Thoughts on ‘feminist listening’
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Some women’s* bodies are porous vessels. Even as I write, my insides are finding their way to the outside through uterine bleeding that no doctor has an answer for yet. I write and I bleed. I don’t know why this is happening and it makes me feel vulnerable – as bleeding during my fertile years always did. As the wayward trickle continues, I feel somehow undermined, leaky, fearful. My biologically female organs still communicate my inward vulnerability to the world even if silently and covertly.
We are porous vessels. During the workshops with singers that ran over 4 days, it was noted quietly on about day 3 that some people’s periods had synced up. It was also around the time we were all at our most vulnerable and really opening up to the process, the work, and to each other. It made me think about how our bodies were listening to each other: ‘listening with the body is also feminist’ (Palme 2017, p.23). In a way perhaps other bodies don’t, women’s* bodies listen, open, offer up, absorb. Through our very flesh, we listen. Perhaps this is why some say that feminist listening is about embodiment.
Christina Fischer-Lessiak writes, ‘the feminist ear and feminist listening are active and challenge an imagined normative or patriarchal listening’ (2022, p.94). The latter, suggests Jennifer Stoever, is ‘socially constructed… and normalizes the aural tastes and standards of white elite masculinity as the singular way to interpret sonic information’ (Stoever 2016, p.13). Hildegard Westerkamp suggests that ‘there might be differences between how the feminine in us processes what we hear and how the masculine in us does it’ (1995), a framing that leaves the question of gender open, allowing for men and other genders to also engage in feminist listening. I think it is important to make this distinction; saying that all women practice feminist listening or even unconsciously listen in the same way is as ludicrous as asserting there is a ‘women’s music.’ Not the point.
And again, to Palme: ‘Listening inward and outward in the same way and involving one’s own mind in the process, that I define as feminist (my emphasis)’ (Palme in Fischer-Lessiak 2022, p. 92). I like the idea of taking responsibility for communication, checking within and without as one listens consciously, and I would agree this is a predominantly feminine trait, honed by living within societal structures that place us in caring roles, within tight-knit collectives of solidarity, and on the receiving end of power: ‘feminist listening allows awareness of power structures by being reflexive of one’s own listening practice…Without anyone really listening, communication fails’ (Fischer-Lessiak 2022, p. 96-7). We are expert listeners because we have had to be.
There is no single way to define feminist listening, but what I am interested in exploring through Emergenc/y and other work I make, is precisely to challenge normative listening and influence how we experience the world and ourselves (ibid., p. 97). A key goal of this work is to ask audiences to take responsibility for listening ‘as an active and creative process [that] might serve to undermine certain hierarchies of language and voice… and create a public realm where a plurality of voices, faces, and languages can be heard and seen and spoken’ (Bickford 1996, p.129).
And while, as ever, I am down with acknowledging the legacy I inherit from my elders, and the shoulders on which I stand, I also want to move the conversation on. I prefer the term ‘inclusive listening’ because I know a number of men and gender diverse folk who practice feminist listening – at least as musicians. I believe we all move forward together, with less resistance if we deemphasise gendered ownership over new ways to listen. As Pauline Oliveros states: ‘inclusive listening is impartial, open and receiving, and employs global attention’ (Oliveros 2005, p.15). And if there is any edict at all guiding my thoughts for the sound world for Emergenc/y, it might just be this: ‘Inclusive [listening] means also to listen closely to silences, background noises, the concealed, and unsaid’ (Palme in Fischer-Lessiak 2022, p. 92). Let’s listen for the unexpected - it might just be interesting!
*To be clear: I mean all people with biologically female bodies, not all women and not only women (but this doesn’t flow quite so well in prose). Thank you for indulging me and letting me write in my own voice, from my experience.
Bickford, S. 1996. The dissonance of democracy,: listening, conflict, and citizenship. New York: Cornell University Press.
Fischer-Lessiak, C. 2022. How feminism matters - an exploration of listening. In: Sounding Fragilities, I. Lehmann & P. Palme (eds.) Wolke Verlag, Hofheim.
Oliveros, P. 2005. Deep listening: a composer’s sound practice. New York: iUniverse.
Stoever, J. L. 2016. The sonic color line: race & the cultural politics of listening. New York: New York University Press.
Westerkamp, H. 1995: Listening to the Listening. International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Montreal, 1995.
