Klarinet Archive - Posting 000254.txt from 1999/02

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Women and orchestras
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:16:42 -0500

At 05:11 AM 2/6/99 EST, DHmorgan wrote:
>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.

>(snip)

>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.
>
Foreknowledge of the race, gender, etc. of the auditioner, and a judgement
colored by that knowledge, is biased. A judgement made solely on the
performance, whatever factors may have influenced that performance
unbeknownst to the judge, is NOT biased. It may be wrong, it may be
coincidental, it may even be influenced by factors within the performance
itself that somehow subtlely relate to race/gender, but it cannot be BIASED
unless the judge is somehow AWARE of the biasing information. He may be
unaware of its EFFECT upon him, but he still must know the information or
it can HAVE no effect. Now if you are saying that you know of judges who
can reliably detect a female's playing as being different from a male's, or
a black's from a white's, even behind a screen, then disregard my entire
argument. If they can tell, they CAN (but will not necessarily) make a
biased choice. But what do you want? Double blind AND DEAF auditions?

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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