The Impact of our Culture on Women in Music

[Jambi]

Originally Posted by Side1LedZepIV

As Paul McCartney has said, "We couldn’t hear ourselves when we were live, as there was so much screaming going on."

I'm pretty sure he's talking about girls.

1st of all this has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. I am physically saddened that it needs to be replied to. Please enlighten the rest of us on how an incredibly out of context remark by one of the Beatles has absolutely any bearing on this thread?

[buddyhu]

I think it is pointless to have a conversation about what we (men) think/believe, or what we have observed.

I’m hoping that some more of the women in our community will tell us about their experiences, past and present.

[jljohn]

Originally Posted by buddyhu

I think it is pointless to have a conversation about what we (men) think/believe, or what we have observed.

I’m hoping that some more of the women in our community will tell us about their experiences, past and present.

I won't go so far as agreeing that it's pointless. We can each bring to the table what we have observed and what's been shared with us by the women in our lives, but I do agree that this conversation would best be guided by the female voices that are here.

[KevWind]

As has been noted it is culture wide issue well beyond music. I think suggesting that men experience the same kind of harassment is a specious notion at best. And while there has been some good progress, unfortunately and particularly as of the last year, there has been some regression .

[jdmulli]

Originally Posted by Jambi

1st of all this has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. I am physically saddened that it needs to be replied to. Please enlighten the rest of us on how an incredibly out of context remark by one of the Beatles has absolutely any bearing on this thread?

Seems to me that the above quoted post is simply, lightheartedly (my interpretation) illustrating one example of men being objectified. Certainly, it does not imply that one instance negates the history spanning objectification of women.

Actually, it used to be art to objectify women (and men) -- statues of the ideal form, paintings, poetry and whatnot. Now it is offensive.

It used to be polite to hold a door open for an approaching female. Now that's offensive too.

Compliments are offensive.

We are an offended people, but as some have stated, I guess its just growing pains. If no one got offended, nothing would ever change.

[HodgdonExtreme]

Frankly, I'm a bit confused by this thread.

Is the claim that women don't get a fair shake at being musicians? That they are subject to inequitable conditions, as compared to men, in achieving success?

If those are indeed the claims, I disagree:

In my opinion, there are many successful female musicians that do not fit the culturally "accepted" norm of beauty and "ladyness".

Further, there are female musicians that I believe have only become successful because they do conform to the socially accepted notion of beauty.

Perhaps I'm missing the point?

[Nailpicker]

I was going to post something (long and profound I assure you), but then I realized it would be a lose-lose situation. In general it was related to this broad topic and our legal system. I'm sure some people would be offended, feel objectified, victimized and that the post I was intending would add yet another meander to the already meandering OP... not that that is a bad thing or unusual here or on any forum. But you know a while back I decided not to waste time and energy on threads that are based upon social opinions...so....

I think I can see why the topic became heated and shut down on the other forum.

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by PearlJamNoCode

I would argue that there is no rise in "victimhood" in our society, but rather more avenues to share and listeners to people's experiences. More women than men are attending and graduating college and getting advanced degrees. More people of color are rising in society and having their voices heard. "Victimhood" is not on the rise, listening to stories of victimization is.

Agree on much of this. Though to my view there is a rise in victimhood–from every corner of society.

On one hand, people are simply brought up differently now, with less of s sense of independence and self reliance that I was, and generations before my probably think of my generationX as relatively coddled. There are generations which have grown up with every convenience, who have never seen been or seen their friends forced to go to war, who have less economic opportunity than previous generations, whose parents have solved many of their problems for them at every step. Life has been a lot easier for them.

On the other hand, many people born before or in my time often feel the world is changing too fast, and they're under attack from those who seek an equal stake in the benefits of our society. They feel attacked or victimized by cultural and demographic change. I sense that lately, the latter is pervasive, and there's a whole media industry there to stoke and amplify these feelings of victimhood. See the continued I "can't" say this or that thing complaints one hears continuously. Well sure you can. You're just going to hear about it. And rightly so.

I think there's no question there has been a marked rise in the awareness (in some parts of society) of a need for equality in our culture. This is good. It's forced me to examine my behavior. Many things I said or did before, I choose not to do any more because it's become apparent how they affect other people.

