We are two female jazz singers, jazz researchers and lovers of jazz. And we have discovered jazz gave us another shared experience – sexism.
We’d both experienced garden variety sexism. Wendy was asked by a male school principal if her recent marriage meant she would resign from teaching to start a family. Melissa received passionate advice from a male audience member to swap her comfortable outfit with a “glamorous dress” when she sang jazz.
But as university music students, neither of us imagined something as innocent as a key signature in a textbook might be a symptom of gender discrimination.
