Gender balance at festivals

[Serial_Apologist]

On 1, Serial_Apologist closes his eyes when attending concerts.

My eyes are always open when I go in, though...

[jean]

Surely the important thing in a conversation is to speak and then listen, or vice versa, and thus inform oneslf and develop ones views?

Well yes, so long as at least some of the participants say something worth hearing.

Otherwise the old prejudices just get further entrenched.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's not just that, though, is it?

I meant specifically on this Thread.

[Lat-Literal]

No, they were Suffragettes eg Ethel Smyth!

There you are then. What has to be remembered is that the current celebrations are for middle class women over 30. Working class women and men did not get the vote at that time. While subsequent changes occurred, it was this which set the long term boundaries for upward mobility. There are more middle class women, middle class people of ethnic background and middle class gay people in Parliament than there are people of poor backgrounds. The only group which fares worse than the bottom 20% economically is people with disability. I will suggest something. It is that a lot of middle class women might not really want to be at the HCMF while women of poor backgrounds could be there in droves given the chance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I will suggest something. It is that a lot of middle class women might not really want to be at the HCMF while women of poor backgrounds could be there in droves given the chance.

Not entirely sure what you're on about here, Lats.

[MrGongGong]

Not entirely sure what you're on about here, Lats.

I will suggest something. It is that a lot of middle class women might not really want to be at the HCMF while women of poor backgrounds could be there in droves given the chance.

Would you like to hear my views on the Offside Rule ?

[teamsaint]

Would you like to hear my views on the Offside Rule ?

Semi serious point in response........your views on that are as probably valid as some BBC pundits biews, since some of them simply don’t know the rules, and on one occasion recently decided that a goal should stand, on the basis that the rule was wrong !!

[Lat-Literal]

Not entirely sure what you're on about here, Lats.

It's just back to early education opportunities vis a vis the curriculum and/or funding. No woman - or man - of a certain background is ever going to get to the HCMF in their 20s if there is an entire class of people who will never know about it from the day they are born until the day they die. I am using HCMF as a metaphor here for a lack of access to classical music. We don't know how many "ordinary" folk with no hope could become very enthusiastic. It could be masses if open-mindedness is an alternative to desperation. It's never been tested.

Well, maybe it has a bit.

Sistema and the like in other countries seem very popular!

[MrGongGong]

It's just back to early education opportunities vis a vis the curriculum and funding. No woman - or man - of a certain background is going to get to the HCMF in their 20s if there is a whole class of people who will never know about it from the day they are born until the day they die. I'm using HCMF as a metaphor here for a lack of access to classical music.

Some of us are doing things to try and change this
and having a more gender balanced programme is part of it
if young women (and I'm particularly thinking about people like the one who directed one of the pieces at the gig that Ferny was at last year!) never see anyone "like them" , then the idea that they could become the creators of the art is completly alien to them.

(not very well put, I know)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Griffith-Jones asked the jury whether(Jazz) was "a musical idiom that you would even wish your wife or your servants to participate in?"

With apologies to Lady Chatterley's bothers ...

[teamsaint]

Is there an issue with women undergrads being more risk averse ( and I dont mean that as a negative in this instance) in module choices, which tend to channel them away from composition, conducting, etc?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's just back to early education opportunities vis a vis the curriculum and/or funding. No woman - or man - of a certain background is ever going to get to the HCMF in their 20s if there is an entire class of people who will never know about it from the day they are born until the day they die. I am using HCMF as a metaphor here for a lack of access to classical music.

OK - but how is that expressed in your It is that a lot of middle class women might not really want to be at the HCMF while women of poor backgrounds could be there in droves given the chance? You seem to be suggesting that "a lot of middle class women" composers wrote to the 640-odd performing ensembles (ie those who didn't offer even a single work by any woman composer) to tell them not to offer any of their compositions for inclusion in their proposed programmes to the UK's foremost New Music Festival because they (these middle-class women) didn't really want to be featured there?

