Music and women

[Ilovemycatsomuch]

I come from a very musical family. I'm female. I have three brothers a couple of them are good guitarists. All of the brothers are very into their music. My mum (absolutely adores having sons!), and she absolutely loves their music!!

I'm always made to feel like I've got terrible taste in music. Because my mum and brothers will be listening to Brit pop (oasis, blur, etc) and also older pop like Elton John, rem, u2, etc etc

Now me.....dare to suggest a song by a female artist. They look at me with sympathy and shame.

I really believe that music is the most horribly misogynistic area of life.

Female artists are LAUGHED at. Pop music they say.


It doesn't matter how amazing Madonna was.

It doesn't matter how amazing En Vouge were.

It doesn't matter how phenomenal Taylor Swift is....

[Ilovemycatsomuch]

Female artists can't do right for doing wrong.

Either it's to sad and slow and whining (Adele Whitney Toni Brixton etc)?or it's to pop music 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Ilovemycatsomuch]

I don't like Sam smith or Ed Sheehan....they both sound like a cat being strangled in my opinion 😆 but they are men so it's okay, in fact amazing and adorable and should be given awards 🤮

[LoveGrooveDanceParty]

I’m going to be honest and say…. out of the absolute plethora of phenomenal female musicians to identify, you land on Madonna, Taylor Swift and … En Vogue….?

[purplesequins]

your family is weird.

look up female song writers. I bet many songs your family like were actually written by women.

[WillThisUsernameDo]

I mean, Madonna and En Vogue are fucking awful. Are you sure this is to do with female artists and not just you having massively differing tastes in music. I agree with you about Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith though - if your brothers are big fans of them then maybe your whole family just has terrible (though differing) taste in music.

[nameyouwhat]

Madonna can't sing....I have heard her live.

plenty of great female artists though...Dolly , amy Winehouse, joni mitchell, Whitney, Billie. .The list is endless

[LiterallyKnowsBest]

This would have been more interesting if you’d mentioned the misogyny towards female composers. The pop world is so heavily manufactured it’s never clear who is creating and who is being created.

[nettie434]

I definitely agree that the music industry is very segmented and that Britpop, rock, and indie are very male dominated. Individuals like Beyoncé and Adele conceal the fact that women are almost absent from other areas.

Don't bother with what your family think, Ilovemycatsomuch. It's actually very old fashioned only to listen to one genre now!

[youkiddingme]

Going through our family music collection we have plenty of stuff by female artists that the whole family love, but there is more stuff by men overall. I think that is a reflection that more was made by ben than our tastes though. (our collection goes back to the 60s and has been added to ever since). But if you ask us our favourites, interestingly we all but one family member picked female artists.

Article in the BBC a couple of years back did note the widening gap between sales for the sexes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47232677

I think there is a feeling in the industry that men are the creators and women are there to deliver a package for the industry though, as alluded to by Literallyknowsbest

[TarasCrazyTiara]

If you think Taylor Swift is wonderful over Elton John then I get their reaction.

[TarasCrazyTiara]

I don’t know OP. I mean who says men and women will have the exact same amount of musical writing ability? Tbh all the people you say are great are pretty ordinary and most of their songs are actually written by men.

What does it matter if a lot of music is written by men so long as they don’t stop women from writing and making it too? And they don’t.

Carole King was around in the 50’s - why haven’t more women followed in her footsteps and written their own great stuff? It’s not right to blame men if women aren’t doing something as well as them.

[bordermidgebite]

There is no evidence that women make less good composers or performers

There is evidence that society puts barriers in the way of women and girls . Girls are more likely to be expected to do household chores for example, giving boys more time to practise

There is evidence that society expects women to be less good

Look at what happens when orchestras move to blind auditions-suddenly the proportion of women who make the grade shoots up . Despite everyone saying that the previous auditions were selection on merit they clearly were not

[Felix125]

I think music genres tend to be quite fluid now - I mean where would you put The Cranberries - Brit Pop, Rock, or Indie....?

Besides, Etta James beats everyone hands down for me!

[ParsleySageRosemary]

I'm going to be even more honest and say that modern music of the sort you're talking about is not music, it's commercial tat, sold by people who are famous because they are famous. It's been happening since the late 80s. There's no way that new song by Adele that's being pushed everywhere would be considered in anyway musical if it wasn't for the fact that she'd been marketed up for decades. Get off the beaten track.

Sexism is back with a vengeance everywhere, I'd agree with that.

[TarasCrazyTiara]

@bordermidgebite

I mean pop isn’t some orchestra though. And also an orchestral performer isn’t actually creating anything.
You can literally write your own ticket in pop/rocket and especially with the rise of YouTube etc. you really don’t even need studio backing to get a start, so how are men to blame if more women haven’t? If we can we’ve just got to get to it. No point in whining for men to somehow make more women write music well. It’s really not their problem.

Adele (even though I think she stinks) has been pretty successful at writing her own (don’t know if she has ghost writers at all) stuff as of late.

[bordermidgebite]

You magically think that it makes a difference what type of music?

[ParsleySageRosemary]

Clara Schumann anyone?

[LiterallyKnowsBest]

We really don’t need to go back to Clara Schumann - there are countless female composers working today whose careers evolve less smoothly because of their sex.

[deydododatdodontdeydo]

I think this is a problem with your family.
Your family may laugh at female artists, but the wider world not so much.
Look at how much Adele is raking in for her latest tour - prices from £90 to £580 a ticket.

Either it's to sad and slow and whining (Adele Whitney Toni Brixton etc)?or it's to pop music

This shows your ignorance, to be honest. Since you're name dropping male artists going back to the 70s and 80s - I can't be bothered to list all the non-slow and whiney or pop female artists for you. There are many, many of them for you to discover.

[EightWheelGirl]

Doesn’t Taylor Swift have a co writer on a lot of her songs?

[Deliriumoftheendless]

Pretty much everyone likes Kate Bush, I think. Rightly as she is fantastic.

[EightWheelGirl]

I have no real proof to backup this claim and it'll probs piss some people off, but I think men just seem to be largely better at song writing. Same with comedy. There are many exceptions to the rule but I think it must be something connected to differences in brain structure etc or the way they've evolved.

[Snoozer11]

Either it's to sad and slow and whining (Adele Whitney Toni Brixton etc)?or it's to pop music

Those female artists are wildly successful and have each sold millions of albums, so clearly there are plenty who adore them. Whitney is anything but slow and whining.

People are allowed to not enjoy Adele's music and voice. Ed Sheeran also receives some criticism (though I would argue not enough).

I don't think citing a preference to Queen over Taylor Swift is particularly engaging argument for sexism.

[EightWheelGirl]

In fact, unless its since been disproven, isn't it the case that womens intelligence tends to have less variation than men's, with there being both a lot more stupid men and also genius men?

[Snoozer11]

Although I think sexism is reflected in the "celebrity" side of female musicians - Madonna, Taylor Swift, Little Mix, Amy Winehouse, Charlotte Church etc. But I don't think musical talent plays a role.