WEEK7 - Forum: Gender in Music Technology #1

Ben: Gender in Music (and the Lack of Female Interest)

Nerd image unappealling?

The idea of hard and fast mastery brings to mind the artists in my Collaborations presentation, all of them men. Steely Dan have a Hard (planned) approach where as Frank Zappa had a Hard/Soft approach (complete idea but open to input during recording and performance) and others have a Soft (intuitive) approach, more often in band settings; definitely in some jazz and other improvised forms. Does this have anything to do with gender? I wonder if the approaches of Laurie Anderson or Pink are hard or soft?

Good presentation with lots of facts and info sheet for further research.

"A rapidly expanding system of networks, collectively known as the Internet, links millions of people together in new spaces that are changing the way we think, the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities, our very identities." (1)

"Dr. Turkle is Director, MIT Initiative on Technology and Self and Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology." (2)

Doug: Men are from the Lab, Women are from the Kitchen

Do men prefer to tinker? I love to tinker. But I don't think of it as being because I am a man. It is just something I've always loved. Women should do a lot more of it. It's fun! Both genders originally gathered nuts and berries.

Marching off to design some whitegoods ...

Amy: Is gender specific?

Skill is the only criteria? Agreed. But what gender generally designs and decides the criteria? The ball was set in motion long ago when men were the ones that could manipulate heavy machinery required for fabrication. Therefore, they designed stove tops and other annoying white goods that are really hard to clean.

Jacob: Why should you tell the difference?

Indeed. Again, agreed. Is the difference in the telling?

Ikea has a good gender split of designers and their furniture is famous for its functionality and ergonomics, although their instruction manuals are problematic (3). Intelligent Swedish design or a focus on skill, quality and functionality? Some societies have very different social norms to the Australian and American models! (4)

Maybe if females had a hand in hardware design, statistics would shift accordingly. Maybe they've other things to do ...

References:

Music Technology Forum - Week 7 Student Seminar
Topic: "Can you tell the difference? Gender in Music Technology." EMU, University of Adelaide, 26/4/2007.
Facilitator/Wrangler: Stephen Whittington
Presenters: Ben Probert, Douglas Loudon, Amy Sincock, Jacob Morris

1/ Turkle, Sherry. Brainstorms: Rheingold Mind to Mind with Sherry Turkle.
http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/mindtomind/turkle1.html (accessed 27/4/2007)

2/ Photograph & background: KurzweilAI.net. 'Big Thinkers - Sherry Turkle'
http://www.kurzweilai.net/bios/frame.html?main=/bios/bio0047.html? (accessed 27/4/2007)

3/ http://www.msmusings.net/archives/2005/03/next_up_what_to.html
(accessed 27/4/2007)

4/
http://journals.aol.com/gayesteditorever/WorthRepeating/entries/2007/01/05/gays-star-in-ikea-ad-again/587
(accessed 27/4/2007)