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matras
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:01 am
Posts: 1222
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:34 am 
 

Why is it, Civil, that the reason for that is biological rather than social?

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kapala
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:56 pm
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Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:58 am 
 

Civil wrote:
Yes Kapala, I am aware feminism doesn't - at least not always - attempt to say that men and women are absolutely equal. But that they should be treated equally.

Drone and Kapala:

As I have been saying, I think it's worth to look at the evidence to reach conclusions. Generally speaking it's much, much more likely for men to create pioneering art than it is for women, all through all the years of human history and all cultures of the world. This is probably a biological condition, otherwise, women would have also consistently produced, in the case of the subject discussed, artwork that moved things forward.

It hasn't consistently happened.

Of course there are incredible female artists in all areas of human knowledge. Many of them pioneers and groundbreakers. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf in literature, for example. It just happens that the vast majority of the ones who produce meaningful artwork - in any field - painting, literature, film directing, music, and so on, are male.

This is a consistent pattern which can be seen all through different cultures in human history, in different times.

That, with our knowledge of the differences between males and females, indicates that males are generally superior when producing art.

This is what I have been saying. Based on empirical evidence, reality, which is around us and how men and women have behaved and produced historically. Please read PJ Harvey and Simon Reynolds above to get their take on it. I don't see what's so hard to understand and why does it have to cause so much bitterness.

Like I said before, the "victims" paradigm pointed out earlier is not an argument I consider strong enough to explain the thousands of years of male superiority in the arts, for instance.

If women WERE to produce more groundbreaking art than they already did, we would HAVE it, for sure. There's no ghost of history stopping them ALL the time in ALL the places, as much as cultural marxism would like us to believe.

You are, of course, welcome to completely disagree with me and to think mankind is moving towards an utopia in which women will produce as important art as men have produced, in the same quantity, and with the same quality, if not more, and that all we had in terms of male art-production being consistently superior to women both in quality and quantity is only due to social constrictions of all societies of all the times of all places in the world through human development.

I just personally don't agree with that view, and I think that it denies evidence, and is incredibly naive.

Maybe, because of that, you will think I am prejudiced, sexist, and so on. I disagree. I am not. Like I said, I believe women are different, not to be treated worse than men, but you are entitled to have your views.


I think you're sexist and extremely dense, actually. Sexists, such as yourself, often don't acknowledge that they are, just an FYI.

Can you clarify why this is "biological" and not "social". You do realise there are quite a few more social factors at play here, that have precious "empirical evidence", right? You do realise where the balance of power has, and still is, fallen, right? You do realise that in many, even Western, nations, women and men still don't have access to the same opportunities, right? Or are you that deluded.

You know, if you're driving along, minding your business, and notice that everyone else driving the same direction you are, are driving on the opposite side of the road, you might want to stop and consider why that is. And it doesn't have anything to do with "cultural marxism". (what is this? the 1960s? Do people aside from Anders Breivik still use that term?)
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BaloroftheEvilEye
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:29 am 
 

While I don't doubt the role biology plays over society, and like Civil, I'm not the biggest fan of Cultural Marxism... it should be pointed out that there are incredible female artists. Jenny Saville, for example, has produced work that is practically untouchable in my eyes, and art seems to attract more and more women. Metal, not so much. It's just typically a very angry, aggressive style of music and most women (and men too) just don't enjoy it. They key word here is, of course most.

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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:35 am 
 

I don't even understand why this conversation is still going on. The short answer for why the female gender hasn't produced as many great artists as the male gender (just in terms of numbers) is because for thousands of years, the roles women were brought up to play in society were that of wife, mother, and homemaker. They were denied the same education as men, strongly encouraged to take up different pursuits than men, and while in higher society they were expected to be educated, throughout much of history they were actively discouraged from becoming too educated. Their "job" before getting married was basically looking for a husband, and their "job" after that was taking care of kids, cooking, cleaning, generally running the household, and minding the servants in more affluent households, etc. so their husbands could focus on their careers. This is a much, MUCH clearer cause than Civil's vague guesses at neurobiology based only on correlation.

