Music has long been a male-dominated industry. As the music community collectively continues to work toward reflecting the diverse world we inhabit, unfortunately there is a tougher road ahead for female classical musicians.

New Jersey-born classical composer Sarah Kirkland Snider has first-hand knowledge on the subject. In a lengthy article for NewMusicBox, she outlines the hardships for females in classical music and how working as a female composer in a male-dominated world has affected multiple layers of her career.

With few women rising to top positions in the classical field, Snider experienced a lack of female role models and mentors, male teachers describing her music as too "feminine," and being subjected to male-dominated educational experiences.

But most of all, it's the gendered language of "emotion" as inherently feminine that Snider identifies as a large barrier for women in classical music. She learned this when a reviewer described her music as "candy floss," likening her music to "fluffy," girlish imagery.

"It's hard for me to imagine [the critic] using 'candy floss' to criticize work by a male composer, given the added tax of emasculation it would potentially levy," Snider writes. "Regardless, what's troubling here isn't just the use of a gendered dig to criticize work by a female composer. Equally if not more problematic is the use of a gendered dig to criticize emotion, a concept laden with more gender baggage than perhaps any other in the art form."

Snider says the gender bias of emotional-sounding music is troublesome not only for women, but for composers of all genders, and the art form in general — because it places an unnecessary artistic constraint on what's acceptable. 

"The pursuit of emotional honesty seems to require greater reserves of courage, bravery and risk than the path of deliberately dispassionate restraint," writes Snider. "For the health, longevity and diversity of the art form, the way we think and talk about emotion and affect in 21st-century classical music must go deeper."

What's the solution? Snider offers the following advice for budding female composers.

"To young female composers: Do not be cowed by any shaming of the 'emotional' or the 'feminine' in your work. Demand better. Tell your stories — loud, proud, bold, vulnerable, with the full gamut of your humanity."

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