Klarinet Archive - Posting 000247.txt from 1999/02
From: DHmorgan@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] Women and orchestras
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 05:11:05 -0500
In a message dated 2/5/99 10:56:37 PM Pacific Standard Time, bhausman@-----.com
writes:
<< But a decision based solely on PERFORMANCE, even if, upon
further study, it turns out that the performance differences have an ethnic
(gender, etc.) basis, is still valid. >>
Perhaps I have not been clear enough. Good playing should be rewarded, bad
playing not rewarded. Bias is a completely different animal. Bias causes us
to evaluate good and bad innaccurately. This is basic psychology. I have
never said 'let crappy players into your orchestra because of their race or
gender'. I'm saying, as we all know, that an excellent female player's skills
will tend to be undervalued in a society that suffers from gender biases
(i.e., every society I'm aware of). Where the auditioner knows the gender of
the player, we all agree that this bias may factor in, to greater and lesser
degrees depending on the auditioner and how conscious they endeavor to be
about unfair bias, which all the good people on this list, I'm certain, do.
All I have tried to posit is that there is some evidence that this unfair bias
that we all would condemn in a face to face scenario MAY creep into double-
blind scenarios as well.
Pointing to FAIR biases does not address this argument. I am talking about
UNFAIR bias, not based on performance, but based soley on group memebership,
which MAY creep into double-blind auditions scenario through some aspect of
the playing not related to quality of performance.
Yes, this is a strange a wonderous possibility. Yes, on the face of it, it
would seem hard to believe. I spent years studying bias and based on the
information I was able to gleen, it's not hard for me to believe at all. In
fact, it is the very nature of bias to appear in scenarios where all
reasonable persons seem to agree it has been eradicated. That is the hard-
earned understanding of the subject that I have come to after years of
deliberate study.
Human communication and expression is an infinitely complex thing and, it
would seem, we are all transmitting much more about ourselves in everything we
do than we are aware of transmitting, and we receive much more than we are
aware of receiving. Arguments about how one consciously processes Darth
Vader's voice are not to the point. I am talking about possible evidence of
things of which we are not typically aware, but evidence which manifests
itself in observable reality and can be measured through properly constructed
research.
DOUBLE-BLIND AUDITIONS MIGHT NOT TOTALLY SCREEN OUT UNFAIR BIASES.
It's just something to keep in mind and look out for.
Don
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