To think women are just as good musicians?

[Tigger03]

Watching the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna (on bbc2) and around 95% of the orchestra is male.

What’s the reason for this? I’m fairly sure at very lower levels of playing music women outstrip men?

I too think it is very noticeable with professional orchestras, although as pointed out it is more of an issue in some orchestras than in others.

Having played in orchestras all my life, I find it even more noticeable because I know that in youth and amateur orchestras, and now watching my teenage daughter do the same, my experience has always been that females outnumber males by about four to one (except in the brass section).

As a PP has said, the Vienna Phil is notoriously sexist. This from Wikipedia:

“The Vienna Philharmonic did not accept female musicians to permanent membership until 1997, far later than comparable orchestras (of the other orchestras ranked among the world's top five by Gramophone magazine in 2008,[46] the last to appoint a woman to a permanent position was the Berlin Philharmonic, which did so in 1982.[63]) As late as February 1996, first flutist Dieter Flury told Westdeutscher Rundfunk that accepting women would be "gambling with the emotional unity (emotionelle Geschlossenheit) that this organism currently has".[64] In April 1996, the orchestra's press secretary wrote that "compensating for the expected leaves of absence" of maternity leave was a problem that they "do not yet see how to get a grip on" in ongoing consultations with the Women's Ministry of the Austrian Republic about women in the orchestra.”

There is a very famous study where they instigated blind first round auditions for the big 5 American symphony orchestras which resulted in a serious increase in female recruitment.

Classical music is a hotbed of sexism and cronyism - who you studied with is a huge thing. Placido Domigo is the latest to be outed after Me Too. Also check out the complete lack of female conductors.

Shinyletsbebadguys
Unless you play music with your genitalia,I can't imagine what relevance it has? This has conjured up a really funny image in my mind!

Not just classical music, molto, jazz also is dominated by male musicians. There was an article in the grauniad about six months ago about the jazz undergraduates at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire- IIRC only 3/75 jazz instrumentalists were female, all of whom were saxophonists.
Yet, as other posters have pointed out, youth ensembles are female dominated, even in jazz.

In her book Invisible Women (which I heartily recommend reading, it's an eye-opener), Caroline Criado Perez points out that musical instruments are typically designed for average male physiques. Eg - piano keys tend to fit most men's hands. Most women have hands smaller than most men. Female pianists are more likely to suffer repetitive strain injury etc (career ending, in classical music).

Plus what everyone else said about sexism Vs blind auditions.

I was an orchestral musician until baby number 3.

I could keep up with baby number 1, didn't mind evening work because he wasn't yet in school so we had all day together. He was an easy baby so I could practice most of the day, keep my old routine.

Baby number 2 wasn't an easy baby, cried all day, couldn't feed, but I was just about managing.

Baby number 3 arrived just as baby number 1 was going to start school- so with all my evening work I felt like I would never see him. Also baby 2 and 3 cried a lot and I couldn't stay at the top of my game.

I was working with some very modern and accommodating groups. Cant imagine how long I could have kept this up in Vienna (not that I would have got an audition)

as PP have said this orchestra is notorious for sexism and racism. There are plenty of studies that show that with blind auditions orchestras don't have a sexism/racism problem.

Great hula008 just coming on to post this link

It's a bit like tv chefs- many many men and yet most of the worlds cooking done by women.

Gender bias and sexism

Because most women give up their dreams and talents when they meet a man and start a family and men dont do this when they find a woman

until recently vienna was a male only orchestra. and still they prefer to hire males (and anecdotally still go to great lengths to filter out female applicants).
my sister auditioned for them 15 years ago. behind a screen. only males (10 males and 15 females applied for the position) got through to the next round.

stripeypillowcase
How the fuck does that work. Unless someone who lets them into the audition tells them!

Yes... VPO has largely, in the past , been male dominated.
I don’t think the ratio is similar in other Orchestras.

rumour has it their pianist makes a mistake at a certain point depending if a male or female applicant auditions.
don't know if that's true, but can imagine that it is.

Why the fuck is the BBC giving them air time then

not just the bbc
all public broadcasters in europe show the vienna new years concert.

aroundtheworldyet
Why the fuck is the BBC giving them air time then

Same reason Wagner still gets aired?

Tableclothing you have a point about instruments designed for men. During the 30's when pianos were relatively common, they did make ladies pianos, with slightly narrower keys. I've also come across a ladies piano accordion also with narrower keys.

I imagine anti social hours and travel mean orchestras aren't exactly family friendly occupations.

Because if this issue, most professional orchestras in the US do all their auditioning with the auditionees sitting or standing behind a curtain. The panel of judges never sees them until a final decision is made. We have many more female orchestra musicians now.

A recent study in The Stage newspaper revealed only 11% of musicians in west end pit orchestras are women. The late night nature of the work might have something to do with it, but the beer-drinking, sexist, gallows humour environment is the biggest reason. It’s a bear pit.

my experience has always been that females outnumber males by about four to one (except in the brass section)

I always think it's interesting how a lot of instruments are polarised by sex of the players. Brass players are almost always male, as seem to be many percussionists. I'd love to see a Susan Calman lookalike giving the timpani what for there at the back! Flautists and harpists tend to be female.

I wonder if there's a reason for this? Is it how girls and boys are 'guided' early in their musical careers? Are they steered towards stereotypically 'male' or 'female' instruments? Is it mainly to do with the practicalities of body size in playing instruments - if so, harps are massive great things to hold/support and stretch around, although, I suppose smaller fingers are probably easier for plucking the individual strings.

I don't doubt there is gender bias involved, of at least the type that affects any highly demanding occupation - a sort of assumption that women won't or don't make it their exclusive focus.

But the study that people are quoting isn't evidence of that. It's been somewhat debunked - the results in it don't show what everyone is claiming, it can't be relied on statistically.

Given the sample size and noisy data in the original study, it's not even a statistically significant effect.

medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-gender-discrimination-a25a48e1d02

"So, in conclusion, this study presents no statistically significant evidence that blind auditions increase the chances of female applicants. In my reading, the unadjusted results seem to weakly indicate the opposite, that male applicants have a slightly increased chance in blind auditions; but this advantage disappears with controls."

Might brass being mainly played by men be a matter of lung capacity? All the jazz trombonists I have known have been large in the barrel.

My daughter had a go at French horn but found that it required too much breath for pleasure, and although she did try out my ex-husband's tuba she didn't really enjoy it. (So she stuck to violin and viola and piano and organ and at a later date ukulele because it was easier to carry around with her, and left trumpet and cornet to my son.)

Might brass being mainly played by men be a matter of lung capacity?

not really. the most difficult brass instrument is the one more often played by women: french horn (5 octaves vs 2-3 on the other brass instruments)
and one of the best ever trumpet players is female. (alison balsom is the baroque trumpet icon)

pregnancy can be an issue as that reduces lung capacity.

tbh I don't think brass is more physical than oboe, bassoon or clarinet.