Why aren't there more women involved in this music ?

[mashedpotatoes]

i'm a woman and a long time lurker of this board. i used to post a bit, buuuut since i haven't logged in a couple years (or more) my username was deleted on here. i don't spend a ton of time on this board, but i come occasionally to see what people are listening to, find new stuff i want to download, buy, etc...

anyway, i came out of hiding to add to this and find myself frustrated. i've had numerous observations and discussions with girl friends i've brought with me to shows over the years, some i specifically asked what they thought of the male to female ratio, others simply brought it up themselves. there simply isn't a succinct answer to the question, its complicated and messy, i just ended up writing an overly long message to this and deleting it all because it was pointless. does sexism exist in the medium? yes. is there anything that can be done about it? no.

and really that is all that can be said without rambling, going in circles and getting nowhere fast. its the truth and i can either wring my hands about it (and i certainly have wasted time on that before) or i can go on with my life. having said that, the last No Fun Fest i was at, there were quite a few girls/women/females there and i was pleased to see not all were of the "girlfriend" variety.

on the subject of Africa - i was there a few years ago, for a short time, studying the effects of apartheid. every town i came to, i asked if there were any experimental bands or anyone playing "experimetnal" music. i also asked anyone selling records or in a store, the one record store i was at in cape town i also asked. generally people gave me weird or confused looks (and probably deservedly so). i blame it all on Extreme Music From Africa, because of that album i went in search of something i'm not sure exists. heck, i even asked street kids offering me drugs, i figured they'd know as well as anyone. most talked about reggae music though and either didn't understand what i was talking about or didn't care (once again, i can't say i blame them).

and schik - i either find your views extremely depressing or i just find the whole human race depressing, i'm not sure which.

anyway, i'm going to slink back into hiding now.

[jon abbey]

welcome, hope you stick around!

i'm a woman and a long time lurker of this board. i used to post a bit, buuuut since i haven't logged in a couple years (or more) my username was deleted on here.

everyone's user name from the old board was lost over the summer. if you find one of your old posts archived and PM mudd the user_ number, he can connect the old posts to your new user name.

i blame it all on Extreme Music From Africa, because of that album i went in search of something i'm not sure exists.

I thought it ended up turning out that that record was a fake and didn't really have anything to do with African artists, but I'm not sure. anyone know for sure one way or the other? I see one reference here:

http://www.3point5.be/syrphe/labels.html

"this is not a bad joke such as Extreme music from Africa was - yes for those who still never noticed it, that one is 100% fake !"

[mudd]

i dunno though, the music that the drag city subsidary yaala yaala is about as experimental as anything needs to be.

and hi, welcome back? did you have the same username before?

m

[SoundChaser]

niwi!
if you really care about diversity, though, the lack of virtually any African component to what's basically a worldwide music is more of an issue than the underrepresentation of women IMO.

While your point is well taken, it appears, to me at least, that there are immediate answers in the forms of facotrs that should be looked at when considering whole societies, or countries: (a) technological progression, (b) social development, (c) economic development, along with many other factors.

A continent such as Africa has widely disparate levels of development in all of these areas. And, if anything, their cultural development is (if anyhting) more subtle and sophisticated than most western civilizations based on the contexts in which art and communications have developed.

Sorry for the slightly divergent post (from the main topic), but you comment made me stop to think for a minute. Alas, I find the point you are trying to make somewhat misleading.

Another thought: isn't this a particularly western biased perspective? Look at how some of the earliest recordings of African drumming were mis-represented. Consider the concept of "International" music as is represented in music stores today. Does someone from Brazil really consider Brazillian compositions to be international, especially when it is part of his / her cultural heritage?

The fact that African musicians / composers / etc. haven't gravitated towards a mostly western-centric concept or perception of composition and music is hardly surprising, IMO.

-> SoundChaser

P.S. Sorry if this post is a little scattered. I'm running on only a few synapses tonight. Hopefully the majority of my points are relatively clear.

[jon abbey]

not sure I got all that, but if what we're talking about as far as "this music" roughly coincides with EAI, it's not an especially Western-centric music, it has roughly equal roots in Europe and Tokyo (and AMM had quite a bit of Eastern influence early on too).

