Description
Identities of women and men music educators are largely a product of regulatory norms in the Kenyan music education space.These norms have dictated how the music educators experience the music education space in various ways.Basing on Butler's theory of gender performance, this paper explores the multiple regulatory practices, focusing on how they affect the women music educators.The analysis of these ideas is founded on three main concepts.First, that gender is socially constructed.Secondly, that gender identity is yielded through ritualized actions.Thirdly, that performativity is normalized through discourses that regulate how gender is performed.This paper provides an analysis of responses from seven secondary school women music educators that were purposefully sampled from Bungoma County, Kenya.Discourses on gender performance in the music education space are brought forth to illuminate the disempowering nature of gender norms on women music educators.
Key words: gender norms, regulatory practices, performativity