Hell, it's even in effect today, and is part of the reason we see so few women in metal: from a young age, boys see women fawning over male rock stars, are told that being able to play a guitar will get you laid, will make you look cool, etc. etc. The guitar is just seen as a predominantly male pursuit from an early age, and while there's no particular barrier to women picking up a guitar these days, there's certainly much much less encouragement, and far fewer role models of their gender for them to follow. Then there's the unavoidable sexism they have to deal with upon entering a predominantly male environment that probably turns many of them off. With far fewer women even starting to play a guitar (or bass, or drums) it's no surprise that most metal musicians are men. That probably also explains why there are a disproportionate number of female singers in metal as opposed to instrumentalists: vocal training is definitely encouraged among women, and if they happen to like metal it's not hard to just hop over from whatever style they've been trained for.

The main thing we should do to change this is 1) be more welcoming and encouraging to women in the metal scene, 2) strongly discourage idiotic sexism in the metal scene, both physical and verbal (like that espoused by our friend Civil here), and 3) properly celebrate the women who have already made significant contributions to the metal scene. Having more women around will benefit everyone, and while it won't happen overnight, it's a change that will happen organically as long as we all make a few easy changes to our behavior.
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matras
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:42 am 
 

Thank you failsafeman for putting that into words (I'm too dumbstruck at some other board members' denseness to do more than splutter).

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BastardHead
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:21 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
if you read something you do not want to accept about a group/gender/culture/etc you belong to it is/can be understandable you will try to deny it, to yourself and others, instead of trying to accept it/understand it.


Would just like to highlight the irony once again. This guy could fuel the Planet Express Ship based entirely on how dense he is.
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Ball Cupper
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:34 pm 
 

Civil actually used the phrase "cultural Marxism" a while ago, as if that doesn't say enough.
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Burnyoursins
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:44 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
Riffs, you have no right to call me a misogynist. As much as your biased view "wants" to pigenhole me into being one, I am not one. And the points I have made are about the conditions of the production of music and how I see the data relating to the facts.

I have underlined my appreciation of female metal musicians and made it clear that I would like to see more of them involved. It doesn't happen, hasn't happened in a significant number in popular music, ever, for a number of reasons, some of which I have exposed. There are honourable exceptions.

But the driving force of popular, and erudite music, has been done, all throughout human history, both in the west and in eastern cultures (Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Middle Eastern), by men. These are facts. Not opinions.

To pull the "misoginy" card, so that people can point at me in horror and anger, is a conventional cheap shot, a low-blow, a distortion and a lie, used by someone who, again, has little strength in his arguments.


Dude, you are a cut and dry misogynist. And hey? Everybody has a right to call whoever the hell they want whatever they want because there's this little law called freedom of speech, which unfortunately also allows you to be a huge head-bashing-into-wheel moron.
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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:52 pm 
 

Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.

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hakarl
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:57 pm 
 

Chaosmonger wrote:
Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.

That's an insignificant minority, besides, though impressive in their own way, I don't think any black Americans music work can compare with the greatest European classical composers'.
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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:01 pm 
 

So what? Jazz is pretty impressive in its own regard and most musicians would put it quite a few steps ahead of metal. I don't listen to it much myself but it's generally considered the next rung down on the ladder of Serious Music behind classical. Pretty impressive for black Americans when they weren't even being granted full human rights.

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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:05 pm 
 

As for the topic at hand, I'm sure there are both true metal female fans (I know it for a fact) and some that are just in it for social reasons or because their boyfriend is in a band but it's a case-by-case basis, like anything else. Is it a trend right now to do the occult/doom metal thing with a female vocalist? Sure, but I don't think it's anything more nefarious than a monkey-see, monkey-do situation.

Either way, more girls at metal shows is a welcome thing in my book for both shallow and legit reasons.

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hakarl
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:12 pm 
 

Chaosmonger wrote:
Pretty impressive for black Americans when they weren't even being granted full human rights.

I'm not very well versed in jazz, but were there really black female jazz musicians as illustrous as John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis etc?
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Jonpo
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:14 pm 
 

...What do black females have to do with anything? He's drawing a parallel between the lack of "rights" awarded to both women, and blacks (IN GENERAL, REGARDLESS OF GENDER) back in the day. And how many prominent black musicians rose to fame despite not even being considered real human beings. I thought he made a pretty decent point.

