Re: Kate vs. Tori

[brownfld@rcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Kenneth R Brownfield)]

heretic@zeus.tamu.edu (Evolve or Perish) writes:
>First off, I think you're taking this WAY too seriously. I'm
>merely making some observations about my personal experience.
>But, if I've confused you, I'll try to clarify.

     No, I think I'm just lathered up at the sexism/male chauvinism extreme. ;)

>In my reading (and I read a LOT of music-related material), I
>frequently encounter discussions of and references to "women
>singers" and "women songwriters." This sort of thing is 
>everywhere - reviews, articles, 'year's best' lists, etc.
>Example of the type of writing I'm talking about:
>"Sting is a brilliant songwriter from England."
>"Jane Siberry is a brilliant female songwriter from Canada."
>Now, I may be taking this the wrong way (and it wouldn't
>be the first time), but to me this sounds like women are
>put off into their own category. To me, it reads: "She's
>good - for a woman."

     There's two ways to look at your examples.  One is that it is assumed
that a songwriter is male, and thus you have to qualify when it's a female
songwriter you're talking about.  This interpretation is a mild form of
sexism.  It may not be a blatant males>females, but females in the past have
NOT been as prolific and popular (not recent past) as male performers, due
debatably to sexism (women can't vote, etc.)  If course, how much of this
choice of writing is due to a) sexism or b) habituation to the market?  Not
that there's really any excuse for either, but I think your interpretation
can't be simply labelled sexism.  Sexism is much more extreme taken by
itself.
     The second interpretation is that female songwriters (although I think
female vocalists are the focus of this interpretation) really are in a
different... genre?  Maybe the intent is not to segregate by quality, but
rather to separate genres, especially one genre that is almost entirely
dominated (because of vocal timbre, coincidence, you choose) by female
vocalists.  This interpretation is NOT sexist, for the reasons I long-
windedly explained before.  The genre I'm talking about is limited to the
gaffa genre.  Now, female country singers vs. male country singers?  I
dunno...
     This is all null and void if the journalist is a sexist/male
chauvinist, but this assumption is as revolting as the journalist's crime.

>The division of 'Best of Year' lists strikes me the
>same way. Do we NEED separate categories for male and
>female musicians? It's not like it was a contact sport.

     Hehehehe.  True.  But this extends to Best Actress and Best Actor.
Maybe the industry wants both a winning male and a winning female, so a
male can never win over a female?  I guess that would apply vice versa,
but I think political correctness has a one-way view of sexism.
     Avoidance of sexism leading to more sexism?  What a shock.
     I think this is what we're seeing.  Separation of the sexes to avoid
male/female competition.  An observation, not my point of view.  While
you (plural) may think that they should merge them, let females fight with
their equal male counterparts, I think a certain amount of sexism is
what caused the reaction and separation that we see today.
     I'm just now sure which is better.  I personally do not find the
separation to effect how I respect a female or male performer.  Maybe I'm
alone on this.  Spotlighting males and females separately probably gave
female performers more light than they had.  I think this is good, and
before we take that spotlight away, maybe we should think about a little
deeper.

>Yes, I know - this has little to do with Chris' original
>post. >shrug<

     No, I think it helps a lot.  Inasmuch as the subject can be helped.  ;)

>b r e t t 
>--------
>99% caffeine-free is 99% not my kind of thing.

--
                                                        Ken.
(217) 352-5679                                   brownfld@uiuc.edu