Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeBmusic
Never seen this happen (and I'm in the greater Boston area). Curious on the people (men) who would say this and what women they would say it too.
But the issue becomes more than the men who would say this - its you as the witness to this behavior not speaking up (to the man saying it) and saying "why would you say such a thing? Have you offered similar criticism to a male player?"
Per a female musician friend, we (men) are all guilty of allowing this type of thing to happen because we have never spoken against it, even if we have not done it ourselves or condoned it.
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That is, in part, my hope with this thread--to speak against it and to suggest to others that these sorts of comments are not welcome. I think a lot of men don't realize that they are unwelcome and problematic.
Speaking out against individual instances in real time can be challenging. Imagine a scenario where a show is over, and in the back of the club the performer is greeting a mass of folks as they leave and someone makes an unwelcome comment. It's not clear to me that the performer would prefer to have that one bad interaction amplified by another guest calling it out on the spot. Sure, there are contexts where it might be possible, but most post-show environments in which I've seen such things are not the right place.
Comments online are a different matter altogether, and, interestingly, that's how this thread got started. On another forum, a video was posted of a young women playing an early '40's Martin. One respondent commented that the young woman should smile. I replied, gently, that I believed such comments were inappropriate should be avoided. I pointed out that we would never think of making such a comment to male player. The next comment alluded to how the young woman looked better in her jeans than the male performer. I followup up by pointing out the problem with this statement, and the thread degenerated. One other person voice his concern with these sorts of comment, but most participants voiced surprise that anyone would be offended by such a thing. I was threatened with violence, and the whole thread was pulled. I'm not sure that calling it out accomplished much. I hope it did, but I have my doubts. [Please don't read this as me airing dirty laundry or trying to smear anyone. I'm recounting this interchange without identifying the forum or any of the participants only to illustrate the difficulties in calling it out.)
All that to say that calling it out has difficulties, and I don't mean that it's hard to do. The last thing I want to do is to create a scene and ruin a performer's evening. And if calling it out specifically in a digital space leads to large investments of time and threads being shut down, I'm not sure that's very helpful either. I hoping that dialog, in-person and in these virtual communities, will raise sufficient awareness that it may have some ripple effects.
Think about it. If a couple of posts about whisper cracks coming off the bridge corners of some Martin guitars from certain time periods can cause a whole bunch of Martin owners to running to their cases to inspect their guitars, maybe a few thoughtful conversations about how men treat women in our musical communities can at least get us to be even slightly more aware of the impact of how we think and what we say.