Does pop music discriminate against your sex?

I suppose I have a few questions of my own. It has been my experience that male artists/musicians/whatevers come across as more universal. After viewing a painting of flowers, you look at the nameplate and the name is a man's, is it easier to accept it as art? If the name had been a woman's, would the painting seem easier to dismiss as sentimental? One day the existence of a God is confirmed so, off you go to find what infinite wisdom had to offer. When you stand face to face with god, god is a 13-year-old girl. Is that difficult to imagine? Even though I wish it weren't so, I find the label of "genius" more plausible when it is applied to male art or men in general. Perhaps this is because it is rarely used to describe women or their work. Perhaps not. I'm sorry for rambling and for not using more music specific references. Instead of a flower painting, I should say love song? Does pop music discriminate in regards to sex? Yes and no.

Please. It started with TLC. "No Scrubs" yo. You thought wrong.

However, this is not a new phenomenon. It's been happening for decades...for as long as pop music has been around. And the male and female "buddy flick" has also been around forever...and movies like "Gentlemen prefer blondes" to "Romi and Michelles High School Reunion" and both indicative of how long the phenomenon has existed.

I tried hard to think about what you meant, and as with a couple of other questions at the moment (what if no pop? what if no punk? what if absolute standards of taste?) it requires this kind of conceptual distanting and understanding of a WHOLE CULTURE all at once - to contain this within your mind - it was difficult to see the present whole, so if I imagine looking backwards on this moment, what I see is a bunch of desperate people (the entrepreneurs?) rushing to find out what people's desires are, and filling them immediately they arise, and when those needs are slaked, rushing to find out what the next are, and I see the objects of this attention becoming increasingly bemused and dazed - this is most closely analogous to the Savage's mother in Brave New World, who comes back from the reservation and with delight begins taking soma, and finally overdoses, a tragic fat figure. I guess this means that none of us are well adapted to the contemporary world, unlike the conditioned population who made up the mainstream of Brave New World - gender ceases to matter, because all our desires are being taken away from us one by one. If this process continues, we will be nostalgic for the anxiety of sexism

So I tried to answer seriously!

Sorry to be so irrelevant BUT in PG Wodehouses' letters (Performing Flea) I happen to be reading:

I bought Aldous Huxley's Brave World thing, but simply can't read it. What a bore these stories of the future are. The whole point of Huxley is that he can write better about modern life than anybody else, so of course he goes and writes about the future, blast him.

Aldous Huxley, like everyone who writes about the future, is really writing about the past, his own time: society as he saw it then and what its trends and politics and obsessions were, and much more. Just as Orwell did in "1984." (Remember, its original title was "1948.") Glad someone out there still reads Wodehouse; I'm off on an E. F. Benson kick myself: "bitch, bitch, bitch," as his critics said. So everyone, bitch on....

What are you on about, Geir? Have you not noticed the number of boy bands there have been, or the current superstardom of Justin Timberlake? Hip hop and urban music is a dominant force now, and certainly the former is very male-dominated, but there is still the odd female superstar, most notably Missy of course.

Your part, as someone who failed to reply to my email whereupon I showed you in as much detail as I could be arsed, why you're a moron for thinking I'm sexist, is to debate this topic with all the maturity that you accuse me of not possessing. It's not hard really, all I'm looking for is for you to try and present a balanced and rational arguement about the use of sexual imagery in music. I mean, you do get turned on by something right? Maybe your mum in lingerie, maybe something a bit more "normal" but SOMETHING turns you on right? Certain images, somewhere along the line, must register with that floppy part of your anatomy and you must think: "Hmm, she's quite nice looking must keep an eye out for future videos from her". Or, you could be like a mate of mine, who has bought all sorts of toss based primarily upon the sexual appeal of the lady singing the song (something, I should add, I've never been suckered into - even as a young 'un). Seriously, he even paid £40 to see Avril Lavigne live. As I said to him: "Seriously man, what chance have you got of ever shagging Avril Lavigne?" But, then again, in Avril's defence she doesn't "sell" herself as a sex object - she just happens to be pretty cute with sexy lips. So what should she do? Cover this up and "ugly" herself?

