Gender, Tradition, and Music

Our conversation with Professor Allen, expressed the common misconception of the oppression of women in traditional cultural practices. In Ann Rasmussen’s book, it is clear that women hold an important role in the traditional Qur’an recitation and Islamic music in Indonesian, and it is in fact the more modern musical methods that exclude women.   Rasmussen’s writings present the reader with the idea that the modernization within Indonesia is transforming the cultural gender roles of Islamic men and women.  This transformation is not one that is necessarily positive, because it is changing the previously traditionally egalitarian gender roles.  We saw this in the videos on Tuesday, which showed recitation and more “traditional” music groups as allowing the inclusion of women, whereas the more “pop” style group was solely men. 

In chapter 6, “Rethinking Women, Music, and Islam, Rasmussen discusses the Islamic feminism, inspired by Leila Ahmed.  This feminist movement or “womanist Islamic thought” (215) as Rasmussen describes it, uses classical Islamic texts that had been interpreted, resulting in a patriarchal society.  In Indonesia, they are trying to separate themselves from the traditional Arab, Islam that follows more directly the “patriarchal interpretations”.  Rasmussen further argues that the modern reforms in Indonesia that would allow women greater access to education and the economy “can have the opposite effect, creating new ways for patriarchal thought and practice to trump established local cultural practice with the alleged legitimization by religious authorities and texts” (217).  Chapter 6 is important because it gives a greater understanding of the diversity of interpretations of Islam that are around our world, which I feel is little understood.  Rasmussen’s research is filled with the themes of modernism and traditionalism and the tension between the two particularly when it comes to gender.  The understanding of the negative affects of modernizations on gender roles in cultures around the world is an important topic to discuss, because in the Western world we many times are blind the affects of modernization.  This research is a perfect example of the mindfulness that needs to be maintained when looking at cultural transformation, which could have the reverse affect of the intention.