Male > Female?

[Pachinko]

I just got out of a heated arguement with my "father", all stemming from Courtney Love's Dirty Blonde book, which I recently purchased. I'm absolutely not praising her, even though I adore the woman. Anyway, he was telling me of how she is a terrible role model and a trashy "ho-girl" and whatever. He was pretty much tearing her to shreds. He has also critized my worshipping of the Material Girl herself, another worthless "ho" in his eyes. The point? When we come to a male performer with even more controversies and issues under his belt, not a word. Not a single word.

Why is it that women are still not treated as equals in the music industry?
Madonna has voiced it out countless times, in her videos for "Human Nature" and "What It Feels Like For a Girl".

Opinions?

[Phate]

To answer the broader question, I believe that women don't get the same praise (whether deserved or not) as men do because the general opinion is that the vocal range (I doubt it'd be called that, but for lack of a better term) of women is less so than that of men. i.e., someone may be of the opinion that the variation in voice among men is far more than women, and that women singers in general are going to sound the same. A group or singer can have a wide variation in sound if the vocalist is a man, but if the vocalist is a woman then the singing will always sound "feminine".

I don't believe that entirely, but that's probably the mindset that a lot of people have that keep them from having as much interest in female singers than male ones. Most boy bands sound the same to me just as much as many girl singers (This is mainly in terms of pop singers, where I don't believe their vocal range isn't varied as much as they all feel sing the same crap because that's what sells). For the record, I love Neko Case's voice, and if you haven't tried her out I wholeheartedly recommend her (she's sorta alternative country I guess).

As for your "father" (why the quotes?), he doesn't sound like he fits the above hypothesis I gave you for others. His case sounds like a general bias in the way that someone would consider a girl that has sex with five different guys a slut while a guy that has sex with five different girls "cool".

[7Raven7]

That would be because Cobain is dead and Courtney is seen to be selling him out.

If the shoe was on the other foot and Courtney had been found dead and Mr. Cobain sold naked pictures of her to Playboy, she would be a fan favorite and his record sales would go down. Maybe.

[animanic_critic]

Don't worry; my parents too occasionally say something in the same line as your dad's about controversial stars such as Courtney and Madonna. I'm not too certain in your case, but for mine, it's a case of ethnics. From a stereotypical conservative Asian perspective, females are thought to be the goodie two-shoes between the sexes; the male being the rough-and-tough party.

With this in mind, I do understand why controversial celebrities such as Love and the Material Girl are always target boards for such verbal tirade from people such as your father (absolutely no offense intended to your father though). Yes, it sounds very sexist and prejudicial but I've seen this happen umpteen times. And it's more conspicuous particularly since Courtney, with all due respect, does look like a tramp with her drug issues and drinking binges and all. Plus, Madonna's much-talked-about antics with her parenthood and suggestive music videos isn't helping much to appease the conservative people.

I admire them for actually speaking out to their beliefs in music and entertainment, even though I personally don't always like their taste in music. Especially for Madonna, who I can safely say, since she's an icon and one of the most successful female artistes of all time.

[kyubichan]

To Pachi's post:

Not only in the music biz, but locally (I dunno about other countries), women aren't treated as "equally" as people (mostly men) say. I'm going to cite a local law, wherein when a woman commits adultery, she gets major punishment and stuff. When a man commits concubinage(sp?), only minor punishment like fine or a few months in prison. Sad, really. Another example is our former *coughcrappycough* president, Estrada. He outright has lots of kids from different women, but people still "loved" him >.> He was in office for years before his friends went against him. Even now, he still gets special treatment. Now the president is a woman and everything she does is put under a microscope from the first day she was in office. I don't approve of everything she does, but pitting them against each other, I wonder why Estrada wasn't so tried by the people and the media.

Now, in music, I think generally it's because there are more women going solo in the mainstream. And honestly, though they go "girl power" and such, they do dress and act...er...slutty; not really the image I want to be represented with. Female stars can wear revealing clothes but look chic (Halle Berry roxx XD not a singer tho), but most others don't know how to dress and act in public, and it's like they're just screaming for controversy. And the men, oh boy, all I can say is MTV RAP VIDEOS.

[Roark]

As a very, very general rule, I prefer female singers to male. Have since... well, ever. It's always bothered me that women singers/groups tend to get significantly less exposure than male groups unless they're "controversial," which generally means slutty or completely over the top in their exploits.

