# Composing--No longer a boys only club



## José Herring (Jan 19, 2021)

This has been on my mind a long time. Now that the Gearslutz name is officially changing now would be a good time to post. 

Composing is no longer a boys only club. I've noticed the increase of women on this forum and in the field in general and with the successes of female composers in the world of film and television it's safe to say for now that the world of orchestral composing, scoring, ect.. is no longer a boys only club, perhaps in a short few years, not even a male dominated club. 

I'm here wondering in the light of the "me too" movement how we must now be sensitive to the ever increasing amount of members of the opposite sex in this field.

What could we do to not only make women accepted in this field but also welcomed as we have done over the decades and centuries to men?


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## chrisr (Jan 19, 2021)

Just be like you are in life generally, assuming that's not prejudiced in some way.


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## José Herring (Jan 19, 2021)

chrisr said:


> Just be like you are in life generally, assuming that's not predudiced in some way.


I am, but I will tell you a story. 

The last "composer" mixer I went to was about 5 years ago. I'm generally not a fan of these things but I thought it was important that I go to this one as the group was started on Facebook by a woman composer and it has a lot of women in the group.

This mixer was an interesting experience. I went to this one and though the evening was quite nice I left rather upset. Since that time I had meant to post on the FB forum my experience and have written the post many times only to delete it.

What upset me wasn't the company or the event. I was shocked to find why I got so upset. I got upset because every woman there when I introduced myself and wanted to meet them made some disparaging comment about how they looked. Only one didn't.

Now, I could have cared or less how they looked. They looked rather professional and well dressed to me and that's all I cared about. Nobody looked like a bum. But, every conversation I started with a women, went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm José
woman: Pleased to meet you my name is....
Ah great: I'm very pleased to meet you too.
Woman: I know I don't look as good as I do in my picture.

WTF!!!! 

I don't really care. How am I suppose to respond to that? 

Another woman mentioned that she looked huge. Of course she looked huge, she was about to have a baby! Even if she was huge, I still wouldn't care.

And, it just went on and on and on like that. 

I got upset not because of anything they did but because we're in a field that judges people by their looks and I could tell that these women in a male dominated field, how they looked was foremost on their mind that evening. 

I left early after the few obligatory selfies with the group because I was really almost in tears after about 1 hour. 

Me in my personal life have always been surrounded by women. So much so that I actually feel more comfortable with women than with men in a group. So, for me to be uncomfortable in a group with a lot of women composers was interesting.

I've had a lot of time to think about that night and I honestly don't know what to make of it. Did I do something to make the women think that I was at all interested in their appearance? Did I behave in a way that made the women think that I was interested in their beauty? I honestly am not. I don't bring that type of shit to a public event. I don't even bring that to social events or business mixers, ect... 

I generally treat men and women the same. But, I'm wondering if the social veneer leans in that direction and maybe it's time to change the social landscape.

Another story. I was at an event with film editors. There was one young women in the event. She literally had 5 guys flocking around her. I literally was telling guys to back off of her after a while of seeing this. One guy got upset like I was trying to "cock block" him from scoring with her. 

So as the evening wound down we were all sitting down, producers, editors directors so it was a mixed group of filmmakers and we started talking. One guy who was married started talking about how attractive this girl was, and I'm like, wait a minute. Hold up. You were just telling me you're married. He was like well just because I'm married doesn't mean that I can't find women attractive. I'm like, look dude. I'm married. I know for a fact that I'm not going to go home with that woman. So why, make it a night of trying to pursue something that isn't even going to happen? I personally just won't even go down that path. The young woman thanked me after for saying something. 

But that night got me thinking. Are women subjected to this kind of crap every time they want to network in this field? Is it something that they have learned to tolerate like the name "gearslutz"? If so, then yeah it's time to change that.


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## tc9000 (Jan 19, 2021)

When I watch the news I find myself commenting on the appearence of women news readers. That dress is odd. That blouse is great. Her hair is a little messy... WTF. WTAF? I rarely comment on the male news reader's appearence. WHERE DOES THIS SHIT COME FROM???? WHY DOES IT MATTER WHAT A WOMAN NEWS READER LOOKS LIKE?

I recently learned about microaggression: it's an interesting concept to chew over, especially if you happen to be a privileged white man.

I can see how people tire of "Political Correctness" and may say things like "its not a big deal", "I was just having a joke" or "you are over-reacting", but these people often forget this isn't a level playing field; when you are the privileged one, the one with the power, the _advantage_, that's how these things seem. Ridiculous.