Chaosmonger wrote:
As for the topic at hand, I'm sure there are both true metal female fans (I know it for a fact) and some that are just in it for social reasons or because their boyfriend is in a band but it's a case-by-case basis, like anything else. Is it a trend right now to do the occult/doom metal thing with a female vocalist? Sure, but I don't think it's anything more nefarious than a monkey-see, monkey-do situation.

Either way, more girls at metal shows is a welcome thing in my book for both shallow and legit reasons.


Get the fuck out of here man, there's no room for this sort of even-keeled honesty in this thread!! :lol:
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Civil
I'm not sexist, I have binders full of women friends!

Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:58 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:25 pm 
 

It's easy to yes, now, histerically call every idea you don't like "dense", "idiotic", etc. Good for you that the name-calling is full on raging, as well as the victimization.

I suppose PJ Harvey is also a sexist evil human being that should be destroyed.

It also seems very few people here know what cultural marxism is. I recommend wikipedia for a start on the concept.


Last edited by Civil on Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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hakarl
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:27 pm 
 

Er, I don't think that's a particularly revolutionary point. You might be more savvy with American blacks' history and know better than me, but I thought that, in general, blacks' place as (jazz) musicians was quite widely accepted by whites, whereas women's artistic pursuits in most fields were actively discouraged. Not to mention that American blacks' culture embraced an entirely different tradition of musicality, where performing music and participating in musical activities was something that belonged to all.
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Last edited by hakarl on Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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~Guest 98976
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:28 pm 
 

Ilwhyan wrote:
Chaosmonger wrote:
Pretty impressive for black Americans when they weren't even being granted full human rights.

I'm not very well versed in jazz, but were there really black female jazz musicians as illustrous as John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis etc?

Holy shit, can somebody corroborate this with evidence/artist names? I just totally became super interested in black female-fronted jazz.

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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:32 pm 
 

Ilwhyan wrote:
Er, I don't think that's a particularly revolutionary point. You might be more savvy with American blacks' history and know better than me, but I thought that, in general, blacks' place as (jazz) musicians was quite widely accepted by whites, whereas women's artistic pursuits in most fields were actively discouraged. Not to mention that American blacks' culture embraced an entirely different tradition of musicality, where performing music and participating in musical activities was something that belonged to all.


Blacks' PLACE in jazz? They invented it! Same with blues and rock n' roll (well RnR was a hybrid of white/black music but blacks were the first to play it).

Your last point is incorrect, white people had their folk music (separate from academic 'serious' classical music for the elites) too.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:32 pm 
 

Ilwhyan wrote:
Chaosmonger wrote:
Pretty impressive for black Americans when they weren't even being granted full human rights.

I'm not very well versed in jazz, but were there really black female jazz musicians as illustrous as John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis etc?


Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Cleo Laine come to mind. Fitzgerald is the only one as illustrious as those three you named. There is quite a bit of literature on sexism in jazz, and of course it was absolutely rampant - considering the developmental years were in pre-WW2 America and tended to be in parts of the country that were not known for being socially progressive, you can expect that sexism was strong.

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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:33 pm 
 

Alice Coltrane is the obvious mention, btw

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hakarl
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:35 pm 
 

Chaosmonger: European or Slavic folk music isn't very relevant when discussing merits in high forms of art.

Jazz was indeed blacks' thing, and it was accepted by whites, as the music entertained them amply, I suppose, and wasn't seen as being serious contest to classical music and such (I'm sure blacks forming symphony orchestras might've been frowned upon).
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Riffs
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:16 pm 
 

This is too deliciously funny and on-topic for me not to mention. So, maybe 10 weeks ago we auditioned a bunch of bassists. And we picked a female.

One of the candidates who didn't make it wrote to me this morning, asking if our "new bassman was still doing the job" for us. He's a person I also felt could have been a good fit. Nice guy, talented and similar tastes to ours. Plus every time we talked music together we had great conversations.

When I replied we were really happy with her he kinda went nuts a little.

