Sound is an integral aspect of many faith traditions. But what happens when women are kept from those sounds? What are the sonic dimensions of gender and religion?
While working as a WSRP Research Associate this year, Rosalind I. J. Hackett is aiming to develop a more sonically aware approach to the study of gender and religion. Hackett, Visiting Professor of Women's Studies in Religion, will give the lecture, "Sound: Gender: Religion," November 6 on the HDS campus.
HDS reached out to Hackett for her thinking behind her project and how "sacred" sounds impact gender and religion.
HDS: One thinks of music and singing when referring to sacred sounds in religion. However, your project isn't limited to those aspects. Can you describe what other sounds you explore as part of your study and their importance to religion?
RH: The sounds that people produce and hear then interpret as religious or spiritual vary across history and cultures.
The bullroarer, with its eerie, otherworldly sound, is used in many indigenous societies to represent ancestors or spirits. Bells and gongs serve to demarcate ritual spaces and time in Christian and Buddhist traditions. Muslim urban spaces are defined by the call to prayer. In Santeria, drums are the principal form of communication with the deities. Ancient Tibetan singing bowls are now popular in the West for healing and meditation purposes. Let's not forget the shouting, crying, clapping, moaning, and even laughing that occurs in some Pentecostal services.
So sound is integral to the way that religious communities define themselves, attract adherents, and create devotional spaces.
HDS: You mention that one of the goals of your project is to explore the "sacred" sounds that have been kept from women. What sounds do you mean by that and why have they been withheld?
RH: The social and religious subordination of women in many religious traditions has often resulted in limitations of their vocal and musical expression in ritual settings. Within Orthodox Jewish communities, for example, there is the issue of kol ishah, the halakhic prohibition on men from listening to a woman's singing voice because of its perceived links to sexual incitement. There are also limitations on women reciting the Qur'an in mosques and public places.
Despite the fact that in ancient cultures women played the frame drum, there are very few societies today where women drum in ritual contexts—whether for practical reasons or men wanting to maintain control over the rhythmic power of drumming.
HDS: How do you envision developing a more sonically aware approach to the study of gender and religion? Why is that important?
RH: Through conferences, publications, and, of course, teaching. In that connection, I am greatly looking forward to teaching my course "Sound, Gender, and the Study of Religion" next term. Despite increased attention to the material and multisensory aspects of religious practice, scholars of religion have seriously neglected its auditory and acoustic dimensions, in large part due to the domination of the visual paradigm in Western culture and the challenges of studying sound in all its complexity. But there is no better time to be studying sound and hearing in relation to religion with all the advances in media and auditory technologies.
As for the importance of a more sonically aware approach to studies of gender and religion, I would argue that it would offer new understandings of how women are valued and devalued in religious contexts and the dynamics of gender differentiation. It would enhance our discourses on women's bodies, embodiment, and subjectivity, as sounds are not just heard but also felt. It could provide fresh perspectives on how women transgress or circumvent patterns of exclusion using their sonic expression.
They can attain recognition for their vocal talents at world music festivals, for example, or create drumming circles in their neighborhoods. They can chant on YouTube or set themselves up in business as sound therapists. They can compose or listen to meditative music.
In other words, we need to consider women's sounding and hearing practices as a new site for women's spiritual and religious agency in the twenty-first century.
—by Michael Naughton