YOU brought it up! Why did it matter at all to you?

The question is, where is the female bass player who doesn’t sing etc? There are lots and lots of male bass players who don’t sing etc.

I thought the question was: “If you believe in field-specific causes for male dominance, what is it about rock music which keeps women out?”

Women are not being kept out of rock music. I keep giving you example after example of this along with resources.

How does singing while playing, or fucking while on the road strengthen or weaken your (proven false) premise that rock music is keeping women out?

One cannot be blamed for thinking that you are applying conditions to women that you are not applying to men to exclude them or making some statement about their inclusion in the defined term or you are not. You say you are not, and I believe you. So I am wondering what you think your questions have to do with your false premise.

You CAN say that rock music is a traditionally male dominated field and ask why it has been so. You cannot make the statement that women are being kept out until you show me data that women have been turned away by A&R simply because they are women. I will assume that you cannot show this since your only qualifications regarding rock music is that you have heard rock music and not that you have worked in the industry or have access to the number of demos that A&R people receive at the hundreds of record labels producing rock music right now. Is this a fair assumption?

Now you must show the number of newly signed artists of each gender, year by year, and see whether the number of women musicians seeking record contracts and getting them is lesser than, equal to, or greater than the number of male artists seeking/receiving record contracts.

You’re also going to have to try to come up with a meaningful definition of rock musician. Are we including R&B, Soul, Punk Rock, etc?

Would you like to rephrase your original statement to: We have not yet reached gender parity in rock music. What is it about rock music that has kept us from parity in this field? Now show me your data for the last decade, five years, one year ago. I am interested in knowing whether that statement is in fact, true. Perhaps there are more new female musicians in rock signed on to labels this year. Perhaps that will trend for the next ten. IDK.

So I ask again. What do your questions have to do with whether it is a male-dominated field, and whether women are currently being kept out of it? How do your questions support your statement?

They don’t. Show me a male rock musician who has never fucked a groupie, done an illegal drug, and/or worn pants on stage. Can you think of one? What’s the point?

Why would who you fuck have to do with whether or not you are actually playing a guitar? Why would the sex of your bandmates nullify your ability to drum? Why would singing (singers are musicians as well, and Juliard would like a word with you if you don’t think so) while playing erase the fact that you are playing a piano at the same time?

Let me ask you why this matters, because almost all female rock musicians fall into these categories. The question is, where is the female bass player who doesn’t sing etc? There are lots and lots of male bass players who don’t sing etc.

I am not re-defining a term to suit my taste. I am asking a question about a (large) subset of rock musicians.

Then you cannot make the claim that there is a dearth of female rock musicians, and therefore your question, “If you believe in field-specific causes for male dominance, what is it about rock music which keeps women out?” is moot, given the number of female rock musicians that do in fact exist.

How can I answer a question that is false in its nature?

Saying that you never claimed that they were not musicians is disingenuous since this is how you framed your question: “In particular, I think rock music illustrates my point. Apart from singers, those with romantic involvement with boy(s) in the band and members of all-girl groups, can you think of even one reasonably well known female rock musician?”

This is how you are defining female rock musician. They must meet your criteria. Or else you cannot make the claim that there are few female musicians.

“My point is that the corresponding female musician is rare, almost to the point of non-existence, at least for reasonably well known bands.”

No. Your point was that there was a dearth of female rock musicians: “what is it about rock music which keeps women out?”

There isn’t a lack of female rock musicians. In order to claim that rock music is keeping women out, there would have to be evidence that women are being kept out. But rock music is simply loaded with female musicians. Your ignorance of their existence does not mean they don’t exist. So you’re simply going to have to choose some other field for your analogy.

But this is what you’ve done. You ask the question: “Why are there so few women rock musicians?”

This illustrates something I mentioned, namely the assumption that gender imbalance necessarily implies discrimination.

Why would who you fuck have to do with whether or not you are actually playing a guitar? Why would the sex of your bandmates nullify your ability to drum? Why would singing (singers are musicians as well, and Juliard would like a word with you if you don’t think so) while playing erase the fact that you are playing a piano at the same time?

That’s the point. That’s the question I’m asking. I made an observation and you turned it into some kind of judgement.

I also never claimed that people who don’t meet my criteria are “not musicians”.

Rather than attacking my question, answer it, and back up your answer with evidence.