Couldn't really fathom we chose someone with a vagina to play metal, or maybe he was just using any argument he could find but he kept on telling me we should dump her, because she won't "keep up" and it's not "serious" enough.
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Crypt Infektor
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:35 pm 
 

Chaosmonger wrote:
Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.


Are you talking about in the last 25 years? :lol:
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Civil
I'm not sexist, I have binders full of women friends!

Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:58 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:41 pm 
 

Riffs wrote:
This is too deliciously funny and on-topic for me not to mention. So, maybe 10 weeks ago we auditioned a bunch of bassists. And we picked a female.

One of the candidates who didn't make it wrote to me this morning, asking if our "new bassman was still doing the job" for us. He's a person I also felt could have been a good fit. Nice guy, talented and similar tastes to ours. Plus every time we talked music together we had great conversations.

When I replied we were really happy with her he kinda went nuts a little.

Couldn't really fathom we chose someone with a vagina to play metal, or maybe he was just using any argument he could find but he kept on telling me we should dump her, because she won't "keep up" and it's not "serious" enough.


How did he went "nuts", Riffs? Does he know the person?

By the way, out of curiosity, what sort of music do you play? Can I listen to it?

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Riffs
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:55 pm 
 

Chaosmonger wrote:
Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.


It's not just privileges. It's about context, obligations and social pressure. If you've got any shred of knowledge about the historical context, try to imagine how it could have played out differently and you will see how absurd the notion is.

Can you imagine women being free to escape at night and play in smoky bars just a few decade ago? That's science-fiction.
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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 3:55 pm 
 

Crypt Infektor wrote:
Chaosmonger wrote:
Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.


Are you talking about in the last 25 years? :lol:


There is good hip-hop but yeah, I was mainly referring to jazz and blues.

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Riffs
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:14 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
How did he went "nuts", Riffs? Does he know the person?


He does not know her. The only information I had provided in my reply was:

-She's doing great
-She's got a great attitude
-She's a great fit

That's all he had to go by to make a judgment call. In emails, he kept on emphasizing: "A girl? Really?". He asked me a bunch of questions, like if she could play Iron Maiden stuff, said it was "unlikely she could play that metal bass without a pick" and other weird stuff. He mentioned three times "a girl".

Civil wrote:
By the way, out of curiosity, what sort of music do you play? Can I listen to it?


We have just started and are playing exclusively covers. It's all 70s and 80s traditional metal. Nothing out of this world: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Metallica, Megadeth, Testament and we're now adding some Iron Maiden, Voivod and Slayer. Music most of us grew up on. I'd call it a garage band but I'm hoping we can eventually move on to originals because I'm seeing some potential down the line.

I have nothing you can listen to, unfortunately.
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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:17 pm 
 

Riffs wrote:
Chaosmonger wrote:
Not that I'm agreeing with the OP per se, but this 'women didn't have the same privileges as men and that's why there's few great female artists' thing doesn't really hold water when you've seen what black Americans have been able to accomplish in music.


It's not just privileges. It's about context, obligations and social pressure. If you've got any shred of knowledge about the historical context, try to imagine how it could have played out differently and you will see how absurd the notion is.

Can you imagine women being free to escape at night and play in smoky bars just a few decade ago? That's science-fiction.


Definitely a fair point but we'd now have to discuss the history of gender roles and why, in general, most women don't want to play in bands is because of societal norms or that they just have no inherent interest in it (again, in general). And that sounds like more discussion than this thread is worthy of haha.

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Civil
I'm not sexist, I have binders full of women friends!

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:12 pm 
 

failsafeman wrote:
Their "job" before getting married was basically looking for a husband, and their "job" after that was taking care of kids, cooking, cleaning, generally running the household, and minding the servants in more affluent households, etc. so their husbands could focus on their careers. This is a much, MUCH clearer cause than Civil's vague guesses at neurobiology based only on correlation.


The problem with your hypothesis is that you reduce all cultures, all moments and all history of mankind to that specific treatment of women. Mankind has over 100.000 years of history. The way in which you described the role of women was and unfortunately still is prevalent in many places, but you make it sound as if this was an absolute "locked system" that ruled women for the last say 99.900 years and was suddenly "unlocked" by women's lib in the last 100 years or so.