I've talked with a LOT of people who, at some level, don't think women should be in music at all, but definately not in rock. It's also bothers me the sheer number of young girls who worship rap/punk/metal bands that fill their songs with blatant lyrics about mysogeny and themes of male superiority. It's frustrating to no end when major radio stations (and other media outlets) hint not so subtly that events like the Lilith Fair (mid 90's) are just for militant lesbians. It didn't help that the some of the more outspoken proponents of those festivals fit that stereotype, but still.

Inequality definately exists between men/women in the music world. I can flip on the radio and almost never hear women. Most people don't know female bands unless they really look for them or unless the lead singer goes the Brittany Spears route.

That said, here's some damn good female band/singers in contemporary music:

• Tori Amos
• Sarah Brightman
• The Cranberries
• Sneaker Pimps
• Garbage
• Portishead
• Nightwish
• Lacuna Coil
• Jack off Jill
• B-52's
• My Ruin (Mana would kill me if I didn't include them >_>;;)
• Indigo Girls
• Tracy Chapman
• Kate Bush

That's just a short list; anyone who wants to add, feel free.

[Phate]

Originally Posted by Roark

That's just a short list; anyone who wants to add, feel free.

Originally Posted by Phate the Great

For the record, I love Neko Case's voice

[Pachinko]

Originally Posted by Roark

I've talked with a LOT of people who, at some level, don't think women should be in music at all, but definately not in rock. It's also bothers me the sheer number of young girls who worship rap/punk/metal bands that fill their songs with blatant lyrics about mysogeny and themes of male superiority. It's frustrating to no end when major radio stations (and other media outlets) hint not so subtly that events like the Lilith Fair (mid 90's) are just for militant lesbians. It didn't help that the some of the more outspoken proponents of those festivals fit that stereotype, but still.

I absolutely agree with everything in this paragraph. Like, everything; nail on the head.

Originally Posted by Roark

That said, here's some damn good female band/singers in contemporary music:

• Tori Amos
• Sarah Brightman
• The Cranberries
• Sneaker Pimps
• Garbage
• Portishead
• Nightwish
• Lacuna Coil
• Jack off Jill
• B-52's
• My Ruin (Mana would kill me if I didn't include them >_>;
• Indigo Girls
• Tracy Chapman
• Kate Bush

That's just a short list; anyone who wants to add, feel free.

A few of mine, mostly people you are to expect from me:

• Madonna/Madge/Etty
• Gwen Stefani
• Bjork
• Alison Goldfrapp
• Regina Spektor
• Fiona Apple
• Christina Aguilera (there's actual talent here)
• Amy Lee
• P!nk
• Ladytron
• Kelly Osbourne (some good songs)
• Idina Menzel
• Asobi Seksu
• KT Tunstall
• Corrine Bailey Rae
• Sinead O'Connor
• Tegan & Sara
• Blondie
• Courtney Love
• The Ditty Bops
• Missy Elliott
• Joss Stone
• Bow Wow Wow
• Lady Sovereign
• The Sounds
• Persephone's Bees

I had to stop sometime... >__>

And just to be clear, I was primarily talking about how men get away with much more in the music industry; when a women creates a video with, let's say, violence or sexuality (What It Feels Like For A Girl, everyone), it is seen as controversial and often get banned. But men can do it for some reason. That's BS to me.

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by Roark

That said, here's some damn good female band/singers in contemporary music:

• Tori Amos
• Sarah Brightman
• The Cranberries
• Sneaker Pimps
• Garbage
• Portishead
• Nightwish
• Lacuna Coil
• Jack off Jill
• B-52's
• My Ruin (Mana would kill me if I didn't include them >_>;
• Indigo Girls
• Tracy Chapman
• Kate Bush

That's just a short list; anyone who wants to add, feel free.

Add KT Tunstall, Norah Jones, Jenny Lewis, and Amanda Palmer. And I don't like a lot of Kelly Clarkson's music, but she does have a really good voice.

In music, there are fewer good male singers, but the ones who are good are REALLY good. With women, there are a lot of good ones, but very few really really good ones. And as Phate said, males have the advantage of a physically wider vocal range - I know guys who have five or six octaves to boast - I have to content myself with four.

Really, I don't think it's a matter of prejudice so much as a matter of personal taste. Personally, I prefer male singers - that's not to say that I don't have a hell of a lot of respect for my fellow ladies.

[Ieyasu]

You know, reading this is sorta weird for me. Maybe it's different in the US of A or something, but I never got a feel of inherent mysogeny in the music business.