But this is what you’ve done. You ask the question: “Why are there so few women rock musicians?”

But that’s complete nonsense given the oceans of women rock musicians. In order for you to make that assertion, you had to redefine the word musician in the most ridiculous terms. Why would who you fuck have to do with whether or not you are actually playing a guitar? Why would the sex of your bandmates nullify your ability to drum? Why would singing (singers are musicians as well, and Juliard would like a word with you if you don’t think so) while playing erase the fact that you are playing a piano at the same time?

And when it’s pointed out, you put Go Gos in the same category as NSYNC because someone marketed them as an “all-girl band.” Which has nothing to do with the fact that they’re still musicians.

And as I’ve pointed out already, if we apply your rules universally, Jimi Hendrix is no longer a musician for the same reason Patti Smith isn’t.

Leaving aside the condition that you’re the arbiter of what is popular and not say, Billboard, iTunes, or who has played the main stage at Lollapalooza, Tibetan Freedom, or any other large music festival in the last two decades…or even the cover of Rolling Stone: They must have made a terrible mistake with that cover story

The only way you can make your claim is by twisting a definition into something no sane person would ever agree with.

The odd part? You probably could have made a similar claim by replacing “rock” with “The last decade of rap.” And even Chuck D would agree with you, I bet.

The part that disturbs me is that you can’t even see that you’ve redefined what it means to be a musician, but only for women. Men do not have to play by those rules.

It’s disturbing because I now have to stop and wonder if the committees who decide who will be invited to give talks also redefine what it means to be a philosopher, or (or any other profession) and simply cannot see that they have done so.

The only point you proved with your women musicians in rock analogy is that it is surprisingly easy to not only apply different, arbitrary rules to women that do not apply to men, but also to double-down and twist in order to justify your discrimination.

You have to explain why it matters that one sleeps with a member of their band, and whether that also means that the male band member is also no longer considered a musician (if it’s a heterosexual pairing). You simply must explain why that negates a person’s musicianhood for females but not for males.

When Kate Shellenbach was the drummer for the Beastie Boys she was a musician. We can safely assume she didn’t sleep with Yauch, since she’s gay. But when she joined Luscious Jackson (all female) she ceased being a drummer?

There is no “special explanation” only your “special definition.”

Women frequently joined together in all-female bands to avoid discrimination by men who said they couldn’t be considered musicians because they were women, despite women picking up guitars and playing them. So they played together. And sold assloads of albums. And now we get to have Meg White (White Stripes), Cindy Blackman (Lenny Kravitz), Nicole Fiorentino (Smashing Pumpkins), and of course the aforementioned Phair, Gordon, Jett, etc who front all male and mostly male bands.

So you do not get Clapton because he’s a singer, and I don’t get Bonnie Raitt’s slide guitar.

Captain Logic is not at the helm of your tugboat. Your analogy is a stinker. Concede.

And from now on, you don’t get to decide who gets the title “musician.” Ever.

The “broader tails” explanation has a lot going for it. If the distribution of abilities is broader among men than women (there is some evidence to suggest this; this says nothing about whether the average is the same, but let’s assume that it is since there is no real evidence that it is not), then there will be more men in areas where one is looking at the tails of the distribution. We usually look at the positive tails, thus find more male chess players, chefs, composers etc. (especially if we look at the most successful ones), but (and this is often neglected) we also find more mentally retarded men, more criminal men, more socially maladjusted men. One gets a lot of sympathy by claiming that underrepresentation is due to discrimination if one wants to be represented, but the fact is that there are many areas of gender imbalance where it is really far-fetched to claim discrimination is the cause. The broader-tails explanation (supported by such luminaries as Steven Pinker (incidentally a man who works in a field dominated by women)) can explain many gender imbalances rather easily and seems more plausible than a special explanation for each and every field or blanket discrimination despite any evidence.

Phillip Helbig, learn about rock and roll or go home!

And the answer is: Presumably for the same reason that, 50 years ago, essentially no lawyers were women (today, half of law students and 20 percent of law-firm partners are). Or for the same reason that 50 years ago, fewer than 1 percent of doctors were women (today, half of medical students and 30 percent of practicing physicians are). Or for the same reason that, 50 years ago, no major country had ever had a woman elected as the head of its government (today most countries outside of Africa and the Middle East have). Or for the same reason that 50 years ago only 3 percent of doctorates in the physical sciences were granted to women. Today, 30 percent are.