[grisha]

As far as Jon/Yuko's theory of women being more concerned with with whether they have something of worth to contribute (i.e. talent, quality), I think there's something to that. I know I think that way. I think that's more a case of contending with historical discrimination than genetic gender traits.

i have to agree with this. i am not sure how well a person, of any gender, can judge the measure of his own talent. even the others don't judge it the same way. i also think that it's not the foremost thing taken into account when someone decides to become an artist. they decide to become artists because they want to, or feel the need to. to some it come naturally, some improve, some give up. if someone, prior to becoming musician think about it so much that it affects his decision to the point of 'no', these are definitely outside factors (am i good enough to succeed?) rather than something inherent.

[sarahelockhart]

there simply isn't a succinct answer to the question, its complicated and messy,

indeed, because there are numerous answers, that may or may not be applicable in a given scene or with certain people.

does sexism exist in the medium? yes. is there anything that can be done about it? no.

Well, no one asked what, if anything, can be done about correcting the "gender imbalance." There definitely are things that can be done, probably mostly on a micro-level. Would these things effect huge changes? Probably not. But I think most people can analyze situations and communities of people in terms of figuring out what makes them uncomfortable, versus what is inviting. And I think, to a large degree, having an inviting community determines involvement, or at least a strong level of involvement in something that isn't majorly financially remunerative.

The US noise scene a la No Fun Fest seemed to be a lot more male-dominated a while back. There still are certain styles or aesthetics within it that are more boys-clubby than others.

Both noise and EAI are types of music that one can make alone in one's bedroom, thus there could be more people engaged in making "this music" than are publicly involved.

[Charon]

Both noise and EAI are types of music that one can make alone in one's bedroom, thus there could be more people engaged in making "this music" than are publicly involved.

This is a pretty big point imo With the possibility of making this kind of music simply alone in one's own house simply for one's own interest (and possibly a small circle of interested friends), the question becomes what incentives are there for people to 'go public', when the financial (and global fame) incentives are removed? Some people don't feel the need to be known and so they tend not to get counted.

[Gerardo A]

on the subject of Africa - i was there a few years ago, for a short time, studying the effects of apartheid. every town i came to, i asked if there were any experimental bands or anyone playing "experimetnal" music. i also asked anyone selling records or in a store, the one record store i was at in cape town i also asked. generally people gave me weird or confused looks (and probably deservedly so). i blame it all on Extreme Music From Africa, because of that album i went in search of something i'm not sure exists. heck, i even asked street kids offering me drugs, i figured they'd know as well as anyone. most talked about reggae music though and either didn't understand what i was talking about or didn't care (once again, i can't say i blame them).

The same thing happened to a couple of Mexican free jazz/free improv musicians, friends of mine, who spent a few months in Cuba. The most experimental thing people listened to (or played) was late 50's Coltrane.

It also happened to me (as a listener) in Cuba.

[faster]

Both noise and EAI are types of music that one can make alone in one's bedroom, thus there could be more people engaged in making "this music" than are publicly involved.

This is a pretty big point imo With the possibility of making this kind of music simply alone in one's own house simply for one's own interest (and possibly a small circle of interested friends), the question becomes what incentives are there for people to 'go public', when the financial (and global fame) incentives are removed? Some people don't feel the need to be known and so they tend not to get counted.

Well, in improvised music, I know a lot of people are motivated by the opportunity to play with more people than they may have in their local communities.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

and schik - i either find your views extremely depressing or i just find the whole human race depressing, i'm not sure which.

I guess you've answered the question yourself :

i just ended up writing an overly long message to this and deleting it all because it was pointless. does sexism exist in the medium? yes. is there anything that can be done about it? no.

Anyhow, I strongly disagree -- it's only depressing if you look at it over a shortterm period. It's undeniable that our race has advanced on all accounts, hugely : the level of global security, age expectancy, freedom (in different kinds of ways), justice, knowledge, etc., etc. has increased drastically since the day of the cavemen.
Of course all this (the rise of culture) had and still has side effects - in a way this is the price we pay for trying to overcome our biological and environmental givens, and become more free, less determined by what are, in essence, physical/material factors.
But in the end, important amounts of people are already better off than cavemen, and we'll be better of as an entire species if the process gets more time, and it will get the time, because there, unavoidably, are centuries and centuries to come... Lest not forget that cities only have been around for about 250 generations - it's obvious that we, as a species, still have to adapt to them and other stuff we came up with in our attempts to make it ourselves more comfortable. It took us about 200 millenia to develop the Internet, for crying out loud. Of course cities still have major problems, and cause major problems - yet the positive already outweighs the negative, I think.