But when you have had a lifetime of little shitty things happening, small disadvantages, minor annoyances... (or much, much worse), they build up and up and just like noisy neighbours or building works, we can tolerate a bit of BS, but prolonged exposure will lower your threshold. A lot.

Now I am beginning to see the importance of increasing my sensitivity to things like: am I upsetting someone? Is what I am about to say going make someone else withdraw? Are my words creating a chilling effect? If we don't take notice of these little things we will all be poorer as a result.

And that's my point: inclusiveness used to seem a bit daft to me, but now I can see it's deadly serious because I don't want to suffocate in a bland, beige, monoculture of privileged white men.

So yeah I do need to start questioning and self-correcting myself a bit, but boy is it worth it!


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## MartinH. (Jan 19, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Me in my personal life have always been surrounded by women.





José Herring said:


> I've had a lot of time to think about that night and I honestly don't know what to make of it. Did I do something to make the women think that I was at all interested in their appearance? Did I behave in a way that made the women think that I was interested in their beauty? I honestly am not. I don't bring that type of shit to a public event. I don't even bring that to social events or business mixers, ect...



Maybe you're just so damn good looking and charismatic that you made them feel inadequate or intimidated next to you? 
"I have always been surrounded by women" certainly isn't a sentence I've heard from men very often.


Also, you know this multi million $ VI industry that sneakily puts into our minds that our mockups aren't quite good enough and we need this latest new library to get the famous sound of XYZ hall that some A-list star always records in and finally make our mockups sound like the "real deal"? Ever noticed how almost no one here shares their own music, and if they do, many preempt the expected criticism with some self-deprecating comments like "this isn't mixed yet", or "just a quick test to try out X", or "don't mind the production, I'm still in the process of rebuilding my template"?
Well there's a multi _billion $_ "beauty" industry that keeps telling women they aren't looking good enough without buying their XYZ products that some A-list star allegedly uses...





José Herring said:


> But that night got me thinking. Are women subjected to this kind of crap every time they want to network in this field?


Somehow I'm remembering a video by Vihart just now. It's pretty depressing...


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 19, 2021)

chrisr said:


> Just be like you are in life generally, assuming that's not predudiced in some way.


I think the issue is the most problematic people don't think they behave inappropriately, so they read this and nod their heads, "Yep, just continue being myself," unaware that they make every woman they come into contact with extremely uncomfortable.

At some social events I've attended, when female composers or musicians introduced themselves, some people assumed they were there with their boyfriend/husband, as if they couldn't possibly be in music.

During the Orchestral Tools keynote on YouTube recently, multiple men (little boys, really) commented negatively because there were female composers featured. They also assumed the host was a "hired face" when she's actually an OT employee. The mere presence of women was dismissed as "woke nonsense". This type of blatant sexism and unbelievable stupidity needs to change, but so does the more subtle sexism and stupidity. It's tough, though, because half the men I've seen discussing this on various social media and forums this week want to dismiss any dialogue as overly sensitive or PC, as if there's something inherently negative about basic decency and striving for betterment.


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## Alex Fraser (Jan 19, 2021)

Amazing, the sh*t that some guys will come out with from behind the safety of an avatar and username.

In keeping with theme of the thread, I’ve worked with as many female directors/writers this past year as I have with male ones. Positive changes are coming.


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## asherpope (Jan 19, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> Amazing, the sh*t that some guys will come out with from behind the safety of an avatar and username.
> 
> In keeping with theme of the thread, I’ve worked with as many female directors/writers this past year as I have with male ones. Positive changes are coming.


Yeah it's ridiculously cringe inducing. You don't see Paul Thomson getting comments like "beautiful...just beautiful" and the 'heart eyed emoji' thing.


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## Jeremy Gillam (Jan 19, 2021)

José Herring said:


> What could we do to not only make women accepted in this field but also welcomed as we have done over the decades and centuries to men?


I’m sure plenty of males on this forum will be happy to answer this.

But seriously, thanks for your post José. Hoping for a more inclusive future as well, and I think asking this simple question, and then actually trying to listen is a great place to start.


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## CT (Jan 19, 2021)

asherpope said:


> Yeah it's ridiculously cringe inducing. You don't see Paul Thomson getting comments like "beautiful...just beautiful" and the 'heart eyed emoji' thing.


