Title: Asking for It: Popular Music and Feminism in Contemporary Ireland
Abstract
This research seminar gives an overview of my current book project, which identifies and analyses the relationship between feminism and popular music in contemporary Ireland. I focus on the years 2012–23 as a pivotal era. Firstly, it was notable for the renewed groundswell of grassroots activism on social justice matters. 2012 was a turning point for the pro-choice movement, marked as it was by the death of Savita Halappanavar and the formation of the Abortion Rights Campaign. Activists’ efforts during subsequent years culminated in the 2015 Marriage Equality referendum and the 2018 ‘Repeal’ referendum (to repeal the constitutional ban on abortion). Electoral support for both enshrined new constitutional rights for LGBTQ+ people, women, and girls. Meanwhile, Irish musicians became increasingly outspoken about gender equality. Stars expressed solidarity with pro-choice campaigners, while others participated in fundraising concerts for the movement. ‘Repeal’ further galvanised a new outpouring of feminist creative expression. Many Irish popular musicians composed, recorded, and performed work that engages with feminist subjects – including, but not limited to, abortion rights. Separately, several musicians together with allies from industry and academia formed collectives to campaign for gender equality in working conditions in the Irish music world. In this talk, I discuss my approach to the subject: how I frame it, my aims and objectives, and some key findings thus far.
Biography
Laura Watson is Associate Professor of Music at Maynooth University. She is the author of Paul Dukas: Composer and Critic (2019) and co-editor of two further books, Paul Dukas: Legacies of a French Musician (2019) and Women and Music in Ireland (2022). Her current research focuses on women and music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Recent and forthcoming academic publications include the article ‘Feminist Musical Activism in Ireland (2016–21) and Feminist Musicology’ in Ethnomusicology Ireland (2022); the chapters ‘Rhoda Coghill and the Gender Politics of Piano Performance’ in Women and Music in Ireland (2022); ‘Sounding the Feminists: Campaigning for Institutional Change’ in The Routledge Companion to Women in Musical Leadership (2024); and ‘Performing White Girlhood: Kylie Minogue’s Pop Persona in the 1980s’ in Kylie Minogue: Critical Insights into Music and Media Celebrity (2024). Laura is International Research Collaborator on the UK-based AHRC funded project Women’s Musical Leadership Online Network (WMLON). As a speaker and writer Laura has contributed to the Journal of Music, the festival Finding a Voice, BBC Radio 3, BBC Northern Ireland, Newstalk, RTÉ Radio 1, and RTÉ Lyric FM. She is a co-founder of the collective Sounding the Feminists, which has campaigned since 2017 for gender equality in Irish music and has partnered with organisations such as the National Concert Hall and Contemporary Music Centre to lead progress on this matter.