What can be done? Try and help to establish, on the entire planet, a free press, free universities, free communication and an independent justice system set up in a democratic way. As a result, education will better over time (and it will, it's already obvious), and more people will become tolerant and less sexist. The position of women will benefit from that - they will attend more concerts.

Of course, differences will always continue to exist, but those differences hopefully will only be the result of biological givens (the sexes' brains function slighty different and hence generate slighty different output), and not any longer of cultural sexism - and if I'm allowed to be really utopian : genetic sciences are already contributing to overcoming certain biological determinants.

Examining all kinds of bio-cultural factors and their correlations can help to enhance understanding, to better education and hence to improve the quality of our practical efforts to try and lower the influence of sexism. But it's useless to try and ask/answer "why" questions on a metaphysical level, nor is it usefull to try and fit them into some political scheme (such as Marxism) - since such schemes are hardly do justice to the complicated (& vague) nature of reality, just think about all the heat I get because I simply point out that biology also is a factor not to be overlooked in a thread like this.
As you rightly say yourself:

there simply isn't a succinct answer to the question, its complicated and messy,

But indeed, it's undeniable that our world nowadays generaly still is a depressing place : there are countless wars going on at this moment, their is poverty all around, human trafficing, illiteracy, countries run by religious zelots and by dictators (including communist ones), the death penalty, corruption, famine, global warming, racism, sexism, bullying, suicides, murder and rape (just think about the hundreds of thousands women and children in Congo that have been gruesomely raped for days and months on a row by several men, day in day out, held captive, and are still being gruesomely raped as you read this - the conflict in it's present form has been going on for 10 years now).
But, on most accounts, it was probably even worse 5 centuries ago, when they still burned witches in Europe and most people didn't live past 40 and the majority of all people on the planet, were, by law, ruled by sons of ruling fathers; or about 1 century ago, when and slaves still cultivated the lands in North America, no man in Western Europe enjoyed old age pension, eduction wasn't compulsory, and women weren't allowed to vote; or even 20 years ago, when we could hardly slow down the symptoms of aids, half of Europe was being bossed around by some Apparatsjiks, and most people hadn't even heard of animal rights...

So I'm optimistic in the long run, if there won't be any global disasters, the world will be a much more prettier place in 500 years time. And 2 millenia from now, well, there might be global peace, education and individual freedom and wealth for all.

What can you do? As an invidual - if you truly care about your fellow human beings that is - one should try and help to broaden everyone's understanding & compassion, without imposing an inherently false metaphysical or political Truth. Because creativity has proven itself very usefull in broading our understanding and our feelings, making and exploring music is a perfectly ethical, and very usefull & compassionate thing to do.

If one lacks the necesary brain capacity and/or the access to proper, free education - or if one just doesn't like thinking or playing the violin... trying to get one's kids into college, help build schools, roads and hospitals or oppose to dictatorship, power abuse, election fraud and corruption are equally valid options too.

[howsthatsound]

wow. great post!

especially this bit:

one should try and help to broaden everyone's understanding & compassion, without imposing an inherently false metaphysical or political Truth.

more related to the above quote than the overall discussion, but i'm constantly telling people that the first step to a better future is to stop being an asshole.

[p_ano]

does sexism exist in the medium? yes.

maybe, but only in the lightest sense of the term (ex, stereotyping, this thread, etc).

if you were to ask me on the street, i'd say "no, we're above all of that." but maybe i just live in an idealistic fantasy world.

[PlasticAztecs]

I don't think there is an easy answer to why more aren't involved. In the grand scheme of things; I can name several that are well known and I felt inspired by. In one of the earliest posts Ryan proclaims "obviously you aren't paying attention". I herald that reaction and agree. I also agree that within the music community the music I hear from chicks seems more intentional or finished. Not always...but as a generalization I agree with Yuko.

BUT since we are page seven - ing it.