I guess you've never seen my messages to him.


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## givemenoughrope (Jan 19, 2021)

Mike T said:


> I guess you've never seen my messages to him.


"I'm very excited..."


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## givemenoughrope (Jan 19, 2021)

Speaking from experience as a guy, many guys are just idiots. Maybe they'll be less so when someone pulls this stuff on their gf, wife, sister, cousin or mother. I dunno. Ppl always find new ways to embarrass themselves often wo knowing it.


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## asherpope (Jan 19, 2021)

Mike T said:


> I guess you've never seen my messages to him.


Gotta slide in where you can I guess


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## antames (Jan 19, 2021)

I'm subscribed to different female composers on YouTube and it's really awesome seeing how well they are doing in a male-dominated field, and their experiences, stories and advice is some of the best I have come across. It's great seeing gender diversity flourish in music especially. Everyone deserves a fair-go no matter who they are.


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## José Herring (Jan 19, 2021)

MartinH. said:


> Maybe you're just so damn good looking and charismatic that you made them feel inadequate or intimidated next to you?


Not hardly. I just grew up playing woodwind instruments and in school it was dominated by girls. So I just got use to being around girls. Never any relationship involved, just being friends with a lot of girls. As I grew older that just continued and I find that I have generally and easier time with women around.


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## Christoph Pawlowski (Jan 19, 2021)

asherpope said:


> Yeah it's ridiculously cringe inducing. You don't see Paul Thomson getting comments like "beautiful...just beautiful" and the 'heart eyed emoji' thing.


Actually Paul does get kind of love comments (his "beautiful voice:emoji_fire:", for example)


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## Markrs (Jan 19, 2021)

I am new to music composition in general and one of the biggest surprises is the lack of women (I mentioned this in another thread somewhere) as music is universal. There are so many female musicians but you don't see many female composers.

It reminded me of a similar problem in psychology. In undergraduate psychology there are on average 10 women to 1 male studying it but at academic level this inverts and nearly all of them are man, especially at prof level. This can't be down to "talent" as that would keep to the undergraduate ratio. It has to be a bias, in academia and probably in society as well that causes this (academia is often not seen as supportive of those that want to manage a family and professional career, and most care givers and still in truth women).

I wonder if music has the same type of issues.


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## Henu (Jan 20, 2021)

asherpope said:


> Yeah it's ridiculously cringe inducing. You don't see Paul Thomson getting comments like "beautiful...just beautiful" and the 'heart eyed emoji' thing.


I'm a sole supporter of meritocracy and having been surrounded by musicians and composers from each gender through my whole life I sometimes can't understand this whole debate on the sex vs profession-thing. However, what you wrote is actually something I have witnessed as well, and it's incredibly fucking sad and disrespectul for the composer...and tells a lot of the low-life person bothering to concetrate only on the outlooks of a composer, no matter the intentions. Your refence on Paul was spot-on.

This being said, if there's one "male privilege" I can definitely spot and agree existing, it's being able to look like someone like me and getting (mostly) away with it. We guys have it _way_ easier in that sense.


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## Willowtree (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> This has been on my mind a long time. Now that the Gearslutz name is officially changing now would be a good time to post.
> 
> Composing is no longer a boys only club. I've noticed the increase of women on this forum and in the field in general and with the successes of female composers in the world of film and television it's safe to say for now that the world of orchestral composing, scoring, ect.. is no longer a boys only club, perhaps in a short few years, not even a male dominated club.
> 
> ...


My free complementary lifetime supply of spitfire products, thank you.

No? Eh, worth a shot.

Though on a more serious note... For any well intentioned men reading this...

It's okay to make mistakes. We all do. It's okay to get to know me. It's okay to think I'm pretty. It's okay to think I'm ugly. It's okay to be attracted by me. It's okay to be repulsed by me. It's okay to want to be my friend. It's okay if you can't stand me. It's okay if you want to kiss me. It's okay if you want to slap me.

Thoughts and opinions and emotions form whether we like them to or not.

It's not okay for you to hire me based on my appearance or attractiveness. It's not okay for you to act entitled to my friendship. It's not okay for you kiss me without my permission, and it's not okay for you to slap me without my permission.

If you've ever done any of these things, you may read this and think "I'm not a predator! I'm not a misogynist!"

It doesn't mean you are. We all make mistakes. You don't get to determine how others will feel about yours. But you do get to prevent yourself from making them again.

Be kind.