Can you see my problem in following your logic?

[Lat-Literal]

Some of us are doing things to try and change this
and having a more gender balanced programme is part of it
if young women (and I'm particularly thinking about people like the one who directed one of the pieces at the gig that Ferny was at last year!) never see anyone "like them" , then the idea that they could become the creators of the art is completly alien to them.

(not very well put, I know)

Is there an issue with women undergrads being more risk averse ( and I dont mean that as a negative in this instance) in module choices, which tend to channel them away from composition, conducting, etc?

OK - but how is that expressed in your It is that a lot of middle class women might not really want to be at the HCMF while women of poor backgrounds could be there in droves given the chance? You seem to be suggesting that "a lot of middle class women" composers wrote to the 640-odd performing ensembles (ie those who didn't offer even a single work by any woman composer) to tell them not to offer any of their compositions for inclusion in their proposed programmes to the UK's foremost New Music Festival because they (these middle-class women) didn't really want to be featured there?

Can you see my problem in following your logic?

Well, now we are getting somewhere and at just at the time I was about to sign off. There are a number of things here in which drilling down is required. First - what exactly is the problem? When it comes to MPs and all women shortlists, we are told that they are needed because (a) women are too easily dismissed by committees as being worthy of being put on ordinary shortlists and (b) not enough women are pushy enough to push themselves forward. Is it that either or both are relevant here or is it that there just aren't that many girls at 5, 11 and 15 involved in classical composition and/or performance? That needs to be known.

There is to my mind a link there with the question "are private/independent girls' schools coming up with the goods or is music there taking second or third stage?" Because you can guarantee that the state school system won't be delivering what with severe money constraints and organisation. A very strong argument for prioritising this area in the state sector along with the obvious ones is that the middle classes have had their opportunity and failed.

This thread is on the jazz forum. It is incredible that anyone of any gender ever makes it into jazz. There is nothing of it in any schooling and there never has been. So another thing you might like to do is study how jazz people become jazz people to see if there are additional lessons to be learned there. I still feel that trying to bump up numbers at the top end is all wrong. There should be so many people coming through that the numbers need to be got down.

A couple of further points.

As a trend, I have noticed that elderly women are more inclined than elderly men to be participatory and try out new things. To some extent, this may also be true of younger people. But young women are not only understandably focussed on being independently as secure as they can be before having families. In contrast, young men feel they can dilly-dally a bit. They are also being brought into a political dialogue about power roles and outdoing the men.

That incentivises aims towards the professions and boardrooms, reinforced by posh parents. It is also leading to increased participation in sport. With the best will in the world, it doesn't scream "take up the piano or the violin". So there may be a tailing off there, not that the bar was ever set high. As for those who have nothing they are told "stick with we women and you'll be a CEO". What they need to told is that it's a myth so risk doing what interests you.

So, yes, access to proper music in schools and parents being prepared to say "to be blunt it is concert pianist or supermarket till".........they will, as I said, be at the HCMF in droves.

[CGR]

I'm just here for the music !!!!

[Richard Barrett]

Is there an issue with women undergrads being more risk averse ( and I dont mean that as a negative in this instance) in module choices, which tend to channel them away from composition, conducting, etc?

In the Hague Conservatoire, composition is an entire department, separate for historical reasons from the Institute of Sonology where electronic music is the focus, and both departments offer entire undergraduate programmes in composition and sonology respectively, so that specialisation doesn't depend on module choices at all. I've never come across women being more "risk-averse". I think that in the UK these days very many students and prospective students are more risk averse than their predecessors, for obvious reasons to do with tuition fees, the shrinkage of music as a school subject and so on (discussed at length elsewhere and surely not for the last time). But this doesn't really apply on the continent where for example the annual tuition fees for undergraduates in the Netherlands are around 2000 euros for EU students, plus of course Germany has no tuition fees at all.