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

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Btw, Strobek, why don't you ask the question like this : "Why are there more single parent mothers than single parent fathers?" It's basically the same question, and the answer's obvious to everyone, so please, again, try to direct your time & energy to more concrete real world change, since you obviously want the world to be a better place for all, something I fully second.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

while i wouldn't claim to have as firm a grasp on the history, i've come to understand video art (or maybe just video?) as a medium or discipline (not the same thing and i can't decide which to commit to!) which has been and continues to be more conducive to female and queer practitioners.

I'd like to see you back this up with actual numbers & sources for these numbers, and - if possible - break it down into 4 categories : straight men, straight women, queer men, queer women.

[jon abbey]

i know that all of you are pretty much sick of them, but white caucasian males of predominantly christian family-heritage in western europe [belgium,netherlands,uk,germany] and both coasts of america [new york,boston,calif] made and will continue to make the most significant % of cutting edge experimental music because they are in the best financial, socio-cultural, psychological, traditional, etc situation to do so. which is just normal. everything else besides that is just wrong.

well, except that the Tokyo contingent has been arguably the most crucial contingent in worldwide EAI, from its beginnings in the late nineties until now, and almost none of them have any money or art school training or any of that.

[will]

Your question is valid enough, but answers are probably not to be found in some quick two-liner on a message board.

Yes it is, and it's actually very easy & obvious.

Women are, generally, more interested in producing biological offspring than in cultural offspring.

Although historical reflections like this one are correct & dead on, they are irrelevant.

the whole historical continuum weighs heavy on these fields i reckon. we might have a hard time with the idea that there's some sort of barrier preventing women from involving themselves to the same extent these days, but it's pretty plain to see that it was that obviously that way only a few decades ago... is it reasonable to think we'll shake that weight completely so fast?

The biological differences between men & women inevitably will out themselves in the social statistics.

Strobeks question kinda implies that there should be an equal amount of women & men in everything (in this case, the cultural scenes). This is an unnecessary, confusing & wrong assumption, since the category of 'men' & that of 'woman' are simply not the same - as a result both categories will behave differently & produce different results.

Oh hey awesome a nature / nurture argument! I'll see your "biology" and raise you "increasing burden of and responsibility for childcare placed on individual women in Euro-America becauase of the collapse of extended family networks and specialization of labor due to long term patterns of urbanization and capitalist free labor" Women are expected to be able to both manage a career and bear primary, if not exclusive responsibility for producing and maintaining children. This forces women out of all sorts of time consuming and demanding practices, see also the tendency for women to have to choose between getting a PhD and having children. This artificial situation is then naturalized as an expression of biological imperative.

Edit: basically I'm saying that women are obviously as capable as men in intellectual and creative endeavors (I don't think you'd disagree there), but that the social structures through which creativity is channeled in Euro-America are hostile to women, thus creating gender imbalances.

[skrobek]

Yes it is, and it's actually very easy & obvious.

Women are, generally, more interested in producing biological offspring than in cultural offspring.

This quote tends to prove that this board is not reserved to any tiny fraction of an intellectual elite

We don't even have female emoticons...

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Edit: basically I'm saying that women are obviously as capable as men in intellectual and creative endeavors (I don't think you'd disagree there), but that the social structures through which creativity is channeled in Euro-America are hostile to women, thus creating gender imbalances.

Of course they are as capable.

A question which you could ask yourself is: where do these social structures - that indeed have become an important factor themseves - come from? One of the contributing and crucial factors is undeniably that women, because of their biological (hormones amongst others play a crucial role here) make-up, make generally slighty different decisions then men.

I'm not playing the nature-nurture card here at all. I just point out that men and women are different, and that these differences have psychological, historical, social, cultural effects. My answer is more fundamental then the socio-historical ones, and one can only start improving the socio-historical condition of both sexes if one takes into account these non-socio-historical differences, instead of dismissing them as not important, or even wanting to level them. Who says that a leveling would be better in the first place? Trying to fully level the differences leads to totalitarian situations.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Yes it is, and it's actually very easy & obvious.

Women are, generally, more interested in producing biological offspring than in cultural offspring.

This quote tends to prove that this board is not reserved to any tiny fraction of an intellectual elite.

Instead of giving an ad hominem argument, could you provide some real argumentation, since you are the one that brought up the question in the first place. If you can't do that, fuck you and shut up.

I'm just trying to give a point of view that might help the debate. You on the other hand seem to deny some of the differences between men and women. What, I might ask you, is wrong about my sentence you quoted?

Have you ever even read anything longer then half a page about the effects of gonadel hormones on human behaviour?

[jkudler]

Yes it is, and it's actually very easy & obvious.

Women are, generally, more interested in producing biological offspring than in cultural offspring.

