The primary, 'masculine' key (or first subject group) represents the male self, while the secondary, 'feminine' key (or second subject group), represents the other, a territory to be explored and conquered, assimilated into the self and stated in the tonic home key. McClary suggests that sonata form may be interpreted as sexist or misogynistic and imperialistic, and that, 'tonality itself – with its process of instilling expectations and subsequently withholding promised fulfillment until climax – is the principal musical means during the period from 1600 to 1900 for arousing and channeling desire.' She interprets the sonata procedure for its constructions of gender and sexual identity. The work covers musical constructions of gender and sexuality, gendered aspects of traditional music theory, gendered sexuality in musical narrative, music as a gendered discourse, and discursive strategies of women musicians. 'Feminine ending' is a musical term once commonly used to denote a weak phrase ending or cadence. One of her best known works is Feminine Endings (1991).

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Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. She has also held a five-year professorship at the University of Oslo (2007–2012). She taught at the University of Minnesota (1977–1991), McGill University (1991–1994), University of California, Berkeley (1993), and University of California, Los Angeles (1994–2011), before becoming a Professor of Musicology at Case Western Reserve University. The first half of her dissertation was later reworked and expanded in her 2004 book, Modal Subjectivities: Self-fashioning in the Italian Madrigal. Her doctoral dissertation was on the transition from modal to tonal organization in Monteverdi's works.

She attended graduate school at Harvard University where she received her MA in 1971 and her PhD in 1976.

Louis, Missouri, and received her BA in 1968 from Southern Illinois University. Noted for her work combining musicology with feminist music criticism, McClary is professor of musicology at Case Western Reserve University. Susan Kaye McClary (born October 2, 1946) is an American musicologist associated with ' new musicology'. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, & Sexuality

Susan mcclary feminine endings