Is most recorded music written by/performed by men?

Point of order: obviousness militates against talking about the following as if you're the first to realise they had clitorii (?):

a) Maureen Tucker
b) Kim Gordon
c) Kim Deal
d) Courtney Love

Peculiarly, not Kelly Deal though.

They've always existed (even though the only one I can name off the top of my head is Ellen Zwilich Taaffe [sp?]). However, there have been no women composers whose works are part of the standard symphonic or operatic repertories on the scale of Mozart or Bach.

Recently, as I have found, it's just hard to feel comfortable in situations and areas and artistic fields predominated by people who immediately discount you or condescend to you because of your gender. I hate going into music stores because of the attitude I get from gearhead rock dudes, or people who think you need to noodle like Satriani in order to be a good player. I had to stop letting that discourage me though.

Hence "chick rock" as a concept = OMG a girl writing her own music/playing guitar!!!! SO UNUSUAL! But that's exclaimed on such a regular basis it is pretty illogical at this point.

In closing, I would say probably (?) yes. I don't like to discuss what I've heard may be gender discrepancies in the enjoying or creating of art, becuase I don't know how much of that may be due simply to general social conditioning and how men or women are sort of brought up interacting. I don't like to go into nature/nurture debates either as I think it's irrelevant and bullshit for the most part.

Classic or dud: all female artists EVER being constantly compared to Tori Amos. (not that I necessarily have anything against her, but the gild has left the lily so to speak.)

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7282/women.html

Also, i know there's been a signifigant increase in female composition in the 20th century (though i still can't name any off the bat). I was more wondering about the eras previous where women overcame gender barriers to make important contributions to art and literature but seemingly not music composition. It needs to be emphasised that the female role in performance - paricularly chamber music - in the 16th to 2oth centuries is crucial.

It wasn't long ago that people used to speculate as to why women weren't as good at maths as men. Now that trend is reversed, and (in Aust), girls are outperforming boys in maths and science, it becomes clear that one can't always attribute a tendency to immutable internal causes.

Probably, there aren't any such thing as immutable internal causes anyway. Think locally - if there's a female musician in your circle of friends, don't just automatically assume that they won't be interested in swapping techno talk, or software, or guitar licks, or whatever. And if you go to a studio or rehearsal room, just check out what they have to deal with from the engineer, the other bands, etc, the basic assumptions that are unspoken but constantly in operation, and start actively clearing the way to a more respectful attitude towards women in music.

http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp?composerid=2756

I've wondered this too - the most famous pre-20th C ones are Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, and they are always seen as "attached", for better or worse, to their more famous husbands.

Before them, you've got Hildegard von Bingen, whose music has been rediscovered over the past 20 years. A similar figure from a bit later is Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (also a nun who composed).

There's also Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, a keyboard virtuoso who was patronised by Louis XIV.

I think their are a few reasons for the perceived discrepancy between female composers and female artists/writers:

- The reputation of most famous composers rests on their large-scale works (i.e. Beethoven is most famous for his symphonies rather than his string quartets). Perhaps historically, female composers didn't have the necessary support or resources to have such works performed, and hence they may have not bothered to write them. In turn this is a possible reason why there aren't more who are famous today. (One of my favourite composers, Charles-Valentin Alkan, was a superstar pianist in his day but an oft-cited reason for his relative obscurity now is that he pretty much only wrote for the piano - no symphonies or concertos to boost his reputation).

- Contrast the practicalities of composing with those of painting or writing. I would say that composing requires more outside support (for actually getting works performed), and since this may not have been present, women may have been discouraged at various times from composing. This is also a reason why the most famous female composers have written for their own instrument (mainly voice and keyboard).

Consider- are most rock bands, or any form of art career, started under patronage? Boy-bands are, but aren't most bands self-started and have to struggle for a long time without recognition or profit, with a very tiny percentage ever getting a record deal or managing to make a living off their work?

Bands having a harder time with a record deal because of gender, that's a secondary issue where sexism might apply. But first, doesn't a hell of a lot of self-motivated work happen before a band can get a demo together? I would speculate record companies get a lot more demos from male performers than female.

You could blame socialization, with women being discouraged away from learning music, but that also seems weak. There were at least as many women as men in every high school elective music and art class I had. As kids girls definitely get a lot of encouragement to learn instruments, and even "traditionally female" activities from times past like culinary arts and sewing are more creative than "traditionally male" activity like sports and physical stuff. When it comes time to choose a career and do post-secondary education that's when it seems to change, I have noticed somewhat more males in art school.