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## Crowe (Jan 20, 2021)

Having spent most of my life as a goth and learning not to care about other people's perception of myself and others I've noticed that the obsession with looks, status, gender and similar things is not exclusive to 'the male gaze'. Absolutely everyone, male, female, business professional, stay-at-home caregiver, it doesn't matter, everyone is obsessed with the looks and status of those around them, if not themselves.

These days I'm reminded of the Southpark episode with the racist flag where the adults see racism while the children see no issue on an almost daily basis. Maybe, just maybe, if we can all find it in ourselves to treat each other with respect and focus on the merits of our skills and personalities, rather than pointless things like looks and dress, this conversation wouldn't be needed.

As I sometimes remind my friends when I notice them slip:

Control yourself.



> What could we do to not only make women accepted in this field but also welcomed as we have done over the decades and centuries to men?


_Don't treat people like they're special, treat them like people._

It really shouldn't be this complicated.


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## Henu (Jan 20, 2021)

Shiirai said:


> Having spent most of my life as a goth and learning not to care about other people's perception of myself


Yep, coming from the black/death metal scene and "lifestyle" myself I definitely agree on this one. 

Another thing I'd point out concerning these subcultures: When being part of something like that, it is usually also more about "us" vs "the rest" - and that "us" has always included every kind of people no matter the gender, skin color or whatnot. It's all about _who and how you are_, and if you belong to this more "individually thinking" group of ours. Otherwise you are a part of the "mundane peasants" flock, heh.

Naturally, it affects greatly on how you perceive the world when you've accustomed to that culture for 20+ years. While at 42 I don't label people anymore on the basis of if they belong to my secret-handshake-elite-club of black metal, haha, but I still tend to make a clear border on "us" and "them" for what it comes to individualism, intelligence and devotion on different things. And due to this, I don't discriminate on the basis of anything that comes from outside, but only from inside.

Yes, I know it sounds elitist. Sue me. :D


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## Markrs (Jan 20, 2021)

Willowtree said:


> My free complementary lifetime supply of spitfire products, thank you.
> 
> No? Eh, worth a shot.
> 
> ...


Completely agree! Sadly in this world so much is judged on visual aspects, especially for women. 

If you are disabled, or of a non-white race, sadly even if you are taller (taller men are paid on average 20% more than shorter men, and generally get promoted more often. By the way I an not trying to say this as equivalent to what happens for women, just to show ridiculously we judge people). 

This is something we all have to fight against.


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

chrisr said:


> Just be like you are in life generally, assuming that's not prejudiced in some way.
> 
> 
> Alex Niedt said:
> ...


Yes that's undoubtedly true Alex. Hopefully there are also other people for whom the point is not lost.

An alternative answer to Jose's question about how we can act in our particular field in response to sexism and misogyny (and misandry for that matter) is just to call it out when we see it. That's still not really happening around here.

A couple of years back I spotted that there's a developer with a team of approx 30 creatives (composers / sound designers...) none of whom are women. I've just checked and that's still the case two years later - zero women in creative roles despite being one of the larger organisations in this niche field. To me, that's the sort of specific example that _could_ be addressed and called out by this community if more people were serious about responding to inequalities in our field. It turns out that actually most people don't want to piss-off one of our favourite developers by inconveniently highlighting this fact.


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## el-bo (Jan 20, 2021)

Markrs said:


> I am new to music composition in general and one of the biggest surprises is the lack of women (I mentioned this in another thread somewhere) as music is universal. There are so many female musicians but you don't see many female composers.


I wonder if it has more to do with the technological 'barrier' to modern-day composing, that might be skewing this 'statistic'. Females are still likely to be subtly (or not) pushed/influenced away from hobbies and pursuits that involve tech. Clearly that's changing, which is great.

I'm subscribed to quite a few female producers/composers on Youtube, who will no doubt be influencing a ton more girls and women to give it a shot.


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## el-bo (Jan 20, 2021)

chrisr said:


> A couple of years back I spotted that there's a developer with a team of approx 30 creatives (composers / sound designers...) none of whom are women. I've just checked and that's still the case two years later - zero women in creative roles despite being one of the larger organisations in this niche field.


This is where things get tricky, for me. What if they've hired the best people for the job? What if very few women applied, and none of them were even close to being suitable?


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

el-bo said:


> This is where things get tricky, for me. What if they've hired the best people for the job? What if very few women applied, and none of them were even close to being suitable?


