[quote bluebluezoo]@Trivium4all
But wait, that's not STEM...
Which is odd now you say it as in my head music, especially composing/classical, is very mathematical. So women composers fall down a hole where it is seen, like maths, as a “male” field, yet like you say it’s arts rather than STEM, which is “female”, so there’s no support in the same way..
Back to the thread- more current is Lennon (and Maisie) Stella. With added advantage of Nashville box set to watch!![/quote]
@bluebluezoo, Well, music was one of the four mathematical disciplines comprising the Quadrivium of the medieval university curriculum, the others being arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). I'm quite keen on them, and also the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), the re-introduction of which I think would improve internet debates on various issues enormously!
But yes, what irritates me about the whole girls in STEM thing is that the way it's phrased continues to devalue the disciplines that are currently (not always historically) coded as "feminine". Surely, there must be a way to encourage girls with gifts in those areas to consider them, without simultaneously bashing, say, people in modern languages or history, teachers, and "ballerinas prancing around in tutus". Perhaps it fundamentally boils down to money. If something generates ££, it's coded "masculine", which is why "rock star" is masculine, and "classical orchestral flute player" is feminine (even though there are plenty of women in rock, and men playing classical flute). Does my head in.