Conclusions

This conclusion summarizes the book's main findings, especially the important role that women have played in the maintenance, transmission, and innovation of musical practices in Trinidad and Tobago. Changing attitudes regarding Trinidad's indigenous expressive forms—calypso, the steelband, the Carnival arts, Caribbean literature and fine art—came hand in hand with other freedoms. Shifting attitudes and norms regarding gender roles in Trinidad facilitated gender diversity in various performance contexts, as well as professional advancement for women in both artistic and social realms. The quality of life of women and their ability to earn a living has improved considerably from the independence period to the present, but various problems continue to linger, such as domestic violence, rape, human trafficking, and the exploitation of female workers. This conclusion discusses the ways in which expressive culture has helped in improving social conditions for women in Trinidad and Tobago.

Carnival Is Woman: Party Music and the Soca Diva

This chapter examines the agency of women in soca and related genres, including various controversies they confront in this performance context. As women have created a space for themselves in Carnival mas and at the Carnival fetes, a number of “soca divas” have emerged to give voice to female revelers. This and other historical trends in soca underscore the rapidly changing nature of the popular music scene in Trinidad. The chapter considers the shifting attitudes and norms regarding gender roles, giving rise to gender diversity in various performance contexts, how these changes have played out in soca music, and how musical change and innovation continue to expand the possibilities within expressive culture in Trinidad and Tobago. It discusses the ways in which soca and its offshoots have created platforms for expression by women performers, including the two top female soca artists in Trinidad: Destra Garcia and Fay-Ann Lyons.

From Calypso Queen to Calypso Monarch

This chapter focuses on the careers and performance strategies of the three most successful female calypsonians in contemporary Trinidad: Calypso Rose, Singing Sandra, and Denyse Plummer. Each woman has had to overcome the sexism inherent in the Caribbean music scene, as well as the critiques of the media and audiences, in their pursuit of a musical career. They have come to serve as role models for their contemporaries and as cultural ambassadors for the women of Trinidad and Tobago. The chapter examines the career trajectories of Calypso Rose, Singing Sandra, and Denyse Plummer as well as their participation in musical competitions in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly the Calypso Monarch and the Calypso Queen competitions. It also considers the various competitions for calypsonians of all ages in contemporary Trinidad, designed to find the next generation of calypsonians.

Woman Is Boss: Music and Gender in Trinidad’s Cultural History

This chapter situates Afro-Trinidadian women within the complex ethno-history of the nation and highlights their roles as cultural agents over time. In the Caribbean, the music world and public culture in general has been male-dominated, and for the most part this continues to be the case. In the music scene of Trinidad and Tobago, however, there has been remarkable progress in achieving gender equality within certain expressive realms. Over the course of the cultural history of Trinidad and Tobago, musical practices that were based in communal spaces such as the gayelle and drum dances changed with the emergence of the professional calypsonians and became essentially male-dominated art forms. This chapter examines the ways in which gender and music intersected in Trinidad's cultural history, showing in particular how the prosperity, optimism, and relative liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s set up the conditions for women to (re)emerge in the country's expressive culture.

Pan Rising: Women and the Steelband Movement

This chapter examines the ways that women have contributed to the steelband movement in Trinidad and Tobago over the course of its history, and the roles that they are now playing as pannists, arrangers, and educators. On the surface, steel pan music seems to differ from calypso or soca in terms of performativity: as instrumental music, its conventions and practices are distinct from those of the genres of vocal music. However, the participation of women in the world of pan closely parallels their changing roles in various forms of expressive culture in Trinidad. The chapter considers the steelband movement's dramatic transformations reminiscent of those of calypso and Carnival during the 1940s and 1950s, including the rise of the Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) and the middle-class involvement with the movement.

Woman Rising: Women Find Their Place in Calypso Music

This chapter examines how calypso music emerged as a distinct form of popular music in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the role that gender played in the construction and conventions of the calypso art form. It shows how the changing role of women, combined with the improved status of local expressive forms, enabled women to participate in the cultural life of Trinidad and Tobago. It also explains how changing attitudes toward local expressive culture facilitated women's participation, and how the musical change and innovation that happened as calypso music developed also enabled women to make more significant and lasting contributions to Trinidad's musical culture. The chapter looks at female calypsonians of the 1930s and 1940s who played important roles in the evolution of calypso music in Trinidad and Tobago.

Introduction

This book examines how women became significant contributors to the performance of calypso and soca, as well as the musical development of the steel pan art form, in Trinidad and Tobago. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Trinidad that began in 1997, the book considers the ways in which the cultural environment of Trinidad and Tobago was making women more visible and audible than at any previous time in its history. It explores the role that women have played in the creation and maintenance of various genres of music and performance contexts; the role of popular culture, especially musical performance, in sustaining Caribbean feminism and related struggles to overcome gender-based oppression; the dimensions and limitations of women's political agency through musical performance in Trinidad; and whether increased access and agency through expressive forms such as popular music improve other domains of life for women.