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Originally Posted by ;110517
Please, ladies, tell me - do these figures and statements mean nothing?
It's NATURE, not a male conspiracy to keep the women artists down.
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Guys,
Honestly! Why such a strong reaction if there's nothing there? Why the huge reaction about a certain other controversy? Why are many of the names the same? Maybe it would help to put it in another context?
So, for several years, I taught at HBCU's (for people in other countries, that means "Historically Black College or University"). It was good work, and some of those schools, despite the obstacles (like lack of endowments, etc.), are quite good. One of them was *very* good. And yet, they were always having to defend themselves. Fortunately, their opponents often made the case for them. One just had to let them talk, and they quickly started to say unseemly things. Like, "why do they" (it was always "they") "need their own school? I thought we were all equal?" Well, maybe in the world you know. But in the one I've known, we've got a long way to go.
Case in point. My darling bride is a Director of Music and also a cantor in a church, and cantors at several other churches on any given weekend. There's this huge theological fight going on right now. You need to know that most music directors are also organists, and most of them are men. They've decided that 'the people' need to sing more (based on some rather substantial theological arguments about prayer) and so they're reducing the role of the cantors (who, I'm sure just by chance, are often women). They never say "we're men, and we're organists, we want the organ to be the star, not the women singers." Instead, they say "It's all about the prayerful approach of the congregants." It's just collateral damage, I'm sure, that it pushes the women aside, and heightens the role of the men. Like the Church needs more of that!
When women are winning most of the Nobel (and other) prizes, when the prize selection committees are actually representative, then you might have an argument. When people stop saying things like "It shouldn't matter if the poet's a man or a woman" then people will have more patience for some of the statements we've seen here. Again, in another context, Cornell West came out with a book "Race Matters." In fact, it matters very much. And so does gender. That's not a bad thing.
OK, go ahead and shoot me. Just please don't use your statistics gun to do it. And before you head for any "nature" argument, try to remember how the whole "natural law" meme has been used over the years.
Thanks,
Bill