Keynote: Sheila Whiteley

With dimmed lights in the room and freshly made coffee in every cup, Professor Sheila Whiteley gave a keynote speech about the gender imbalance in popular music.

At Radar the café tables were set up with candles, the light was dimmed and freshly brewed coffee was ready on the bar – the mood was set for an intimate and causal keynote speech. Sheila Whiteley walked around and handed out copies of her speech, which was greatly appreciated by the audience, who paid close attention. When she began her speech only seven had turned up, but it wasn’t long until all the tables were filled.

Professor Sheila Whiteley was Chair of Popular Music at the University of Salford until December 2006, and is receiver of three European Social Fund awards for her research into Women and the Cultural Industries. She speaks about Popular Music and Issues surrounding gender, identity, subjectivity and sexuality.

The topic of the keynote was “the political and cultural implications of gender imbalance in popular music” – a broad topic which Sheila Whiteley managed to narrow down to a speech of just over an hour. Mostly Whiteley stuck to the written speech which had been handed out to the audience, but a few times her enthusiasm for the topic of women in popular music took over, and she shared some personal stories and experiences. The talk was seasoned with both a power point and three musical examples (two by Joni Mitchell and one by Sheryl Crow) which all portrayed  how women are presented not only in popular music, but in culture in general.

When the talk was over and people had applauded Whiteley opened the floor to a debate on the topic. Interesting views were brought up, and even after the official debate was over, people kept discussing as they left the room. This was definitely a keynote that left an impression on the audience.