The history of the species is much more vast, fragmented and nuanced than this. There were many, many different moments in which women enjoyed different types of freedom and conditions of living and production, in different societies, ethnical, racial and cultural groups. You are reducing an enourmous amount of time to a stereotype, which basically comes with the idea of cultural marxism. Here's a good definition of where your concepts come from:

"The Frankfurt School again departed from orthodox Marxism, which argued that all of history was determined by who owned the means of production. Instead, they said history was determined by which groups, defined as men, women, races, religions, etc., had power or "dominance" over other groups. Certain groups, especially white males, were labeled "oppressors," while other groups were defined as "victims." Victims were automatically good, oppressors bad, just by what group they came from, regardless of individual behavior."

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Riffs
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:36 pm 
 

Chaosmonger wrote:
Definitely a fair point but we'd now have to discuss the history of gender roles and why, in general, most women don't want to play in bands is because of societal norms or that they just have no inherent interest in it (again, in general). And that sounds like more discussion than this thread is worthy of haha.


I agree. This thread has at least three different directions that I have seen:

1- Are women inherently less inclined to be genuinely interested or excel in music than men? How exactly are the biological differences between men and women playing out? How about the societal context.

This has been the first tangent from the original debate (unworthy hipsters) and it's a motherfucking HUGE one. There has been all sorts of statistics, observations and anecdotes thrown in this thread but the FACT is: nobody knows what exactly the biological differences are, nor how they truly impact things. The science is in constant flux, studies come up all the time. What makes this even more tricky is that society also changes and our brain is also ever evolving from one generation to the next.

Considering science can't even agree on much more simpler things like what we should eat and drink and very basic biological and medical issues, it would be insane to think someone has solved the greatest, most complicated mystery of all: our inner self.

We can look at data, at sociological trends, we can make anecdotal observations. We probably each feel differently about nature VS nurture but people who aren't batshit insane know that it's a mix of both. They just can't always agree on the proportion.

So, let me put it this way: It would be crazy to think we can solve this debate when we can't even cure aids or cancer... problems which are a whole lot fucking simpler. It's just not gonna happen on this thread.

2- The starting point of contention was how women are perceived differently by some. Now, as I said in point 1, I think it's clearly established we don't clearly know HOW women are different from men, HOW MUCH we are different, nor WHY we are different. And everybody on this thread, have agreed that it's not like all men are one way, and all women are another. Everybody is unique.

So what do we do now?

The reason I entered this debate and had heated discussions with Civil is the stereotyping that his positions suggest. The idea that because a certain group of people is SUPPOSEDLY not as inclined as another, I should make judgment calls based on that, without knowing the individuals. I should take their gender and just assume, "because the stats say so". I should assume that a scene is a certain way because it's got more women in attendance than men. I should assume the motivations of individuals based on an external factor instead of knowing them for who they truly are.

And I don't want to live in a world like that. I don't want to live in a world where we judge people on external factors of gender, nor nationality, or color. I prefer trying to figure out who they really are first. Based on what they are actually doing and thinking.

Otherwise, I would not even have bothered auditioning our bassist, since 14 people responded to that ad and I couldn't possibly audition more than 5. Since the 13 other people who replied were all males and evidence suggests that most metal bassists I listen to and enjoy are males, why even bother? I bothered because in my two phone conversations with her, I felt she was one of the 5 most viable candidates. Based on her musical background, her musical tastes, how motivated she sounded, communicative, her aspirations, our schedule and because she sounded like a pretty fucking chill and awesome person, because at this point in my life, I'm doing it for fun and don't want to suffer assholes.

Just saying: I'm seeing things like this, even if I acknowledge there are exceptions is not enough in my book. It's misguided to judge someone based on external factors period.

3-And the final point I think is the place and respect we should give on people based on their commitments and how "true" they are to the scene. I'm still astonished so many people care whether someone is at his first concert or not, and whether they dig all the minute details like brands of amps or whether they don't even know what genre of music they are headbanging too. I don't care how true I am nor how true others are. I go to shows to bang my head, have a good time and first and foremost, to soak in all the amazing music and the band energy!

