Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 1999/02

From: Lisa Canjura-Clayton <lisakc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Women and orchestras
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 21:51:44 -0500

At 07:53 PM 02.01.99 EST, you wrote:

>I'm 50 and grew up all too familiar with sexism in music, so those goals
sound
>good to me. As a kid, I only needed one finger to count the women conductors
>with serious international reputations: Nadia Boulanger, whom Harold C.
>Schonberg dismissed in one sentence in _The Great Conductors_ (1966),
although
>at least he didn't say, as several other music critics did, that she only
slid
>onto the podium on the coattails of the famous men in her family's musical
>dynasty. Grade school: "Girls don't play the drums. Girls don't play the
>trumpet." Junior high: "Girls don't play baritone sax. No, they don't play
>bass clarinet, either. Here's a nice alto clarinet." I got so sick of being
>a gooood little girl. I wanted to cut loose and MAKE SOME NOISE!
<snipped for space reasons>

As someone who really respects the Women's Philharmonic and what they're
trying to do, I'd like to respond to some of your post. The point is *not*
to create an environment that separates men and women-- the point is to
GIVE women an environment they feel comfortable in, so they can train, they
can polish their crafts, they can gain some confidence to go out and try
for jobs in what is definitely a male-oriented industry. Your arguments
assume that women are going to land in this ghetto and stay there.
Instead, a good many musicians from the Women's Phil now try out for jobs
in other orchestras. Many female composers who wrote works for this
orchestra are now played by other orchestras. Many female conductors have
been trained by this orchestras and now hold positions with other
orchestras. Not everybody has the inclination or the strength to
continually challenge the sexism inherent in the music world straight out
of college.

I've met a number of women in my community band who are extremely talented,
well-educated musicians who just gave up trying to get a professional job.
However, they also wanted to have a life and not spend 100% of their time
and energy breaking down the barriers. All their male colleagues had jobs,
families, lives--yet they had to work extremely hard to get 1/3 of what
their male colleagues had obtained. Their experiences reminded me of that
this saying: "Women have to work twice as hard to be considered half as
good as a man."

>Yet despite that background, I think that the idea of the Women's
>Philharmonic, though well- intentioned, is wrong-headed. Go through
>Antonucci's article and substitute religious or racial words for gender words
>and my first reason will become squirm-producingly obvious. See what such
>changes would do to the first sentence: "They dream of creating memorable
>music, launching Christian virtuosos to stardom and, with a little luck,
>knocking some of the smugness out of their Jewish-dominated industry."

Bad comparison. There aren't centuries of constant, blatant discrimination
directed at Christian musicians.

>Is that offensive enough? Hey, while we're at it, if we call an orchestra
the
>"Black Philharmonic," maybe that would mean we don't have to let African
>Americans into the New York Philharmonic any more.

There are still plenty of predominately African-American orchestras even
today, and even more before desegregation. And there is a stereotype that
African-American musicians are predominately jazz or pop musicians. The
big difference here is that African-American boys weren't pushed away from
instruments other than pianos or harps.

>My second reason is that all-female orchestras (formerly known as "all-girl
>orchestras") are nothing new and that such orchestras have a long and
>disreputable tradition of further marginalizing female musicians by turning
>them into a freak show or a peep show. See them in any number of movies from
>the 1930s and 1940s, coyly cross-dressed in boiled shirts and tails, or all
>decked out in ball gowns, or looking extra-perky in shorts and midriff-baring
>satin halters. Ooooh, what good musicians they were, for girls.

<snipped for length>

>Changing to more dignified apparel is less of an improvement than it
>superficially seems, because the wardrobe only masks the real problem. How
>nice that the women in the "Women's Philharmonic" actually know how to play
>music; yet, according to this article, they're still pitching their gender
>appeal, not just to men now that times have changed, but to lesbians, too.
>Excuse me: This is progress? The emphasis here, once again, is not on
music-
>making as such, but on the sex of the musicians.

These early orchestras were marketed for sex appeal and sex appeal only.
Didn't matter how well they played or even *if* they played. Even then,
there were some fine all-women dance bands that didn't buy into the
cutesy-ness, in particular, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. And
several of their musicians DID make it into all-male bands or played in
male combos because of the experience-- Saxophonist Vi Redd, trumpeter Tiny
Davis and trombonist Melba Liston are probably the three most famous
examples.

Another thing you're confusing is *sex* versus *gender*. I don't go to the
Women's Phil as a lesbian looking for some sort of sexual thrill. I go as
a lesbian who supports women's instutitions. I support them because they
GIVE women valuable experience. Women started women-oriented bookstores
and learned how to run businesses. Women started growing their own
vegetables and opened women-oriented restaurants and learned how to become
chefs (another male-dominated industry that is changing faster than the
classical music industry). Women started running women-oriented clubs and
hired women entertainers (of all sexual orientations) like Ellen DeGeneris,
Bonnie Raitt, Marga Gomez and Margaret Cho, and gave them valuable stage
experience.

In ALL cases these women used the experience as platforms to grow. The
Women's Philharmonic does the *exact* same thing.

>The idea of putting women musicians in a women's orchestra is
fundamentally >demeaning, in the same catagory with "separate but equal"
and the Colored >Restroom. What if a male philanthropic group had
announced, "We're so generous >that we'll give you
>ladies your very own orchestra." We would have suspected a subtext: "And
>don't even think about barging into OUR orchestra. And be grateful, or we'll
>take yours away. And, by the way, since you women have your very own Women's
>Philharmonic, then what do you think you're doing, making nuisances of
>yourselves by trying to compete for a real man's job that you're not good
>enough to do?" If a group of men had proposed an all-female orchestra, I'll
>bet we'd raise hell.

There's a HUGE difference between handing somebody something and having
them do it themselves. No man handed these women a bunch of money-- they
built the foundations themselves. They fundraised themselves, they worked
to establish a place where they can call their own shots. A LOT of
minority and disadvantaged groups have to do this in order to overcome
discrimination problems. Again, it's a function of creating a space that
you can be comfortable in, where you can learn, become experienced and
prepare yourself to go to the next level.

>So why is it better for women to voluntarily separate ourselves from male
>musicians and thus accomplish exactly the same thing? Sounds to me a whole
>lot like the child ordered, "Go to your room!" who whimpers tearfully but
>defiantly over her shoulder, "I'll do it because I want to and not because
you
>tell me to!" The women who join the Women's Philharmonic take themselves out
>of the marketplace, out of open competition. I don't see this as
empowerment.
>I think these women are marching into the ghetto and slamming the gate closed
>on themselves, and only deluding themselves that they can come back out any
>time they please. A woman's place is in the Vienna Philharmonic, not the
>Women's Philharmonic.

A woman's place is in *both*. A woman who spends five years learning how
to be a great musician in the Women's Philharmonic has a MUCH better chance
of getting into a major orchestra than a woman straight out of school. And
a woman straight out of school will probably consider the Women's
Philharmonic a great way to get their foot in the door.

Forced segregation is inexcusable. But there is always a need for people
who face discrimination to come together and find ways to fight this
discrimination. That is why all-Black colleges were created. That is why
there are lesbian/gay churches and synagogues. And that is why there is
the Women's Philharmonic.

Lisa Clayton
lisakc@-----.com

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