Well of course that's where we have to exercise some personal judgement. What do you think the chances are of that being the case? Having sifted through CVs & interviewed candidates for sound design /engineering jobs myself in the past I think I have a reasonably well informed view on that - my view is that there are many well qualified female applicants. I think where the other thread a couple of years ago got to was to suggest that the UK & USA in particular are way ahead of the game in respect of equal opportunities - at that point it's hard for me to comment further as I've no personal experience outside the UK/US.


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## easyrider (Jan 20, 2021)

Jordon explains things quite clearly here

I would recommend watching the whole interview...


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## ProfoundSilence (Jan 20, 2021)

el-bo said:


> This is where things get tricky, for me. What if they've hired the best people for the job? What if very few women applied, and none of them were even close to being suitable?


interest is also a huge issue. 

One of my friends when I got into theory was great at everything, she just wasn't interested in composing. Incredible soprano, Incredible Flutist, was brilliant - and I always looked forward to her submissions. Then theory ended and she didn't write anything else - and eventually became a marine biologist. I touched base a few years back just to see if she'd gotten the itch and written anything, but the answer was the same. 

People like to bring up things like engineering when talking about gender disparity - but in the world of music, women are everywhere - and yet those numbers don't seem to carry over to composing. Even with greats like Walker, the interest just isn't there yet to actually compose. 

on a side note, the cringe that is youtube comments with anything Homay is another ball game. Who would have thought a bunch of guys who spend all their time alone at a computer act like they've never seen a conventionally attractive woman in their life. Streaming is worse, either you can't play games but are happy to flex your cleavage - or a bunch of thirsty scum harass you for being attractive and not showing cleavage, or if you don't use a camera at all, if they somehow stumbled on your channel they harass you imagining you look like a whale so you don't want to use a camera. I'd like to commend any woman who puts up with it and doesn't stray course, but at the same time - that's also why I'm against the cleavage streamers, as it just attracts the worst type of human - and fosters an enviroment where women can't just stream games.


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## el-bo (Jan 20, 2021)

chrisr said:


> What do you think the chances are of that being the case?


I don't know. My questions were genuinely from a position of no experience. 
I'd imagine that female representation in sound-design and the more tech side of composing is still going to be disproportionately low enough that at a certain point in time i.e when the company was hiring, that it might've been a possibility that the male candidates were of a much higher standard. Again, this is just speculation, but not outside the realm of possibility



chrisr said:


> Having sifted through CVs & interviewed candidates for sound design /engineering jobs myself in the past I think I have a reasonably well informed view on that - my view is that there are many well qualified female applicants.



If we go with the assumption that all the applicants (male and female) are all well qualified, what then? What if it turned out that all the best-for-the-job applicants were white, male, straight, cisgender and middle-class, who'd absolutely earned their place within the company? 




chrisr said:


> I think where the other thread a couple of years ago got to was to suggest that the UK & USA in particular are way ahead of the game in respect of equal opportunities - at that point it's hard for me to comment further as I've no personal experience outside the UK/US.



I absolutely believe in equal opportunities, but things start to get a little problematic if we are talking only about satisfying arbitrary quotas. If we really are talking about equal opportunities, then surely that has to include the example of the guy I used above, no?

Again...just curious.


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## Henu (Jan 20, 2021)

el-bo said:


> I'd imagine that female representation in sound-design and the more tech side of composing is still going to be disproportionately low enough...


Not so long time ago I was witnessing a sound designer position to be filled in a rather large games company. Guess how many applications were from females? Zero. While it would be cool to get more women to the industry, it's not that we can actually force them to apply for the job if there aren't anyone to apply in the first place.


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## Minsky (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> This has been on my mind a long time. Now that the Gearslutz name is officially changing now would be a good time to post.
> 
> Composing is no longer a boys only club. I've noticed the increase of women on this forum and in the field in general and with the successes of female composers in the world of film and television it's safe to say for now that the world of orchestral composing, scoring, ect.. is no longer a boys only club, perhaps in a short few years, not even a male dominated club.
> 
> ...


I think we shouldn't have to do anything that we don't do in normal life; that is - treat everyone with respect regardless of their gender / sexual identity


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

To quickly describe my own experiences of recruitment - back when I worked in audio post production I was involved in either directly interviewing candidates or at least long/shortlisting CV's (resumes) on perhaps 20 occasions for tech / creative roles.

