Zimbabwe Women and Music Education

A recently published article in the Zimbabwe Herald was written by Joyce Jenje Makwenda on the impact of colonialism on the status of women inside the country.
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Women and music education

By Joyce Jenje Makwenda
Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Herald

WOMEN’S careers are mostly determined by how they have been allowed to dream as they grow.

There are limits to how far a woman can go regards dreaming which leads to her career choices. Patriarchy controls women’s minds by limiting women’s aspirations by the way they control their ability to dream.

Access to education which is a stepping stone to dreaming big can be limited to women depending on whether the resources available can accommodate them.

Formal education is often made available to the boy child more than the girl child.

Further, boys are allowed to experiment and if they fail, they are still encouraged and given support.

Girls are generally not supposed to fail, therefore women become afraid to try out new things including getting access to knowledge and skills.

She might not go to school depending on the family’s resources, which usually favours the boy child to have formal education, and she can be deprived of education.

In some families not only does a girl fail to go to school but she also has to look after her siblings while the parents are working to get financial support for the family. In case she goes to school, the way the girl child is raised at home makes her look not so intelligent.

The boy has more time for homework than the girl, as she will get home and work; cook, clean the house and other staff. In the meantime the boy child has plenty time to understand general knowledge and when they are in class the boy child has all the confidence and in most cases the girl is not very sure of what she says, her confidence is shattered, killing her voice.

Most girls in school trail behind boys. Joyce Banda now the vice president of Malawi tried to correct this situation by having a school just for girls.

In an interview that I had with Joyce Banda in 1999 she said, that girls’ only schools function much better than those which are mixed boys and girls because the girls only school brings out some strong girls who will be like ‘men’ in them.

Some girls feel a girls-only school can make it difficult for them to interact with men in future. Muriel Rosin, who was the only Federal MP, shared the same sentiment.

When I went to school in the 1960’s and 1970’s, there were subjects designed for girls and boys. Girls were supposed to do domestic science subjects and boys carpentry and other ‘male’ subjects.

Domestic science subjects involved mostly, cookery and sewing. The school education did not allow the girl child to be adventurous.

Although one would expect that with the domestic science knowledge that the girl child had, it would make it easy for her to get into one of the most lucrative careers like the hotel industry but no, this has been a male domain for a long time until recently.

Although basically all the work that is performed in a hotel is the same with what women do in their homes, they could not be part of the hotel industry because it is in a public space and would allow women to have economic access.

The education system has continued into boxing the girl child into domestication. It has been proven that most girls do not take up science and technology subjects, but are inclined more to social sciences, which again makes it possible for them to be caregivers.

The issue of subject choice can also be based or determined by how much personal time women have to invest in time demanding subjects, which will lead to the same working environment in future.

When girls finish school their career choices are based on the subjects they will have done and what is accepted by the society. Most women have been exposed to teaching or nursing, secretarial or social science related courses which are to a large extent associated with care giving.

However, it is through teaching in schools that some women are exposed to music as a career that they can teach in schools.

Teaching music in schools is to some extent looked at as more respectable than performing on stage. But it is sometimes the process that one has to go through in order for them to become a qualified music teacher that ends up with a woman clashing with society.

Since women teachers discover this career after they would have married and had children it becomes a problem as they are expected to spend a lot of time on the course.

The course teaches amongst other subjects, music theory, instruments, research and this can be time demanding.

Most women, whom I taught at the Zimbabwe College of Music between 1991 and 2005, had problems balancing between looking after their homes and the course.

Most of the women were teachers based outside Harare and had to relocate to the capital, which meant that they had to leave their children at their homes and come to Harare to look for a smaller place that they could afford to pay, because their salaries were cut and were getting three quarters of their pay.

Because of the problems they faced they ended up dropping out of the course. In a class where there was around 25 percent women and 75 percent men, a ratio of 1:4, less than a quarter of women would continue with the programme.

As time went on the intake improved and there was a 50:50 representation of women and men in class.

Most women who have come to understand the broad spectrum of music have been able to do so mostly because of the families they come from or their environment.

Music is more often than not known from the performance point of view, little knowledge has been passed to society about how broad the music profession and industry is.

Just like any other profession, music has to create a feeder system, which means that it has to start from Grade One in primary school up to secondary level and then to tertiary level.

With music education one can go as far as Masters Degree and PHD, specialising in particular and specific fields, for instance, Composition, Ethnomusicology, Musicology, Music Technology, Performance and Psychology of Music.

Unfortunately music education has not been taken seriously; it is taken more as an extramural activity.

Rumbidzai Chipendo, chairperson of Zimbabwe Music Educators is worried about how schools need music for all the entertainment that happens at the schools but, they do not give the children the chance to learn music just like any other subject.

Although music it is taught at some schools, there are no examinations set to evaluate progress.

Music is the umbrella of society. It is through music that we understand most of the aspects of our culture.

The power of music is underestimated and yet if it is taken seriously, society can transmit knowledge much easier through music than some of the channels they try to use to get education.

In the olden days music was used to teach and it made it easy for one to understand the knowledge that was being passed on to them, music made it lighter and more understandable.

With the complexity surrounding music today, the understanding of music education has been accessed by a few and mostly men.

I came to understand music education through my parents who recognised my music talent at an early age. They encouraged me to perform and to take a music course at the College of Music, way back in the 1970’s, but I did not.

Most people understand music just as performance and yet it is just like any other industry and it needs promoters, managers, sound engineers and venue owners among others.

Again because the information of what makes music being not easily available, women spend more time in performance in order to be in music.

If a woman like the late Elizabeth Taderera, popularly known as Katarina, had been educated on how broad music is, she could have probably taken her dances to another level.

Teaching how to dance, like Jonny Clegg who is making money by just teaching the world how to dance the Zulu contemporary dance.

I applaud women like Prudence Katomeni-Mbofana who took time off from their busy performing schedules to take up a degree in music.

This is a long-term investment which will help her to talk and understand music from a well-informed position at festivals and conferences.

It is not easy to take time off from performance, or from any other busy schedule in order to study music, but it is a rewarding experience.

Women it is through music education that you can understand how society functions and you can use music to protest against unfair treatment, in marriage, in the society and music can help you to celebrate life and womanhood.

--Joyce Jenje-Makwenda is the author of Zimbabwe Township Music Book and her forthcoming book is Women Musicians of Zimbabwe. She can be contacted on: joycejenje@gmail.co