From Peter T. Bense Sent Thu, Feb 18th 1999, 11:27
This male/female thing makes me think and wonder. A couple of nights ago I was talking to a girl-friend of mine and both of us mutually came to the conclusion that, on a very broad level, "males are more detail-oriented". I am a very open-minded person and I do not consider myself to be sexist by any stretch of the definition, however, based on my observations (which is the only thing I can really base my opinions on anyways) the following seem to be true regarding the female species in regards to music. TAKE THIS ALL WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. As I said -- this is based on real-world experience (in my opinion something that can't be disputed). What is the expression about walking 100 miles in a man's shoes Generally speaking, females: o - listen more to the words of a "song" if it is such a composition. o - (I may be making a huge leap here because I'm extremely deep into music and dont have m(any?) guy-friends) won't listen to music close enough to be amazed or confounded by a new production technique or a new drum sound in a techno record, for example. Consider the past threads on the g-tech and 313 mailing lists, for example. o - express a total lack of interest for how electronic music is made. o - when involved in (this) music business, do not work in production (with the exclusion being made here for vocalists). When I call record labels there is almost always a female receptionist with the promotions people being pretty much 50-50 in terms of gender, while 95% of the ones doing the studio work are males. OF COURSE there are exceptions, like... Heather Heart Miss DJAX DJ Rap Kelli Hand Nicole Stallings and Small Fish with Spine (I hope memory is serving me right, here). However, many (most?) times the "exception" is exploited. I've attended events entitled "the female of the species" which only featured women artists and it felt like a real... exploitation more than anything else. Okay ... enough rambling here, this should get a flame-war or some kind of discussion started. -peter