Supply outstrips demand massively in our sector and so you can expect to receive hundreds of responses to a job ad. Also people speculatively forward their details on an ongoing basis - even when there's no job advertised.

I don't think I _ever_ looked through a pile of applications for sound designer / recording engineer / video editor that didn't include at least some women amongst them.


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## el-bo (Jan 20, 2021)

ProfoundSilence said:


> interest is also a huge issue.
> 
> One of my friends when I got into theory was great at everything, she just wasn't interested in composing. Incredible soprano, Incredible Flutist, was brilliant - and I always looked forward to her submissions. Then theory ended and she didn't write anything else - and eventually became a marine biologist. I touched base a few years back just to see if she'd gotten the itch and written anything, but the answer was the same.
> 
> People like to bring up things like engineering when talking about gender disparity - but in the world of music, women are everywhere - and yet those numbers don't seem to carry over to composing. Even with greats like Walker, the interest just isn't there yet to actually compose.


Understood! I wonder why that is. i do think it'll change, at least when it comes to the tech side of composing. 




ProfoundSilence said:


> on a side note, the cringe that is youtube comments with anything Homay is another ball game. Who would have thought a bunch of guys who spend all their time alone at a computer act like they've never seen a conventionally attractive woman in their life. Streaming is worse, either you can't play games but are happy to flex your cleavage - or a bunch of thirsty scum harass you for being attractive and not showing cleavage, or if you don't use a camera at all, if they somehow stumbled on your channel they harass you imagining you look like a whale so you don't want to use a camera. I'd like to commend any woman who puts up with it and doesn't stray course, but at the same time - that's also why I'm against the cleavage streamers, as it just attracts the worst type of human - and fosters an enviroment where women can't just stream games.


Haha! Can always count on Youtube comments sections. I hadn't noticed them on Homay's videos as I thinkI've only watched them from being directly embedded on Spitfire's site (I generally only click through to youtube if the embedded video doesn't support fullscreen, which all of SF's videos do). 
I don't normally watch game-streaming, but can imagine it being unbearable. The channels i subscribe to can receive really bad comments, but also really positive ones. It's a nicer balance


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## el-bo (Jan 20, 2021)

Henu said:


> Not so long time ago I was witnessing a sound designer position to be filled in a rather large games company. Guess how many applications were from females? Zero. While it would be cool to get more women to the industry, it's not that we can actually force them to apply for the job if there aren't anyone to apply in the first place.


Interesting! This is definitely an area that I imagine will improve.


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

Henu said:


> Not so long time ago I was witnessing a sound designer position to be filled in a rather large games company. Guess how many applications were from females? Zero. While it would be cool to get more women to the industry, it's not that we can actually force them to apply for the job if there aren't anyone to apply in the first place.


I know a lot of people in gaming, including some women, and at this point, most women are aware of how toxic the gaming world is toward them, both from the development and consumer sides, and understandably avoid it like the plague. Of course this consequently leads to a "guess they're not interested" attitude from the same men who foster a hostile environment.


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## Terry93D (Jan 20, 2021)

tc9000 said:


> I can see how people tire of "Political Correctness" and may say things like "its not a big deal", "I was just having a joke" or "you are over-reacting", but these people often forget this isn't a level playing field; when you are the privileged one, the one with the power, the _advantage_, that's how these things seem. Ridiculous.
> 
> But when you have had a lifetime of little shitty things happening, small disadvantages, minor annoyances... (or much, much worse), they build up and up and just like noisy neighbours or building works, we can tolerate a bit of BS, but prolonged exposure will lower your threshold. A lot.
> 
> ...


Reading this restored a little bit of my faith in humanity.


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## visiblenoise (Jan 20, 2021)

Some men definitely get fawned over. There's just more men in general in fields like this, and so there are more ugly men, and thus it appears as if men don't get the same treatment.

I don't know what my point was, I just wanted to call everyone ugly.


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

el-bo said:


> This is where things get tricky, for me. What if they've hired the best people for the job? What if very few women applied, and none of them were even close to being suitable?


I've been involved in recruiting and hiring in several professional industries, both business and creative, for almost 20 years. When you see 0 of example of a certain population (gender, race, etc.) working in an organization, it almost always comes down to one of two things:

1. Bias on the part of people doing the hiring
2. A lack of qualified candidates in the applicant pool for that particular position_. _(The applicant pool distinction is crucial -- these candidates exist, in the world at large, even if they're not in the stack of resumes being reviewed.)