I would peg this to a "path of least resistance" dealio, with women simply choosing careers that offer options males can't take advantage of and vice versa. Consider the issue of raising families, art careers generally barely support one person and are hardly secure. In fact the more predominantly male any occupation is the less secure, the more dangerous to health, the more risky it is. (with the compensation being more pay and more mobility.) The more predominantly female any occupation is, the more secure and better for health or family it is (with the downside being less pay and mobility.)

Consider how much poverty, failure and lack of creative control there is in art and music careers for every success. It's not a position of power. Male risk and male disposability in society are a better explanation than male power.

But sucka definitely has a point about mobility. Men are more mobile than women - especially if they either do not have children, or leave their children behind to pursue a music career. Also, there's something to the idea that men are drawn to high-risk occupations. Yet, though this may be something we can observe in the past, it does not imply that it will remain so in the future. Female authors were ridiculed four hundred years ago, and male nurses were ridiculed forty years ago.

In addition, there are exceptions to the general rule (there are always exceptions). Modelling is high risk and high mobility, as is theatre, ballet, opera and film. There have always been plenty of women in each occupation, as has been mentioned, I think, upthread.

It's possible to list many low-paid, and high risk, occupations that are predominantly female, as that would be most of them.

Conversely there are many occupations which are low risk and are still male dominated: law, architecture and medicine. There are also low mobility jobs which are dominated by men: the agrarian industries for example.

Not that sucka doesn't have a point. The tendencies he mentioned do exist, as general tendencies but maybe not as the sole or even dominant factor. I think we could point to a certain amount of defence by a given sex of their historical domination of a given field as quite a strong factor in maintaining the divisions.

That is to say, while the fact that most kindergarten teachers are female may be due to the historical fact that women have been primary caregivers for a long time, this in istelf does not imply that the rule is immutable, generic, or even intrinsic to the occupation. A well educated man can look after a young child. However: there is defence of the occupation along sexual lines. Men who aspire to be kindergarten teachers may find themsleves not taken seriously, or actively discouraged, as they run against traditional sexual roles (and for no other reason than this). This is the kind of thing women say that they face when they want to compose.

I wish I knew why these tendencies existed, but I'm clearly in a position to be confused because as a woman I basically never fit the traditional mold in many details. But I can say that socially, the things I was and am interested in were sort of tacitly discouraged. I wanted to be doing the same things boys were doing in HS and grammar school, like playing in bands, engaging in rough kind of playing, etc. but girls just weren't doing those things. It hasn't stopped me in the long run but I think it probably does discourage a lot of people.

The whole baby thing and impedance of mobility is almost certainly an issue, but one I can hardly relate to as I don't intend to ever have children. For maybe the majority of women around the globe, though, it's probably assumed that they will do so at some point in their lives. In the larger view of the world someone like me is probably kind of weird.

I would expect roles to be shifting further in the future, though, based upon what I've seen in the last few years. Maybe some of it is just due to old habits and trends being hard to break. I don't think that there is a fundamental lack of creativity or agency inherent in the XX chromosome setup (though it's associated with greater genetic stability and less variation to extremes, in general).

It has been, however, very difficult for me to find female musicians to communicate or play with, and that's just depressing and discouraging in itself.

I neglected to mention when I said more risky occupations are more male dominated- you can definitely find class differences. Health wise, it's blue-collar work- the majority of workplace injuries and deaths happen to men. However male-dominated white-collar jobs also involve more stress- ulcers, heart attacks in young men- huge amounts of overtime- and financial risks. Consider finance: a stock day-trader would more likely be male but a bank teller would more likely be female.

For the example "low mobility jobs which are dominated by men: the agrarian industries"... aren't migrant laborers mostly male?

"occupations which are low risk and are still male dominated: medicine"... consider that there's a lot more female veterinarians, but more male plastic surgeons- more female nurses, but more male ER doctors- with training, insurance, malpractice, and responsibility for patient health as the comparisons.

Nowadays the female contribution to the rock experience seems to boil down to articles in gossip maggys about the celeb/it-girl girfriend of a band's lead singer!!! Pah!!!! Call that progress!??!?! Gimme an all-female no-wave band anyday!!!!!!