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Age accounts for something only in that we older players come from an era when a female musician in the non-classical world was very rare. It’s fair comment to note the changes that time has wrought since our earlier times and to also show a positive point of view that the times have changed for the better. There is still a long way to go. Gender bias is deeply entrenched and casually expressed in many societies around the world. Posts like the OP serve to help keep us aware of that casual bias that permeates western culture and many others so that we may continue to move towards a time when it has disappeared.
In the mid-nineties I was hired to work in a big music store in a big city. It was a huge shock to many who worked there, as there'd never been a female employee on the sales floor in their 40+ year history, and I was given to understand that it probably was that way in most large music stores. We didn't have very many women in the stores as customers unless they were there to buy instruments for their kids.ironically after posting in this thread, today i saw the most females in the electric guitar and bass section i've ever seen. it wasn't that many, but still more than i've seen in a day; we went to west l.a. guitar center, sam ash hollywood and GC hollywood. i got to talk to a woman a little younger than me whose been playing for a year and a half and is in two bands. she asked me about some basses, and it was like talkbass but live and in person
we saw a couple of women playing guitar in one store and one in another. and there was a woman who was waiting on her male guitar playing companion who went over the basses and spent quality time with an EB-0. and while we were leaving hollywood guitar center, we saw a woman carrying away a guitar it appeared she'd just bought, too.
they often do understand - they mean to be insulting.
Keeping up with the news is commendable but it doesn’t invalidate the purpose of this thread. Whatever can be done to change deeply entrenched negative behaviours is worthy. Reflecting on times gone by and changing attitudes is fair subject matter. I had already been a professional musician for many years by the time you were born. That is not to say anything other than that the era I started out in was very different to today and even different from where you were as a teenager. Woman are still putting up with stuff that men don’t have to and I believe that Dr Cheese was drawing attention to that behaviour and even though much has changed, we are still not on equal footing. Watching the news is great but stuff goes on every day in the supermarket or the workplace and the more we talk about it the more chance we have of changing it.
A good deal of it is ingrained in the culture. However the motivations behind certain actions aren’t as one dimensional as they sometimes appear.
I was born in ‘55. In my female dominated family (my mom was one of four sisters in a house with a strong mother and father who operated as an equal partnership) and they all cartied that upbringing into their own marriages and families.
I (sole male with two sisters) was brought up to be respectful and considerate (as the times defined it) towards women. You don’t hit a girl ever - even if she hits you first. You don’t tease the girls. You keep your hands to yourself. You hold the door for a woman. You stand when a woman enters the room. If you see a woman doing something physical, you make yourself useful and offer to help her without being asked first. If she picks up a cigarette you light it for her. You watch your language and what you say when you're in the company of women. You may compliment but never criticize. If a woman’s words or behavior truly annoys you, you don’t argue or become rude. You just walk away. This was the accepted mores of the times and part of the education a young male in any “good family” received with the goal he ”behave like a gentleman.”
Deep conditioning you receive in your early childhood can be difficult to overcome. But over the years I’ve had some success in that I’ve stopped doing much of that. I’ve frankly become very tired of having the intent behind actions and words misinterpreted. And being arrogantly told that the reasons I may think I’m doing or saying something aren’t the “real reasons” behind why I’m doing it.
My mom didn’t raise any stupid children. When you find yourself in a game with constantly shifting situational rules, you’re in a no-win situation. And the best strategy with a game like that is not to play at all. So I’ve since taken Gandalf's advice to Pippin to heart when he said: “It’s better if you don’t speak at all Peregrin Took.” I no longer compliment. I no longer stand. I no longer hold doors. I no longer offer help unless I’m directly asked. And I’ve become moderately wary whenever I’m speaking to or in the company of a woman I don’t know very well.
And I don’t believe the world has become a better place now that everything has become so highly emotional and politicized and so many people are adopting a siege mentality when it comes to interpersonal relations.
But maybe that’s just me. And I’m just the bass player. So what do I know.