Over here, people can't get enough of females in the music business. I mean, look at the spate of singer-songwriter type female solo artists:

Dido
Nelly Furtado
Colleen Bailey Ray (Or somesuch, I don't remember her name exactly)
Norah Joans
Sinead O'Connor
Amy Winehouse
Sandi Thom
Natasha Bedingfield
KT Tunstall
Natalie Imbruglia


Just to name some of the more popular ones.

Then you have Paramore and Lacuna Coil. Both rising stars in the music industry, mainly because their sound differs from the norm as they have female lead vocalists. If people have a bias against female artists, why are they so popular these days?

Then we have the fact that most radio stations in the UK have at least one female DJ, and the most popular for "youth" music (Radio One) had a female DJ (Sarah Cox) presenting their breakfast show for a long time. I don't know ratings for her show off the top of my head, but it was the largest they'd had before Chris Moyles came along. It's also worth noting she only got downgraded to the midday show because she took a lengthy spell of maternity leave, during which she was replaced by Chris Moyles, who turned out to be more popular. Mainly because he cracked more fart jokes and did more funny voices, but lets not go there, hmm?

He was pretty much tearing her to shreds. He has also critized my worshipping of the Material Girl herself, another worthless "ho" in his eyes. The point? When we come to a male performer with even more controversies and issues under his belt, not a word. Not a single word.

Is that suprising? I think you might be being a tad unfair on your father here. Not that I agree with him, but still.

People identify far better with members of the same gender (usually). You seem to identify much more with female performers, therefore, he trashes them.

If you were identifying with someone like Tupac, 50 Cent or whatever, he would probably trash them too. I imagine he would brand them as criminals, mindless thugs who glorify violence and mysogeny.

The point is, this isn't your dad being a mysoginist. This is your dad being a parent. Parents will always dissapprove of rolemodels their children take. Because in the vast majority of cases, what the son/daughter deems an acceptable rolemodel is not what the parent will deem an acceptable rolemodel. It really all comes down to how much times have changed. The overt sexuality of certain modern day female celebrities can be expected to offend the sensibilities of people who haven't grown up in an era when this was acceptable. This doesn't just apply to female sexuality either, it's a general rule.

Example: I idolise the band Alexisonfire. I think band members make good rolemodels because they are commited to what they do, they have musical talent and they often have to work hard to make a living doing what they do.

My dad on the other hand, thinks band members are shitty rolemodels because very few are successful in what they do, he doesn't like the statement their clothes and style make about them, the music they make actually takes very little talent when compared to other types of music and band members wouldn't know hard work if it cut their face off.

Differences of opinion, see?

Of course, I don't know you or your dad, so maybe I'm getting things wrong. But as long as he isn't a pathological sexist/womaniser or whatever, I think he might just be trying to do what parents are supposed to do. So maybe go a little easier on him?

EDIT:

Just saw that Madonna video you linked to, Pachinko. Boy have I got some stuff to say about this.

Basic Rundown of Video:

(Voiceover):

Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
cause its ok to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what its like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl

Well, first off: Bollocks.

You're trying to tell me for a boy to look like a girl is degrading? Get real. You think Johnny Depp is a sex icon because of his rampant masculinity? You think Orlando Bloom would be half as popular if he was an archetypal alpha male? I suppose you also think that the emo movement is so massive because girls like their guys manly?

Guys looking like girls (or looking markedly more feminine that in previous years) isn't considered degrading in the slightest. On the contrary, it's the new male ideal.

(Actions): Madonna drives to a retirement home and picks up an old lady. She drives around until she pulls up at traffic lights beside some stereotypical womanisers. She winks, before speeding off, turning round and ramming the car side on. She then parks near an ATM, gets out, pulls out a tazer and robs some guy withdrawing money from the machine. After this, she visits a drive-thru, where she tips the woman serving them heavily. Two cops notice the slightly odd sight of a bright yellow car with a very striking woman sitting next to an elderly lady. Madonna then pulls away, scratching the side of the police car with hers. The cops stare at her incredulously. She stares back. She then pulls out a gun and aims it at the cops. She pulls the trigger, and we discover it's just a water-gun. The slightly bemused cops try to give chase in their car when she speeds off, but she brakes sharply, causing them to run into the back of her car. She then drives into a few more random vehicles before driving across a game of roller-hockey (all of the players are male by the way). She wrecks another car. She then decides to find a less totaled vehicles and sees a nice red car parked in a garage with it's owner leaning on the back. She steals it and runs the guy down when he tries to stop her. She drives through the pumps, causing a petrol leak. She then drops a lighter into the petrol, causing an explosion. Cut to shot of Madonna's tatooed body while she pulls on a bulletproof vest, checks her many fake IDs and suitcase full of various unsavoury things. Before leaving her motel room and driving off. Cut to shot of the red car crashing full speed into a lamppost.

