Music and Gender as Expressed in the Lives of Two Women Who Belong to an Arab-Christian Minority

Abstract

This article describes the place of music in the lives of two women, mother and daughter, in the context of their socio-cultural environment. The study presented here addresses the role of social and cultural elements in determining the musical lives and musical identities of women in a minority group. The paper will explore this issue by presenting a case study of two women – a mother and her daughter that are part of the Arab Christian minority in the north of Israel. Music has always played an important role in the lives of both women but there are differences in the way the two women treat music in their lives. The paper examines the social norms of the different generations of mother and daughter that are reflected in their musical lives. These social norms are explicitly linked to the status of these women in their community.