I love sound and have done several pieces or played with folks here and there but my heart lies in visual arts. I'm interested in building several pieces and bodies of work under different names. One of them is a males name. I feel after that experience I could better say how or what those differences really smell or feel like. I do believe that gender is a role in a listening or visual experience. This thread is a sign of that. I think it will be awhile before we completely divorce an attachment to sex in art and music. However -- in no way do I feel like my contribution is less valuable. I believe its improving and in being a women you find a lot of encouragement and support in the art and music community. I would be blind though if I ignored the fact that in school --- every single art class was anywhere between 100% - 80% women. Yet the most famous names and well paid artist I feel are largely men. I guess my resolve is that in 30 years that will change to match the statistics of my class. I know that this is more of visual art thing but for me it relates in a way. I find a good piece of experimental music to strike the same exact chord as a good piece of art does. I also think the artist and musicians share a similar flavor --- hence my two cents. I think its a good to pose questions such as these but the answer will only come over the years. I'm excited as a lady to see the increase in women's involvement. I'm doing my part slowly.

[cdrk]

i'm a woman and a long time lurker of this board. i used to post a bit, buuuut since i haven't logged in a couple years (or more) my username was deleted on here. i don't spend a ton of time on this board, but i come occasionally to see what people are listening to, find new stuff i want to download, buy, etc...

anyway, i came out of hiding to add to this and find myself frustrated. i've had numerous observations and discussions with girl friends i've brought with me to shows over the years, some i specifically asked what they thought of the male to female ratio, others simply brought it up themselves. there simply isn't a succinct answer to the question, its complicated and messy, i just ended up writing an overly long message to this and deleting it all because it was pointless. does sexism exist in the medium? yes. is there anything that can be done about it? no.

and really that is all that can be said without rambling, going in circles and getting nowhere fast. its the truth and i can either wring my hands about it (and i certainly have wasted time on that before) or i can go on with my life. having said that, the last No Fun Fest i was at, there were quite a few girls/women/females there and i was pleased to see not all were of the "girlfriend" variety.

on the subject of Africa - i was there a few years ago, for a short time, studying the effects of apartheid. every town i came to, i asked if there were any experimental bands or anyone playing "experimetnal" music. i also asked anyone selling records or in a store, the one record store i was at in cape town i also asked. generally people gave me weird or confused looks (and probably deservedly so). i blame it all on Extreme Music From Africa, because of that album i went in search of something i'm not sure exists. heck, i even asked street kids offering me drugs, i figured they'd know as well as anyone. most talked about reggae music though and either didn't understand what i was talking about or didn't care (once again, i can't say i blame them).

and schik - i either find your views extremely depressing or i just find the whole human race depressing, i'm not sure which.

anyway, i'm going to slink back into hiding now.

Hello,

I'm just new here. Subscribed tonight after seeing that a link here was pointing to my site
I sadly have no time right now to answer properly, I will do so in a few days.
I wanted to speak about a few things regarding Africa :
First I produced a few experimental artists from South Africa and some northern African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt) on my label Syrphe and there will be more to come soon.
Second, regarding the Extreme noise from Africa case, here's a message I sent a while ago to a person who wanted to listen to my theory and why I'm 100% it's fake :

Regarding extreme music from Africa : this cd was released 11 years ago...
If you make ANY search on the net or in a book about ANY of these artists, you find nothing... but a link to the Susan Lawly cd, Discogs and so on.
None of these artists ever appeared on another recording (except a band called National Bird who appears on an American garage, punk, hip hop cd and I'm sure it's not the same "band" - I will investigate).
If you type the name of any of the artists I produced and met in real ,for most of them, even if the first cd was released only last year, you can find gig announcement, biographies, pictures, websites, interviews and so on of most of them.
There are some so-called South African and Moroccan artists on Extreme music from Africa ; I have some contacts with the South African scene since the 80's, none of the people I know (from the DIY scene or from institutions/universities) have ever heard about those South African artists...
With Morocco, it's the same, I have some contact there, I've been there and no one knows the so-called artists.
I listened and listened to the cd and I remember I recognized some sample coming from a cd produced by Deep forest (who sampled some traditional music from the Solomon Islands)... no comment...
This compilation includes artists from Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda... How come that William Bennett never found any artists in Algeria or Egypt when you know there is a "scene" or at least an interest for this music and some forums talking about it ?
W.B. "collected" everything through the net, so he clearly met nobody and if he had searched a bit he would have found more connections than those he "got" (mostly with North Africa).
Anyone could say : "Hey, William, I leave in Malawi and play noise, could you include me on your sampler ?"...
I'm writing a book about electronic and experimental music in general in Africa, the Mid-east and Asia.
I got some info - still not enough - about Africa, even countries such as Burkina Faso or Senegal.
But still nothing about Uganda or Zimbabwe but W.B. would have found some artists there more than ten years ago... (I don't say there are no noise artists there but certainly not the ones W.B. speaks about according to me and I don't mean I know everything about what's going on there).
Bob Gluck who is probably the only person who has written "a lot" about experimental music artists in Egypt, Israel, Iran, Indonesia, etc. has never mentioned anything from Uganda and co neither...