The good news is both can be remedied by affirmatively going out and seeking a representative of that population to fill the position. Once that's done, organizational shifts begin to take place, and hiring future representatives from that population becomes easier, both by correcting any internal biases and expanding the organization's network. And there are countless studies that show that diversity in the workforce leads to positive increases on virtually every metric. 

So if an organization consists of 30 straight white males, they should consider making it a point to not hire a straight white male for their next role, even if that requires significant expansion of the applicant pool and a different approach to recruiting practices to expand their applicant pool.

A lot of straight white males bristle at the above proposal because they don't like the prospect of not being eligible for a position on the basis of something other than merit. To those people I suggest taking a step back and realizing that this is actually the reality for many, many people, and appreciating how massively privileged your life has been to this point for reasons which you had absolutely nothing to do with. And recognize that there are still countless opportunities available to you (and only you). It's hardly worth protesting. 

And I say all this as a six-foot-tall straight white male with a deep voice, aka someone who has every interest in maintaining the status quo. Enough is enough.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> I've been involved in recruiting and hiring in several professional industries, both business and creative, for almost 20 years. When you see 0 of example of a certain population (gender, race, etc.) working in an organization, it almost always comes down to one of two things:
> 
> 1. Bias on the part of people doing the hiring
> 2. A lack of qualified candidates in the applicant pool for that particular position_. _(The applicant pool distinction is crucial -- these candidates exist, in the world at large, even if they're not in the stack of resumes being reviewed.)
> ...



Hiring or not hiring employees on the basis of sex or race is illegal in the USA, the EU and no doubt many other places. The protections of anti-discrimination legislation apply to everyone, including white heterosexual men.

What opportunities in the music business are only available to white men? Tenor and bass vocalists, I suppose. But they can be any colour. Anything else?

If opportunities for white men were countless, as you say, all white male composers would be doing great for gigs. But the consensus is that supply greatly exceeds demand in the music industry, including for white men. How do you reconcile one with the other?


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## musicalweather (Jan 20, 2021)

Following this discussion closely.

I agree with others here that visibility and representation engender more participation. Speaking for myself as a female composer, visibility, and its negative counterpart, _invisibility_, can be a struggle. I'll illustrate with an anecdote: I was at a composer event, standing around in a group of mostly male composers. A new (male) person came up to the group and started introducing himself to everyone there, shaking each person's hand, one by one. When it came to me, his hand and gaze swept right past me to the person next to me. I stopped him, stuck my hand out forcefully and introduced myself. I don't remember his reaction -- the whole thing happened so fast, but I think he was apologetic.

My point here is not to wag my finger and be lecture-y. This was not a traumatizing event, nor a setback. Memorable, yes. I think it's just an illustration of how it sometimes takes extra energy and effort for visibility that others are given freely. Not being perceived and seen as composers when our male peers are is what is burdensome. And unfortunately, in my experience, this kind of thing happens a lot. I would love it if, when standing with a large group of composers, I wouldn't be asked if I'm a composer. (Someone once asked me if I'm a P.R. person -- _what??_). 

We're out there! Here's the directory from The Alliance for Women Film Composers -- 17 pages of names! Have a look / listen:

https://theawfc.com/members/

And for the record, I _love_ all the geeky, gadgety, tech stuff.


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> Hiring or not hiring employees on the basis of sex or race is illegal in the USA, the EU and no doubt many other places. The protections of anti-discrimination legislation apply to everyone, including white heterosexual men.
> 
> What opportunities in the music business are only available to white men? Tenor and bass vocalists, I suppose. But they can be any colour. Anything else?
> 
> If opportunities for white men were countless, as you say, all white male composers would be doing great for gigs. But the consensus is that supply greatly exceeds demand in the music industry, including for white men. How do you reconcile one with the other?



Hi Cathbad, you didn't ask me, but if it's ok I'll answer your questions.

Firstly, you misunderstand equal opps laws. If you care to google it you'll find that "positive action" as it's called has been legal in the uk (and i presume other civilized countries) since 2011. The bbc uses this method to hire minorities and thus enjoy the benefits of a truly diverse workforce on a regular basis.

Opportunities that are only available to white men are assumed to therefore be those within an organization who still demonstrably only employ white men.

As for you last para, there is of course a world of difference between being presented with opportunity and being capable of turning that opportunity into a gig. There aren't really "countless" opportunities of course, it's a turn of phrase as I'm sure you well know.

