Music and Gender and other musings

Well, first of all, I empathize with Dr V's mother-in-law, Karen. Drums were definitely not acceptable for a girl when I was growing up. It was shocking to see a girl playing any brass instrument so I mentally scratched my head when the principal horn player my junior year was a senior girl. And she was very good, too.

I was given a flute to play. My parents at one time considered the violin, but ended up settling on flute. I got no choice in the matter. They gave my sister a clarinet, another acceptable "girl" instrument. It really didn't surprise me when both of us switched to other instruments in junior/senior high school. I migrated to oboe which was played by both boys and girls but my sister went to string bass, a "boy" instrument.

I remember the controversy during the Women's Lib movement when pressure was put on the New York Philharmonic to allow women to be members of the orchestra. Professional music in this country was definitely the domain of the male.

A lot of things have changed during my lifetime and those of you who are younger have no idea what things used to be like. My first stint in college was not in music (OK, I did marching band my freshman year and they were so bad I never went back!) but in chemistry. Of our final graduating class of 15, 5 were women. I don't know for sure, but I don't think that any of the women went on to get PhDs. Many of the men went on to get PhDs, MDs or whatever. I got a Masters but life circumstances hindered my attempts to get a doctorate. My first job out of college, I got paid less than a man did in the same position and that practice pretty much followed my up until my last job in science. For the most part, my immediate bosses knew what I could do and appreciated me but I had some problems with those higher up who assumed because I was female, I couldn't do the job. I remember one job where I was the token female member of the group. I didn't stay there long.

When I went back to music, I went back to oboe and had to rent one (yep, it was that bad!) to play again because I never had one of my own. I found that the gender differences in performing groups had changed with women and men playing nearly every instrument. The hardest hurdle for women has been conducting the symphony orchestra. Even today, there are no female conductors of a major symphony orchestra, although a couple are getting close. Also, there are few female composers whose compositions are played frequently. Actually, there is an area where this is not the case - handbell music. I believe there are equal numbers of prominent female and male composers of handbell music.

In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of changes. My grandmother had to drop out of school in the 8th grade to take care of her father and siblings when her mother died - she was the oldest girl. My mother had a full-tuition scholarship to what is now Southern Illinois University in teaching, but her family was too poor to pay for living expenses so she had to settle for secretarial school. I've been to 4 different universities working in 4 different programs and 4 different degrees. Times have really changed.

I rejoice in the changes but I also see a lot of room for more improvement. There is still gender discrimination to some degree in nearly all areas. There are still old school ideas out there in the minds of some older people (not all). The old idea that "a woman is only going to get pregnant and have a baby and quit working and all of our investment in training her is going to waste" is slowly getting changed to see that a woman raising a child of either gender is in a position to shape the attitudes and future abilities of that child and the next generation.

My musings have wandered a bit afield of being only about music, but everything intertwines. A fine woven tapestry is not made from one color of yarn, but many different colors. And all of those colors combine to create a work of beauty. There are similarities (it's all yarn) and differences (colors and maybe textures) but everything is necessary and depends upon each other to function properly in the finished product. All of the experiences we have in life influence the way that we view life. The struggles that I have had will be different from the struggles that many younger women will have but the fact is that we all have to struggle with something. It is the grace and wisdom that we get when we overcome our difficulties that define us.