IBIBIO TRADITIONAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND GENDER SENSITIVITY

Abstract

Gender discourses have taken the centre stage in contemporary scholarship to capture the yearnings for equality in all human endeavours. In Africa, culture has been established as a catalyst and dictator of performance when considering gender stereotypes in musical instrumentations. Some instruments are ritualistic and assigned to males while the females are forbidden from ‘touch’, ‘usage’, or ‘display.’ Few instruments can be used by females in select festivals while others are universal. Through a survey of available literature on the field, participant observation, field study, interview, and content analysis, the researchers have arrived at findings which reveal that beyond human biological differences, gender sensitivity goes way down to influence objects which in this case are musical instruments. It was discovered that in the Ibibio setting, as it is applicable to other African societies, some musical instruments are categorised as female and others, male, as a result of make and tonal structures. In this case, those ‘female’ or ‘male’ instruments can be played by anyone without gender restrictions. In some ensembles, instruments with larger construction demands and heavy tonal impact are seen as males while the small sizes with lighter tonal impact are seen as female. It is also discovered that different communities have unique and very peculiar names attached to musical instruments as a result of the prevalent situations regarding the manufacture, sound, and use of the instrument in question. Others consider naming the instrument according to the position of children in the family. These go on to prove that traditional musical instruments are culture-specific.