Both socialization and institutional obstacles have kept women out of many fields historically. As the culture has changed, we’ve moved toward parity. Fifty years ago, people looked at the absence of female doctors, lawyers, presidents & prime ministers, and scientists, and said that it must be due to some inherent difference between men and women. They were wrong. And if you are saying that the underrepresentation of women on philosophy panels, or in rock bands, is due to some inherent difference between men and women, you are just as wrong. And with much less excuse.

I didn’t say that; that is your (rather bizarre) interpretation of what I said. Pick a male rock musician at random. Chances are he is not a singer (since most aren’t), not romantically involved with someone else in the band (most aren’t) and not part of a “boy band” (most bands aren’t marketed as such). My point is that the corresponding female musician is rare, almost to the point of non-existence, at least for reasonably well known bands. This is in contrast to the number of female musicians in, say, symphony orchestras or chamber-music groups. The question is why. (Just to be clear, read above where I wrote that there is nothing wrong with being a singer etc, it’s just that I’m asking a specific question for which there is not an obvious answer.)

As to your second paragraph, I obviously didn’t claim that such examples are not examples of musicians, nor did I claim that they don’t exist. My claim is that most male rock musicians don’t fall into these categories, whereas most female rock musicians do. The question is why.

As to “boy bands”, there is a difference between a band marketed as such (say, Take That, or NKOTB, or any of the others which spring up every few years) and a band which just happens to be all male, just like there is a difference between a conference where all the attendees happen to be male (because no women registered) and one which excluded them from attendance. Ditto for “girl bands”. The Go-Gos and The Bangles were definitely marketed as such. However, we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes and whether the band decided to be a single-sex group. So, let’s leave that out and ask where the non-singing female rock musicians are who aren’t involved romantically with anyone in the band. It turns out that almost all are in all-female groups. This might very well be do to the fact that male rock musicians might want to avoid women (at least women in the band). That is essentially the question I’m asking. I don’t have any evidence to back this up, though. Sometimes, when someone leaves there is an open audition, e.g. as documented in the film Some Kind of Monster, where Metallica audition for a bass player. (Robert Trujillo got the job and was blown away by the million-dollar advance Lars Ulrich offered him.) Not all the applicants are shown in the film. Did any women apply? I don’t know.

Certainly among the rock musicians I know, no-one would object to having women in the band, but I’ve only seen that happen among less famous bands.

I’m just asking a question; you seem to be interpreting it as some sort of statement.

The Beatles? A boy band. And they were all singers. The Rolling Stones? A boy band. Robert Plant? Not a musician.

Fleetwood Mac? They all did each other. Jimi Hendrix? A singer. Kurt Cobain? Singer. Dave Grohl? Singer. I did come up wit Mitch Mitchell, who did not sing backup in the Jimi Hendrix Experience…but they were an all boy band.

Keith Richards cannot count as a musician because he’s in an all-boy band.

Your rules are arbitrary, and since you seem to be the one who can decide whether or not a band or musician in well-known (and the criteria of being well-known is that you know who they are, which is absurd given that you have no idea who Liz Phair is).

And when your rules are applied equally: No boy bands, no mixed gender bands in which the male is a singer or has slept with another member of the band, etc) it doesn’t work for you, either.

If you’ve no idea who Sonic Youth is, or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or Liz Phair, I would submit that you haven’t read an issue of Rolling Stone or Spin in the last 20 years. This would make you not very familiar with rock and roll.

So you’ve purposely set up requirements that discount Patti Smith’s guitar. These same requirements also knock Hendrix out. And Cobain. Go ahead. Give it a whirl. Give me your well-known male musician who is not a singer, in all boy band, or has slept with another member of the band.

David Bowie? Not a rock musician. Springsteen? Doesn’t pass your test. In fact, the only thing keeping Clarence and Little Steven on the musician list is that Patty Scialfa in in the E Street band, making them NOT an all-boy band. Yay for Patti. Is she not well-known? She can’t count as a musician, though, since Bruce.

Give me your list of well-known male musicians who are not in all boy bands, aren’t singers, and don’t sleep with any of the members of the bands they’re in. You cannot count Billy Joel, Rage Against the Machine, or Soundgarden.

And then apply weirdly arbitrary rules to philosophers as well, since that’s your analogy.