So, in short:

1- Neither me nor anyone else has a way of measuring how gender plays a role in music
2-I don't give a shit anyway because everyone is unique
3-Even if science magically proved someone is more into music than someone else (which it won't) I don't give a shit as long as you let me enjoy the show and don't puke on me. I don't care if you're wearing a band t-shirt and don't even listen to that band! As long as you're cool, I'm really glad you're here and I'll be nice to you.
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Burnyoursins
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 2:59 am
Posts: 1174
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:44 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
It's easy to yes, now, histerically call every idea you don't like "dense", "idiotic", etc. Good for you that the name-calling is full on raging, as well as the victimization.

I suppose PJ Harvey is also a sexist evil human being that should be destroyed.

It also seems very few people here know what cultural marxism is. I recommend wikipedia for a start on the concept.



You have a SERIOUS persecution complex, man. How about you grow a set of stones and walk away? And it's hysterically, thanks. I hate to nitpick your grammar but you're really not the sharpest tool in the box now, are ya? Name calling? What do you think this is, 4th grade? The only posts you seem to be answering are the ones you perceive as serious personal attacks. You're not very secure within yourself, are you?
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The_Beast_in_Black wrote:
SleightOfVickonomy wrote:
...no one still knows what it's supposed to be about.

Well, I reckon there's a pretty good chance it'll be about gory tits.

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absurder21
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:51 pm
Posts: 692
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 6:40 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
failsafeman wrote:
Their "job" before getting married was basically looking for a husband, and their "job" after that was taking care of kids, cooking, cleaning, generally running the household, and minding the servants in more affluent households, etc. so their husbands could focus on their careers. This is a much, MUCH clearer cause than Civil's vague guesses at neurobiology based only on correlation.


The problem with your hypothesis is that you reduce all cultures, all moments and all history of mankind to that specific treatment of women. Mankind has over 100.000 years of history. The way in which you described the role of women was and unfortunately still is prevalent in many places, but you make it sound as if this was an absolute "locked system" that ruled women for the last say 99.900 years and was suddenly "unlocked" by women's lib in the last 100 years or so.

The history of the species is much more vast, fragmented and nuanced than this. There were many, many different moments in which women enjoyed different types of freedom and conditions of living and production, in different societies, ethnical, racial and cultural groups. You are reducing an enourmous amount of time to a stereotype, which basically comes with the idea of cultural marxism. Here's a good definition of where your concepts come from:

"The Frankfurt School again departed from orthodox Marxism, which argued that all of history was determined by who owned the means of production. Instead, they said history was determined by which groups, defined as men, women, races, religions, etc., had power or "dominance" over other groups. Certain groups, especially white males, were labeled "oppressors," while other groups were defined as "victims." Victims were automatically good, oppressors bad, just by what group they came from, regardless of individual behavior."

...And? Can you give us an example of a major Matriarchy that would have had a massive influence on today's art as to cement your point? I'm going to jump the gun and say no...

As long as were posting real life experience to highlight Civil's blatant idiocy, I'm currently in a death/doom (like Autopsy, Winter death/doom, not doom/death) band with a female fronted vocalist, and she sounds more or less akin to early Opeth-era Akerfeldt with us. The band got together because SHE wanted to get a death/doom band together because she loved the aforementioned bands as well as the likes of Loss, Ahab, Asphyx etc She contacted ME, she got together the band herself and she did it purely cos she fucking loves death/doom and wants to perform it. She's currently contributed two riffs (she's not amazing, but she can at least be creatively relevant other than vocals and lyrics) doesn't do clean girly singing or wear a dress(or whatever other appearance bullshit you're so obsessed with) and her performance style is "headbanging", so you can't even instantly recognize it's a girl on stage. While she's hardly flawless, she's a great vocalist and definitely capable of performing on major tracks, all stemming from the practice she puts into it (you can seriously fuck yourself up with growls, so considering she's been going for 9 years now it's safe to say she knows what she's doing) because of her LOVE OF METAL. Seeing as she's only had mild success with her last band Saprophyte, and has had a steady boyfriend for almost forever apparently, I think it's safe to say she's not doing it because of some insane desire to have guys jizzing over her (she's hardly a super model as well), and the only problems she's experienced in the scene are from ignorant misogynistic retards like you who think she's there purely for gimmick, despite the fact that other musicians she surrounds herself are just as talented and could choose from a variety of death metal vocalists (Canada is a somewhat of DM of hot spot).
You.
Are.
Wrong.