This quote tends to prove that this board is not reserved to any tiny fraction of an intellectual elite

We don't even have female emoticons...

how gender normative!!! those emoticons, to me, are pretty androgynous. but perhaps you associate short or shaved hair strictly with men?!



-jesse

[skrobek]

Wow, such an angry man Perhaps you're indirectly helping us shaping an answer to the question...

Is it necessary to explain why saying today that women are made to be creative with their wumb and not their brain is a complete fabrication of the patriarchal organization of society and its aftermath, be it consciously or unconsciously felt by both men and women.

I thought most people had given up saying that within the community, and had settled for some kind of status quo or denial (the "I don't understand, I see plenty of women at gigs" stance). Apparently not.

how gender normative!!! those emoticons, to me, are pretty androgynous.

Yeah... now that you said it... i'm starting to see that one as a woman:

[jkudler]

This only serves a certain stereotype, but investing substancial amounts of time into something like this
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/261 ... 5a21_o.jpg
apparently tends to be more attractive to males than to females.
I want to understand and control this!
(which of course isn't meant with that pic's original poster in mind)

ouch [that was a picture of my setup]. but fair enough. for the record, i think the "I want to understand and control this!" is pretty fair in both a general and personal (i.e. to me) sense, though i am specifically interested in overwhelming that impulse via an unmanageable mess.

i do think the obsessiveness that leads to a deep interest in *any* obscure area of esoteric knowledge does seem much more common in men than in women, anecdotally speaking. this could easily be formulated as "why do women have so much healthier egos and personalities that they don't feel a need to waste time reading blogs to be up on every new cd-r of scraping noises?"

anyways. another mostly useless thread. i agree with the notion that EAI is not really any worse and possibly better than many other genres of music in terms of representation of female practitioners. i think it's fairly inarguable that the audience tends to tilt heavily male most of the time (with an emphasis on geeky urban 25-35 year old bespectacled college grads [wait. . .that's me!]).

what i think would be useful or helpful here would be if any actual women involved in this scene would chime in and tell us if they personally feel any sense of it being a boy's club or exclusive/exclusionary, or just if there is any ill ease at the dominant demographic and vibe. frankly, niwi, i was surprised at how tersely you dismissed that notion. has it really been that easy? i am genuinely curious.

-jesse

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Why don't you start an action group to try and realize feminist ideas amongt lions, or a group advocating the "rights" of humpback whale mothers? Or black widows?

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Is it necessary to explain why saying today that women are made to be creative with their wumb and not their brain is a complete fabrication of the patriarchal organization of society and its aftermath, be it consciously or unconsciously felt by both men and women.

For one, it's not a complete fabrication, it is at the very least tied to material origins. But most of all, women aren't "made to be".

Secondly, and I already asked this question - albeit in a more general form - some posts up: where does this patriarchal organization originates from? What are it's origins?

[skrobek]

where does this patriarchal organization originates from? What are it's origins?

the muscular mass of men.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

This only serves a certain stereotype, but investing substancial amounts of time into something like this
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/261 ... 5a21_o.jpg
apparently tends to be more attractive to males than to females.
I want to understand and control this!
(which of course isn't meant with that pic's original poster in mind)

fair enough. for the record, i think the "I want to understand and control this!" is pretty fair in both a general and personal (i.e. to me) sense

Exactly. And a major factor contributing to this is the fact that female and male brains operate slighty different, due to a slighty different construction and differences in hormone input, viz. quantity levels.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

where does this patriarchal organization originates from? What are it's origins?

the muscular mass of men.

This is surely one of the factors.

[skrobek]

so, women are generally not creative because of their brains, so the real question should be why aren't there more Africans involved in this music, as Jon says ?

Surely you're not expecting too many African women then

[jon abbey]

so, women are generally not creative because of their brains, so the real question should be why aren't there more Africans involved in this music, as Jon says ?

um, please start a new thread if you wish to address this question.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

so, women are generally not creative because of their brains, so the real question should be why aren't there more Africans involved in this music, as Jon says ?

This is 2 times a straw man argument. It is wasted energy of your part, try to be constructive please.

[skrobek]

so, women are generally not creative because of their brains, so the real question should be why aren't there more Africans involved in this music, as Jon says ?

This is 2 times a straw man argument. It is wasted energy of your part, try to be constructive please.

Repeating "be constructive, be constructive, be constructive" constantly is not constructive. These are your arguments. If you find them ridiculous, I'm ready to agree. Or maybe I didn't understand your "it's an hormones thing that makes them think with their belly" thing. It's quite possible I didn't understand, since I didn't understand the "hilarity" provoked by your replacing the "k" in my name by "t", or the point of asking me for my income without ever making the development you needed that information for...

[mudd]

i can't tell if this thread is becoming a disaster or has been one for three pages. nothing wrong with disasters, but do try to resist pointing fingers at each other, people.

m