How about we don’t count philosophers who are primarily professors and use apple computers?

If your point is that sometimes men bend backward to create weirdly arbitrary rules in order to discount the accomplishments of women (you can’t count as a musician if you sing = you count count as a philosopher if you type your papers in Times New Roman?) then you’ve made an excellent point, and I agree.

Proves my point, actually. You obviously missed the requirement that they shouldn’t be singers, came up with a list of female rock musicians, and essentially all are singers.

At least the following are singers:

Grace Slick
Tina Turner
Chrissy Hynde
PJ Harvey
Debbie Harry
Courtney Love
Joan Jett
Siouxsie Sioux
Alannis Morrisette
Sheryl Crowe
Janis Joplin
Pat Benetar
Patti Smith

Many (most?) of the names I didn’t recognise are probably singers as well. Fill us in please. Is even one of them not (primarily) a singer? There is nothing wrong with being a singer, or being romantically involved with someone else in the band, or being part of an all-girl band. However, most male rock musicians are not singers, are not romantically involved with someone in the band and are not marketed as part of a boy band.

Ann Wilson is a singer. Nancy Wilson is (primarily) not a singer. Indeed, she is the special case I was thinking of (special case because her sister is in the same band). Again, there is nothing wrong with such special cases, but I want to avoid examples of reasonably well known rock musicians who are special cases in the sense that they have some property (the three I mentioned) which most male rock musicians don’t.

The Go Gos are a girl band.

Although I subscribe to Mojo and have been to maybe 1000 rock concerts in my life, I recognise none of the following names:

Liz Phair
Karen O
Neko Case
Kathleen Hanna (should we do all of riot grrl and punk rock?)
Kim Gordon
Michelle Branch

and thus submit that they are not reasonably well known. How many of them are singers?

Can’t you just think of a woman who plays bass in a rock group and isn’t the main singer? It’s enough if the group is well known and the individual members aren’t. (Don’t say “Tina Weymouth”.)

I haven’t even opened my iPod, yet. Your ignorance of rock musicians (HOLY GOD PATTI SMITH???) and apparently country and jazz is astounding. Nina Simone? Really?

Errm, Patti Smith and Nina Simone are both singers.

Do you own a radio? Seriously, send me your addie and I’ll send you about 40 mix CDs of all the shit you’ve missed. It’s really good. Motown? You know Motown is rock and roll, right?

Name me one female Motown musician who is not a singer.

Yes, people familiar with the field, like myself, can find examples of female rock musicians, Carol Kaye, for example, who aren’t a “special case”, but, despite having been on a huge number of recordings, Carol Kaye is not well known (probably because she is primarily a session musician).

Read my criteria again. Maybe they are arbitrary, but since most male rock musicians fulfill my constraints, it’s a fair point of comparison.

This begs the question, though: why are they discouraged? Yes, this was certainly a problem in the past, with Planck telling Meitner that there were no women’s toilets in the physics building or whatever. However, how much opposition does a female chess player face today?

“The other problem is the creation of a family.”

Probably true in many cases. But why are women common in symphony orchestras playing Beethoven, say, but not in jazz bands? And women without family, or whose husbands bear the lion’s share of the work, aren’t as visible as they should be were this the main explanation.

“Behind every successful man stands a successful woman”, says the old proverb, but how many men are willing to stand behind their genius ladies?!”

Some pundit remarked that beneath every successful man lies a woman. (Sorry, couldn’t resist; I’ll get me coat!)

Liz Phair
Ann and Nancy Wilson
Grace Slick
Tina Turner
Chrissy Hynde
PJ Harvey
Karen O
Debbie Harry
Courtney Love
Neko Case
The Go Gos
Joan Jett
Siouxsie Sioux
Alannis Morrisette
Kathleen Hanna (should we do all of riot grrl and punk rock?)
Sheryl Crowe
Janis Joplin
Kim Gordon
Pat Benetar
Michelle Branch
Patti Smith

I haven’t even opened my iPod, yet. Your ignorance of rock musicians (HOLY GOD PATTI SMITH???) and apparently country and jazz is astounding. Nina Simone? Really?

Do you own a radio? Seriously, send me your addie and I’ll send you about 40 mix CDs of all the shit you’ve missed. It’s really good. Motown? You know Motown is rock and roll, right?

P.S. Sorry for my grammatical errors, English is not my native language.