Well I could talk hours about that and the way Bennett "collect" tracks for his compilations (basically for Extreme music from Russia and for the forthcoming Extreme music from China, William never traveled there and just asked contacts and bands name through some mailing lists and some people he found on the net such as Dickson Dee... then, once he collected the addresses he wrote the artists...).

And I can also had this now for this forum : one of the "girls" on Extreme music from women is in fact an Australian male artist. Don't ask me how I know it, I won't answer, but it's something I know...

In the end of December I will publish a database on my website including links to artists, venues, forums, labels, magazines from Asia and Africa, mostly around noise, experimental, electronic (breakcore, industrial, electro-acoustic, ambient, ebm or whatever else), just check it if you're interested.

So that's it for now, more when I get some time in a few days.

Best.

cdrk/syrphe.com

[cdrk]

[Regarding women, I'll read all this topic carefully. It depends on the place and the genre of music but yes they are under represented, sadly... reagarding that as well I'm soon publish a compilation including women playing experimental music in Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan)]

More very soon then...

[niwi]

does sexism exist in the medium? yes.

maybe, but only in the lightest sense of the term (ex, stereotyping, this thread, etc).

if you were to ask me on the street, i'd say "no, we're above all of that." but maybe i just live in an idealistic fantasy world.

i must live in one too, then, because i don't really see a whole lot of sexism in the medium either. i'm curious about examples of the perceived sexism.

Part of the impetus behind Her Jazz (as dictated by members with whom i'm acquainted, and not guessed at by me) has to do with creating a comfortable space for experimentation for burgeoning female performers (musicians/non-musicians/dancers/etc.).

i'm not sure i understand why fledgling female improvisers would or are supposed to feel more "comfortable" in an all-female environment. i'm not trying to be contrarian, but what difference does it make? it feels patronizing to me that women would need to segregate themselves in order to feel comfortable performing.

[Jesse]

l

i'm not sure i understand why fledgling female improvisers would or are supposed to feel more "comfortable" in an all-female environment. i'm not trying to be contrarian, but what difference does it make? it feels patronizing to me that women would need to segregate themselves in order to feel comfortable performing.

This has long been my contention with the marketing/retail/promotion of "all-female environments"- it produces the ghettos of Women's Fiction, etc. It is the patronizing notion that women require a special nurturing to create. Jesus. We've got enough dualities to contend with.

Vanessa Rossetto-female improviser of the year!

[J.F.]

Part of the impetus behind Her Jazz (as dictated by members with whom i'm acquainted, and not guessed at by me) has to do with creating a comfortable space for experimentation for burgeoning female performers (musicians/non-musicians/dancers/etc.).

i'm not sure i understand why fledgling female improvisers would or are supposed to feel more "comfortable" in an all-female environment. i'm not trying to be contrarian, but what difference does it make? it feels patronizing to me that women would need to segregate themselves in order to feel comfortable performing.

I can't tell from my own experience here, as a male, but at least I read about female improvisors (Schweizer-Roeloffs-Cooper-Nichols-surroundings, if I remember right) who stated as well that playing with male musicians feels quite different from playing in an all-female-surrounding (without implying one necessarily feels better than the other).

Anyway, I recognise that it can be crucial to the character or "vibe" of a performance in how far the musicians click with each other on a personal level. While the inter-personal dynamics in all-female (or all-male) groups might differ from mixed ensembles? Uh, I don't know... (well, that's my impression one can't generalise, but... yah. )

[faster]

i must live in one too, then, because i don't really see a whole lot of sexism in the medium either. i'm curious about examples of the perceived sexism.

Vanessa, there was some stuff in this thread that got a little hairy--maybe the argument got too heated for a minute, but there's something gender-related going on, no doubt. (And in passing, as I look through the archives--wow, lots of great threads way back when).