{"id":2696,"date":"2011-01-26T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=2696"},"modified":"2011-01-26T09:00:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T09:00:20","slug":"women-men-and-music-the-xy-factor-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2011\/01\/26\/women-men-and-music-the-xy-factor-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Women, Men, and Music: the XY Factor, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part One<\/a> of this article identified a split in approaches to music between the intellectual and abstract and the personal and emotive. This is, of course, a false dichotomy, as is the concomitant view of the former approach as a male preserve and the latter a female one. It’s not like emotional engagement can’t be channelled into sharp and intelligent critique. And it\u2019s not like girls are incapable of dry and po-faced analysis (an album review\u00a0of mine\u00a0once received the amusingly disgruntled response “I bet you write for The Wire<\/strong>, you pretentious cunt”. I mean, chance would be a fine thing). Neither are male writers incapable of experiencing or articulating an emotional reaction. Gender has no intrinsic – as opposed to socially and culturally instilled – effect on how an individual engages with music. But the effects of cultural conditioning in creating this false dichotomy, and the degree to which \u2018male\u2019 ways of music writing are privileged – the existence of what Everett True describes as a dominant male hive mind<\/a> – goes some way towards explaining why female music writers are so scarce in the mainstream press.<\/p>\n

Music criticism as presently constructed has an undeniable tendency to discourage female participation. Sarah Barnes recalls<\/a> that when writing her first album review:<\/p>\n

I felt out of my depth, because my experiences of music reviewing told me that what I wrote had to be very technical, almost cold. All that technical knowledge seemed very male, and I think I had picked up on this as a pre-requisite in music criticism from reading copies of Kerrang<\/strong> … or listening to my boyfriend reeling off genres and sub-genres until my head starts spinning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More recently, Aoife Barry\u2019s study of gender imbalance in music magazines<\/a> compares reading The Wire to \u2018poring over academic texts in an attempt to formulate an answer for an essay due the next day; the feeling that out of the dry sentences I have to pull something tangible that makes sense to me\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Image by Flickr user happyfacesrock, shared under a Creative Commons license.<\/p><\/div>\n

The masculinist bent of mainstream music criticism has seen certain forms of engagement with music – attention to the emotional, the pleasure-seeking, the glittery, the silly, the frivolous, the undeadly serious – conceptualised as less deserving\u00a0concerns, and downgraded accordingly, along with musical genres – pop, glam, disco – which are seen as primarily catering to these concerns. So in order to be taken seriously, to do \u2018proper\u2019 criticism, one must elevate cerebral, scholarly Pure Music and implicitly disparage the dizzy, gushing immediacy of the personal Applied. Better a nitpicking Hornbyite geek than a groupie, regardless of the degree to which these categories can and do overlap in the same individual.<\/p>\n

However nebulous or subconscious this construction may be, it\u00a0ties in unhelpfully with rock-solid sexism and gender imbalance<\/a> within the media and the music industry to reinforce both the image and reality of music writing as a boys\u2019 club. As this excellent overview<\/a> explains:<\/p>\n

Periodicals like Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/a> and websites like Pitchfork Media<\/strong><\/a> – which have largely usurped print publications – tend to discuss the appearances of women more often than those of men, take their music less seriously, stereotype them and incorrectly attribute their successes to male coworkers. These double standards govern how women and men are viewed in general, rather than being specific to music criticism and reporting. Music journalism is a product of its culture\u2019s gender roles and consumer demands. When this culture combines with mainstream pop and rock publications\u2019 largely male staff and the sexism already prevalent in the music business they address, critics unwittingly carry on tropes that they have the power to ameliorate.
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So, as noted ice-skater V. I. Lenin once asked, what is to be done? First, let\u2019s acknowledge how many women are interested, engaged, and actively writing about music. Female music bloggers may still constitute a niche<\/a>, but as<\/a> all<\/a> these<\/a> sites<\/a> show<\/a>, we are out there. Blogs are necessary and useful – journalist and promoter Sara Sherr urges<\/a> female writers to \u2018pitch, pitch, pitch\u2026 If no one publishes you, start a blog\u2019<\/em> – but should be accompanied by a concerted attempt to address the mainstream\u2019s failure to acknowledge the validity of other voices, and to recognise the benefits of a personal and emotional contribution, in its construction of a credible approach to music.<\/p>\n

The more women who are seen to be writing about music, the more women will write about music, and the more the dynamics and conventions and hierarchies of writing about music (by both women and men) change because of more equal participation in it, the more we all benefit, the more the form progresses. \u2013 Frances Morgan<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Active and visible participation by women is a key part of promoting perspectives beyond the mainstream, an expansion which can only enrich the analysis, understanding and enjoyment of music. The road we take from here needs to pass through the land of a thousand dances as well as a thousand doctorates.<\/p>\n

For Rhian Jones’s own blog, hop over to Velvet Coalmine<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> <\/strong><\/a>
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