This thread, really, is redundant. Pop music doesn't discriminate against anyone's sex - and rock and roll has always sold some form of sex. Bands get into the whole rock thing, primarily, to get laid and party. Which is why any accusations of sexism on a music forum is ONE BIG JOKE. The only music I find that does discriminate against women is rap - though I admit a large ignorance towards the appeal of the genre. But all this guns being flashed about, women being degraded in the lyrics and So Solid Crew smacking a girl in the face makes me very concerned indeed. So maybe we should have a thread where, instead of getting his knickers in a twist because I happen to point out that Emma Bunton could share my sleeping bag anyday, Martin instead debates the ins and outs of misogyny (and I do like to make a distinction between misogyny and sexism - as they are very different and not interlinked as some ILMers seem to believe) in rap.

How about it?

More redundant than you?

Go somewhere else.

I didn't reply to your cretinous email because I have better things to do than correspond with you. I responded to your first email to me because it was you whining to a moderator, and I felt I had a responsibility to respond to that. Your second one didn't fall into that category, so I didn't have to waste my time on you. In my first I pointed out that you were the worst reader of other people I'd ever known, and you are continuing this here. If you are so interested in my sexual tastes, it shouldn't take much searching of ILX to find me talking about sex a great deal. As you have pointed out yourself, there are many people who've talked loads about sex, often in very explicit terms, without getting attacked the way you have. Has it occurred to you to try to work out why? I know you have the notion that women get away with more because we all want them (an attitude inevitably found in misogynists), but there are many men, me included, who have talked plenty about sex here, with no criticism. Why is that, Calum? Can you see a difference in the way others do it?

There are quite a few people here who imagine that you can't be as dumb as you act, and that it must just be deliberate provocation. I think you're sincere, and you just don't understand anything. Who's right?

I have no notion to defend myself against your dumbass accusations, but I strongly believe that in a real time debate I'd whip your ass. Aside from that, many of the threads I've posted here have been done with the express purpose of having a joke, and judging by the pathetic, life or death, response they get from morons like yourself I'd have to say that the most intelligent person on here is most certainly not you. Check out the replies to my most recent threads 100 plus messages! Now check out the number of replies to your muso threads. Slightly less interesting isn't it?

Ah. THAT was money well-spent.

Also, lots of people saying "You're an idiot, Calum" != great threads.

Your education has indeed gone beyond mine: I have not done any postgraduate studies. Have you learned anything yet?

BTW, "I was only joking" is the most feeble excuse in the history of the world.

Right, that is my last word on this. Calum is aiming his studpidity in my direction because I wouldn't accede to his request to delete a post insulting him. I have already wasted far too much of my time talking to the kind of moron I'd avoid in any other circumstances. Say what you like Calum, I'm not playing any more.

But they are in minority. Besides, they are part of the same stupid "looks are more important than music talent" craze that all the female "singers" are.

Also, pop music has always been more favourable towards beautiful and sexy performers. In this respect, the prejudice is probably more of a burden on women - it's still easier to be an unattractive male in pop than an unattractive woman. When was the last female star as aesthetically unappealing as Senior out of Junior Senior, for instance?

On boy bands, do you not see great melodic songwriting talent in, for example, Take That's 'Back For Good'? That was written by Gary Barlow of the band, not some backstage person.

I don't think that pop music discriminates against my sex, if that exists

pinefox in hermaphrodidic shockah!

No, I don't see that one as a good song. It isn't harmonically complex at all.

It used to be, but it isn't anymore. There is no room for a Mick Jagger, for a Phil Collins, for a Steven Tyler, in music anymore. In the past, those guys could compensate for their looks by using humour in their music videos. These days, however, that doesn't work, simply because today's kids have no sense of humour.

maybe there are inequalities but above all i think that men and women face very different kinds of obstacles.

Which sucks because practically all of the best mainstream pop of the 60s, 70s and 80s was done by acts writing their own material.

None of them were among the best mainstream pop of the 60s. The best mainstream pop of the 60s was, apart from Beach Boys and The Byrds, all English.

Much better to simply request a mod change it rather than throw an abusive temper-tantrum. The reason JB's other post was not removed is that it was no nastier than the hate you were throwing his way, and additionally was not libelous (much as you disliked it, there were no direct accusations involved). So things like that probably *won't* be removed and things like here probably *will* be.

Now you know, so please don't take what happened here as a reason to go posting abusive forged things all around the boards whenever you're unhappy. Doing so is *never* right, no matter *what* the situation.