A summary of the restrictions women have had as singers, as composers and as instrumentalists from the Middle Ages until today, illustrated with individual examples

Table of contents
1.       Definitions of censorship
2.       Restrictions on musical women in the Western hemisphere
3.       The situation of female musicians in Iran and Afghanistan
4.       Afghanistan
5.       Women and censorship – Asia – present time
6.       Sources
7.       Bibliography
8.       Timelines
8.1.     Europe / Western Hemisphere
8.2.     Asia
8.3.     Middle East
8.4.     South America
8.5.     Africa
8.6.     Russia

Introduction
Historian and lyric poet Plato from ancient Greece was aware of the power and function music had within society: Music serves to establish the morality and to confirm desirable civic virtues, but simultaneously music also poses a danger that might divert people away from the Good Life. Thus Plato distinguishes in his famous work Res publica between good and bad music and recommended that bad music, as a potential threat of the state, had to be controlled or banned. That’s why dictators throughout time have promoted accommodating composers and music genres and have censured the unaccommodating. But Plato writes nothing of the music of women being worse than music of men. Throughout history many examples can be found illustrating that fact that female music was deemed less valuable.

The article 'Censorship in female music - from past to present' is 28 A4-pages long, and provides examples from all over the world of the censorship of female music over time.
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Asia
Time: June 2004
Country: China; Chang Hui-Mei (known as A–Mei) – the Taiwanese pop singer canceled a concert in China after a protest accusing her of supporting independence for the island. Reason: China views Taiwan as a renegade province and is suspicious of independence-leaning president Chen Shui-bian.
Source: BBC News, June 13, 2004.
After she had sung at the inauguration of Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian in May 2000, she was totally banned from performing and selling records in China. Coca Cola, which had employed her as a poster girl, dropped her under pressure from the government.
Source: Newsweek, January 08, 2001

Europe / Western hemisphere
Time: March 2003
Country: USA; Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) – many radio stations in the US refused to play their records. Reason: her statement of feeling “ashamed” president Bush came from her home state Texas during a concert in London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
Source: Christiane Rohr, Musiker unter Druck: Zensorische Maβnahmen im Irakkrieg, in: 9/11 – The world’s all out of tune – Populäre Musik nach dem 11. September 2001, Dietrich Helms, Thomas Phleps (Hg.), Bielefeld 2004

Middle East
Time: March 2002
Country: Israel; Yafa Yarkoni – the Israeli singer, an Israel Prize winner and an advocate of the consensus, also known as “War Singer” having entertained soldiers in the front for more than half a century, declared that the images she saw of “Defence Shield” reminded her of the Jews and Holocaust. Thus all her concerts were immediately cancelled and she even received threats on her life. Her music almost disappeared from public radio.
Source: Noam Ben-Zeev, The sound of silence: conformist musicians in Israel, in: Marie Korpe (Ed), Shoot the Singer! Music Censorship Today, London, Zed Books, 2004