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women and music

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JimmyJazz:
Girl musicians are awesome! Unfortunately, I know many people with an unfairly harsh attitude to female artists and who usually pass it off as a gimmick or who're only interested in their looks. I feel fucking awful that I can't talk about female musicians around some of my friends and that my protests to their prejudices are often met with jest. Yet I try and do what I can by scolding these people and promoting local girls making music as art just as equal to, if not greater than most music being put out by male acts these days.

KvP:
There's a lot of... I can't remember the name of it presently, I think it may be "tracking", but it's a term referring to the phenomenon of pushing people into areas of activity people are generally comfortable with (ex. men and women go into medicine, women become nurses and men become doctors, etc.) There's a fair bit of that in musical performance. Women play non-rock instruments usually as a supplement to a band - violin, cello, piano, synths, tambourine. Delicate instruments, pretty instruments, Not Serious instruments. Recently girl-group harmonizing is back in style so you'll see female vocalists playing the lead in that style. Back-up singing for a dude is fine too. As long as they stay within those strictures, you'll likely hear fewer complaints about their ability (though you'll probably hear about how the music itself is faggy). Within the traditional rock band, the cliche is the hot girl bassist, and I don't know where that started (Smashing Pumpkins?), but outside of that role it seems like women in rock are viewed as outliers notable for the fact that they are women playing rock music. That's not even touching pop music, which is widely hated even before gender gets into it.

I remember people really hating The Donnas when in terms of quality or authenticity they were at least on par with most other Garage Revivalist bands. Riot Grrl kind of folded in on itself from the pressure. Has there been a widely notable rock (mainstream or indie) woman who was not a sex symbol? Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Kathleen Hanna (people did and do fawn over her), Zooey Deschanel. I'd say Jarboe, but I think she sought to intentionally alienate people. Kim Deal?  Kim Gordon? Other Kims?

KharBevNor:
I was thinking when I read this thread last night that compared to some areas/genres post-industrial music is fairly well integrated, (though still the majority of people are men); lots of fairly even mixed-gender bands, female artists and various rotating female musicians. I wonder if that's got anything to do with the fact almost no one plays 'traditional rock instruments'? Actually, traditional folk music is even more mixed-gender, at least in the UK, and has been almost since the beginning of the folk revival, and definitely since the seventies. Maybe a component of the 'problem' (though in this aspect it's rather difficult to look at it as a problem) is that many women who engage in music engage in less commercially viable or widely visible subgenres.

The 'girls instruments' and 'mens instruments' thing does become rather tricky outside of rock music, as does the 'girls are only allowed to do acoustic' thing. We have to be careful not to end up in the absurdity of arguing that women are being marginalised or oppressed if they choose to play instruments or produce music that is of genuine interest to them and they genuinely enjoy playing. Rock is not the only fruit after all.

This brings up an interesting question. I know plenty of ladies who are in to rock music/heavy metal/death metal etc., but I would say, generally, that there is more of a tendency for the fans of these genres to be male (thought not to the same degree that men are over-represented in bands, I would say). Now we can ask to what degree either:

a) Women are less interested in these things because of the lack of female voices (notes?)
b) Women are less interested in these things because they are inherently masculine in some way
c) Women are less interested in these things because society projects the image that they are inherently masculine in some way
d) Women are less interested in these things because they feel unwelcome or are actively excluded
e) Some or all of the above

It's particularly interesting to consider what kind of relationship gender composition of fanship has to gender composition of bands, and to ask if things are getting any better? Using the example of the thing I know best, I would say things are slowly getting better, but far too slowly (as with anything). Thirty years ago women participating in heavy metal bands as anything except maybe backing vocalists would have been pretty inconcievable. Twenty years ago it was highly unusual. Ten years ago it was remarkable. It continues to become less so; for example, I have noticed in passing that in none of the press I have seen for The Lamp of Thoth (one of my favourite bands of the now) has it been even noted that they have a femalde drummer, where once upon a (very recent) time it would probably have been treated as a novelty. I remember seeing people bring up the fact that OMG Bolt Thrower have a female bassist! all the time.

Nodaisho:
I didn't really like The Donnas because it felt like they were basically sold on the premise of it being an all-girl band. And I'm supposed to find it sexy just for that and buy lots of records.

What about Liz Buckingham? I don't think she generally gets sexualized (although in a good portion of the pictures I've seen, she looks just as much in need of a shower as the other members of the band, not sure if that is cause or effect). I'm also curious, is anyone here either old enough to remember or know their history well enough to know how Heart was thought of way back when? I know there was that thing with their publicist saying that the sisters were lovers, but aside from that I have no idea.

edit: Oh, what about Thorr's Hammer? I was something like 4 when that album came out, so I have no idea how much  the "female growler" thing was played up then. I think the EP was pretty solid for a basement-recorded doom album (doom really needs a more full low-end than that), but the band seems to have a lot more following than I would expect just on that merit.

leftandleaving:
Marnie Stern

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