example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdNiubueEE

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kybernetic
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:48 pm
Posts: 2169
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:02 pm 
 

Civil wrote:
Of course there are incredible female artists in all areas of human knowledge. Many of them pioneers and groundbreakers. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf in literature, for example. It just happens that the vast majority of the ones who produce meaningful artwork - in any field - painting, literature, film directing, music, and so on, are male.

This is a consistent pattern which can be seen all through different cultures in human history, in different times.

That, with our knowledge of the differences between males and females, indicates that males are generally superior when producing art.


I think you are forgetting something here. The fact of women being marginalized and oppressed for a large portion of history, that you keep shrugging off, gave them FAR less chances of actually producing quality artwork. This has not been the case for men. Men have always had these opportunities with very little or no hindrance, and therefore as a result I would say, have produced far more quality art. I'm willing to bet that men have also produced far more shitty and forgotten art than women too. It's just a matter of men producing vastly more art in general throughout history, and naturally that is going to allow men to have produced far more quality, memorable art.

In other words, the road goes both ways. While men have produced more quality art, they have also produced more god-awful shitty art.
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Under_Starmere
Abhorrent Fish-Man

Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:00 pm
Posts: 5576
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:15 pm 
 

failsafeman wrote:
I don't even understand why this conversation is still going on. The short answer for why the female gender hasn't produced as many great artists as the male gender (just in terms of numbers) is because for thousands of years, the roles women were brought up to play in society were that of wife, mother, and homemaker.


THIS. TTHHIIIISSSSSSSS :crash:
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godsonsafari
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:03 am
Posts: 846
Location: Sparty's Land Grant University, USA
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:24 pm 
 

Quote:
The main thing we should do to change this is 1) be more welcoming and encouraging to women in the metal scene, 2) strongly discourage idiotic sexism in the metal scene, both physical and verbal (like that espoused by our friend Civil here), and 3) properly celebrate the women who have already made significant contributions to the metal scene. Having more women around will benefit everyone, and while it won't happen overnight, it's a change that will happen organically as long as we all make a few easy changes to our behavior.


Let's say we all agree about this. What then do we do about, I dunno, the entire genre of brutal death metal? Part of the problem here is that socially heavy metal has been made a male dominiated genre for such a long time that the societal norms of the genre are heavily slanted against women. Saying "we don't support sexism in metal" gives people the warm fuzzies, but it has little real effect unless there is actual action taken in some form. That requires metal to take a moral bent against something that is largely amoral residing within its own DNA (not real DNA, a figure of speech, oh you get it). I mean, it is possible. You could have an entire emergent scene of women death metal bands high on Andrea Dworkin shift the paradgim, but that would probably be seen as trendy/ironic/whatever.
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xThe__Wizard
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:59 pm
Posts: 845
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 8:47 pm 
 

absurder21 wrote:
Seeing as she's only had mild success with her last band Saprophyte, and has had a steady boyfriend for almost forever apparently, I think it's safe to say she's not doing it because of some insane desire to have guys jizzing over her (she's hardly a super model as well), and the only problems she's experienced in the scene are from ignorant misogynistic retards like you who think she's there purely for gimmick, despite the fact that other musicians she surrounds herself are just as talented and could choose from a variety of death metal vocalists (Canada is a somewhat of DM of hot spot).
You.
Are.
Wrong.

example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdNiubueEE



First off, longest sentence ever man.

Secondly, there are lots of band that have mediocre band memebers that can bring a lot to a band. Just about every person I've played with has been mediocre but playing with some people can create some great music even if you aren't the most talented. Also, why would they kick out the person that brought them together and started the whole band?

Bands with females are not gimmicks. Bands that promote themselves as having female members/fronted by females is really annoying and a god damn gimmick.
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:21 pm 
 

OK, we've all humored Civil long enough. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
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