres. These hierarchies are understood by the authors as representing asymmetrical power relations of gender, ethnicity/race and class.