Ok, now let's try something, shall we? Let's replace the role of Madonna in this video with that of a strong male as opposed to a strong female, and all of the men in the video with that of women. Now read the above passage again.

It reads like a ****ing propoganda piece for some kind of Mysoginistic political party, doesn't it?

So why is this video acceptable? Because it's not a man assualting a woman, it's not a man ramming cars full of women, it's not a man abusing female cops, it's not a man running down a woman as he steals her car. It's a woman doing all of the above to men.

****, this video shouldn't have been banned because it's overtly violent and sexual (because it isn't) but because it's a blatant attack on men as a whole. The whole message of this video is something to the tune of "Men hate women, FIGHT BACK!", but (ironically) all it does is illustrate the fact that some people are taking feminism to such extremes, they think it's justified to hate men. All men, not just the sexist ones.

Now I don't believe for a moment that was Madonna's intention when she was shooting this video, I'm sure she had some sort of well-meaning point about how sexism isn't done with yet, it still exists in our society and we need to be aware of that, or something in that vein. But thats not how it turned out. It turned out like another examples of feminists beating on a soft target. That's right, men in general have become a soft target. Feminists can say what they like without fear of being challenged, because if they are, they can just yell "****ing SEXIST", point, and a whole host of people who support a very worthy cause will descend on the accused like a school of ****ing pirahna.

Case in point: This video was banned. Immediate reaction? Everyone accuses the people who banned it of being sexist.

I don't support censorship, but to be honest, I can understand why they would ban this thing. It oozes misandry from every pore.

(On a completly seperate point, nice song)

[Ninja Realist]

Originally Posted by Phate

His case sounds like a general bias in the way that someone would consider a girl that has sex with five different guys a slut while a guy that has sex with five different girls "cool".

I would call both of them sleazy.

Anyone who thinks women have limited vocal range should listen to Joanna Newsom who is absolutely stunning.

[Pachinko]

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

You're trying to tell me for a boy to look like a girl is degrading? Get real. You think Johnny Depp is a sex icon because of his rampant masculinity? You think Orlando Bloom would be half as popular if he was an archetypal alpha male? I suppose you also think that the emo movement is so massive because girls like their guys manly?

I beg to differ. What types of men are currently idolized in American culture? James Bond? Mel Gibson (was idolized, I still sorta like him)? Justin Timberlake? Sure, they aren't completely masculine. But basically men whom are characteristically more feminine (dressing, acting) are often criticized and mocked. So, I completely agree with what Madge was saying.

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

****, this video shouldn't have been banned because it's overtly violent and sexual (because it isn't) but because it's a blatant attack on men as a whole. The whole message of this video is something to the tune of "Men hate women, FIGHT BACK!", but (ironically) all it does is illustrate the fact that some people are taking feminism to such extremes, they think it's justified to hate men. All men, not just the sexist ones.

I never got that vibe. At all. I did see it as rebellion, which is acceptable. And possibly needed. I took is more as a female empowerment anthem, not a degrading-men anthem.

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

Case in point: This video was banned. Immediate reaction? Everyone accuses the people who banned it of being sexist.

Have you seen half of the videos circulating through the wretched MTV? Many male artists, before and after WIFLFAG, have been behind some pretty violent videos. Females are beginning to play it safe. Which is why I worship Etty. You brought up some pretty nice points, but I still feel like this song (and many others by other female artists) are "unacceptable". That would most likely not be the case if, say, a male were behind it.

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

(On a completly seperate point, nice song)

A nice remix. I hear it's great to have sex too.

The original album version sucks tho. >__>

[Phate]

Originally Posted by Ninja Realist

I would call both of them sleazy.

Would you? I never said the amount of time that passed between partners for the guy or girl.

[Ojisan]

Stevie Nicks > you.

[laborpilot86]

It seems that the last bastion of male domination (or at least control over the levers of taste) is the music business

A good example of this double standard would be the mini-rumpus over Bjork's clip for Pagan Poetry, which was all but banned on mtv. compare to Shake Your Ass by Mystikal(?) which got played on TRL. TRF-INGL! at four in the afternoon USA eastcoast time!