Where Are All The Female Drummers?
When I say to think of a drummer, I guarantee you that the image of them will be a white male. Your inner feminist will fight it but you’re not to blame, we can blame the patriarchal society we all live in. In this society there has been a differentiation between what men do and what women also do such as baker and a female baker. It is also commonly viewed that what men like is automatically good and as a result it is considered the standard that everyone including other men have to be to be accepted.
In terms of the drumming world, this is prominent with the terms “drummers” and “female drummers”. This obviously does not help with the previous common thought of drummers being associated to be male by default.
Whenever any woman enters a male dominated area such as the drumming profession, they can’t be the same level as men to be considered good. Many will have to train to a higher level or grade, have a big personality on the stage or in practice, or have something a little bit extra such as playing other instruments like the guitar or keyboard.
Because no “perfect pressure” falls on the typical man, they don’t feel that they need to prove themselves. This is true in many other professions as well.
Many musical pieces from the “default” male drummer over the last century could be considered basic in techniques, grooves and fills. I can back this up by saying that many of these pieces and songs are used in lower or earlier grades for music exam boards. In a very broad way, we could compare these basic grooves in drumming to the standards of the bare minimum that the white cisgendered, heterosexual typical man are held to (or not held to) in other aspects of their lives and how other drummers such as people of colour, minorities and women have to prove themselves so many times and at a much higher level in music and other aspects of everyday life.
No instrument is manufactured for any specific gender to exclusively play. Every instrument takes practice, patience and focus to firstly play and then master. Anyone can do these things!
In a study I read for my dissertation a couple of years ago it stated that drums, keyboard and saxophone are considered “cool” by kids under the age of fifteen. The reasons behind why these particular instruments are seen as “cool” are that they aren’t offered as much in schools as instruments such as guitar so they seem out of reach and mysterious. These instruments aren’t seen in pop music as often as guitar or vocals, although they are present in this music scene, they’re more background instruments. There also isn’t a very strong societally perceived gender assigned to these instruments, especially keyboard and saxophone (relating back to what gender you think of when asked about an instrument).
So why aren’t more girls and women playing the drums?
I think we can all guess that the big one is sexism being at play. The harmful stereotypes of what girls should do and how they should look affects drummers everywhere. The outdated view that women should be quiet and subtle doesn’t really work when playing drums, an instrument that isn’t exactly quiet or subtle - taking up half the stage isn’t exactly “ladylike”. Yawn!!!
If a drummer was to conform to the expected look of what a nice lady should look like (heels, makeup and skirt) she wouldn’t be able to play drums. Have you tried walking in heels, now try to drum in them - impossible!
On the other hand, dressed more androgynous it could be misconstrued that the female drummer is trying to become her male counterpart when really its a lot easier to drum in bigger baggier clothes than a tight fitting dress.
Another reason is that women don’t earn as much as men so they don’t have a lot of disposable income to spend on drum lessons that, at a base rate of £20 for 30 minutes, is quite expensive for some. Leading on from that, income also determines how big your house can be and how much space you can reasonably give up for a drum kit to practice on.
The last big reason is the unfair labour ratio between men and women living together, women taking on a bigger amount of chores around the house and more relative care which both lead to women not having a lot of free time to practice and master drums.
All these aren't indicators that girls aren’t good at playing drums or music education, in fact it has been widely recognised that girls achieve higher grades in general education with more girls getting into higher education like universities and completing courses with higher grades than boys.
A higher reading ability being present in young girls links to succeeding in music education, sight reading and improvisation pieces.
It’s reported that boys have more trouble when sight reading with them having to repeatedly go back and make sure that they have the drum groove completely memorised instead of reading further ahead while playing to anticipate what’s coming up like a lot of girls have mastered.
A great example of how girls can play drums sometimes better than boys is Roseanna Grey, who completed her Trinity College London of Rock & Pop grade eight (the highest grade in contemporary music) at the very young age of eight. To give context most musicians complete this grade during their late teens/early 20s.
This is obviously an anomaly but it still backs up my point of girls achieving better in male dominated areas when given the chance and resources to do so!
I think we’ve come a lot further than what we give ourselves credit for, because of feminism more women are breaking the tradition and not picking the quiet, petite instruments, instead opting for the loud, centre stage drums. It creates more representations from superstar drummers, to female drummer teachers and what gender is uploading drum tutorials and encourages more girls and women to play and succeed in drums. I can’t wait to see more women choose this cool instrument!
Written by Phoebe Lisher
Phoebe Lisher is a music business graduate from Hertford who has started her own drum lesson business (RatioDrums). Currently working on her debut book (Hit Like A Girl). She has been playing since age 11, loves the instruments and has 3 acoustic kits in her house!