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme

Frankly, I'm a bit confused by this thread.

Is the claim that women don't get a fair shake at being musicians? That they are subject to inequitable conditions, as compared to men, in achieving success?

If those are indeed the claims, I disagree:

In my opinion, there are many successful female musicians that do not fit the culturally "accepted" norm of beauty and "ladyness".

Further, there are female musicians that I believe have only become successful because they do conform to the socially accepted notion of beauty.

Perhaps I'm missing the point?

Someone posted a Molly Tuttle video. One response included, in addition to praise for her skills, the phrase "she should smile more". This is something many women do not like to hear because it seems to make an assumption that they are there as an ornament, an object to visually and emotionally please others. It is an extremely common remark that men simply never hear. Generally. Women hear it all the time.

Someone posted a video of Bryan Sutton frowning (or whatever you call intense concentration/not-smiling face) and playing, and wondered if anyone had ever suggested that he smile more. Obviously not.

Molly doesn't need to smile. She can simply be taken for the fantastic guitarist she is.

http://www.omaha.com/columnists/hans...34a5d6223.html

[buddyhu]

Originally Posted by jdmulli

Seems to me that the above quoted post is simply, lightheartedly (my interpretation) illustrating one example of men being objectified. Certainly, it does not imply that one instance negates the history spanning objectification of women.

Actually, it used to be art to objectify women (and men) -- statues of the ideal form, paintings, poetry and whatnot. Now it is offensive.

It used to be polite to hold a door open for an approaching female. Now that's offensive too.

Compliments are offensive.

We are an offended people, but as some have stated, I guess its just growing pains. If no one got offended, nothing would ever change.

Art is most often representation, not really objectification. Objectification almost always connotes treating a person as a mere object; while art can be objectifying, I can't agree with a generalization as sweeping as "it used to be art to objectify women." But, I think your statement points to one of the many ways that men can fail to understand and empathize when they work from thoughts, rather than listening to actual experiences of women and taking those to heart.

Compliments are not offensive. But (assuming you are a straight male) you might imagine getting certain compliments from a gay man (e.g."you should smile more...you are much more attractive when you smile"). For most men, that would not be an unambiguously positive experience. Indeed, that rarely happens, because most gay men recognize that such a comment to someone who isn't gay might very well lead to homophobic violence.

And I think the old saw of, "it used to be polite to hold a door open for a woman" is a generalization that is terribly oversimplified and outdated. Most PEOPLE in this culture at this time appreciate having a door held open for them...but the old idea that it was gentlemanly to rush ahead to grandly hold open a door for a female was something that elicited ire from certain women in the past, because it was embedded in a sheaf of old-fashioned attitudes towards women which, taken as a whole, were Emblematic of a social system that was quite oppressive to women. As such, it took on a lot symbolic significance for a while.

And it is ironic that most folks who observe that "we" are easily offended usually regard that as something that they see in others....it is rarely uttered in a self-confessional way.

[Gasworker]

I read a comment in the news that the culture is more about control than it is about sex.
It would be nice if society can reboot and learn to filter what comes into our heads before it comes out of our mouths. Even on our beloved forum I think our female members are treated differently at times. We had a female member make a comment about a male vendor and one response questioned if she were a angry ex-wife or girlfriend. The comment was removed by a mod and I don't think the member who made the comment is a bad guy but I would bet that comment wouldn't be made to a male member.

I think we need to think more.

[StevenL]

Impossible to discuss this sort of thing on a general level without entering into religion and politics at some point, ain't it?

I'm satisfied that it works pretty well here although I'm sure an offense arises now and then. My simple mind thought the community being admonished was AGF. My bad. But in here, I'm not even that interested in distinguishing among the genders, including the newly-designated ones, except for the way that it affects guitars and pickin'.

[MikeBmusic]

I can't count the number of times I've witnessed female musicians being told to smile, how they should dress, or what they should and shouldn't say behind a microphone.

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.

[jljohn]

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.

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.

[ThermiteTermite]

Originally Posted by Jambi

1st of all this has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. I am physically saddened that it needs to be replied to. Please enlighten the rest of us on how an incredibly out of context remark by one of the Beatles has absolutely any bearing on this thread?

This is a fascinating phrase.. what exactly is 'physically saddened' ?