Hope that moves the discussion on.

Best,
Chris


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> Hiring or not hiring employees on the basis of sex or race is illegal in the USA, the EU and no doubt many other places. The protections of anti-discrimination legislation apply to everyone, including white heterosexual men.


As a licensed attorney, I can tell you with absolute certainty that whether something is legal or not does not bar someone, or even an entire industry, from actually doing it in practice.



Cathbad said:


> What opportunities in the music business are only available to white men? Tenor and bass vocalists, I suppose. But they can be any colour. Anything else?


It could be any position. I am referencing opportunities that, despite not being listed or publicly announced as such (which would be a violation of the aforementioned labor laws), will ultimately never be _filled _by anyone other than someone that matches a specific characteristic because of bias and/or systemic influence as they influence the hiring process. In this case I was using white males as an example as they had been offered before.

Note that this exclusivity does not necessarily have to be conscious/intentional -- I'm not suggesting that there's a conspiracy of evil individuals out there who consciously decide to only give jobs to white males. (Although these people undoubtedly exist.) Someone can be biased while completely unaware of the fact, similar to the ways that human perception of audio content is influenced by psychoacoustic mechanisms that we often have minimal knowledge or understanding of. 



Cathbad said:


> If opportunities for white men were countless, as you say, all white male composers would be doing great for gigs. But the consensus is that supply greatly exceeds demand in the music industry, including for white men. How do you reconcile one with the other?


No reconciliation necessary. 

Fact is, as a straight white male, you have more (I used the word countless but I was not being literal) opportunities available to you, often opportunities that many people aren't even able to dream of, and this is true be it music or almost any other industry. 

Composing is certainly a highly selective and limited arena, but not only do you have more opportunities within it (because you don't have to worry about being ignored, underestimated, overlooked, etc. at almost every turn) but, even if you strike out there, you have more opportunities waiting for you in a whole host of other careers and industries, and more opportunities for pay and advancement within them, etc. 

You may find some of these tests interesting. There's one on gender and career. 






Take a Test







implicit.harvard.edu


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## José Herring (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> I've been involved in recruiting and hiring in several professional industries, both business and creative, for almost 20 years. When you see 0 of example of a certain population (gender, race, etc.) working in an organization, it almost always comes down to one of two things:
> 
> 1. Bias on the part of people doing the hiring
> 2. A lack of qualified candidates in the applicant pool for that particular position_. _(The applicant pool distinction is crucial -- these candidates exist, in the world at large, even if they're not in the stack of resumes being reviewed.)


I'd like to ask for your very informed opinion if you don't mind. 

I'm going to take this a little away from the original topic. 

Full disclosure. I'm not white. I'm black and Latino (or Latinx, or whatever, I still haven't quite caught up to the fact that I'm not suppose to call myself hispanic). Anyway, over the years of working and meeting people in our industry I've noticed that people generally stick to their own kind. I never considered that really any particular form of racism or sexism but perhaps it is. Is that would you would consider bias, or do you consider bias just straight up racism/sexism?

What I do attribute it to is that people feel more comfortable in a tight work environment with people that are similar to them. I don't think it is limited to just race or gender. 

For example, when I was doing a lot of R&B music arranging it was almost all black people. I got hired to do the string arrangements after the producer met me. I think he was relieved that I was black. He even had one white piano player who was probably perfectly capable of doing the string arrangements but he didn't hire him and he said specifically, that he wanted to work with me. Even though back in my younger years I was probably a bit of an arrogant ass. He still wanted to work with me and hired me thereafter as well.

On the other hand, I've been in situations were I was The most qualified for a position and I felt that the guys majority white, didn't feel all too comfortable having me around. Not because they were particularly racist but because they tended to hire those who they kind of grew up with, reminded them of family. I was even told by one guy that I had been trying to work with for years, when he ended up working with another composer, he let slip that the composer reminded him of his son so he wanted to "help him out". 

I once worked for a studio and it was a late night gig. So I was gone at like 10pm and wouldn't come back until 6 or 7am type of gig. One day my wife called upset thinking that I was there at the studio like I was living some sort of party lifestyle. I consoled her by saying that honestly, I think I saw a woman here a few months back but downtown working in the wee hours of the night, I don't think any self respecting woman would come near this studio. Yet the studio owners would have never considered that as a barrier to their literally being no women in the place. Being me I'm sure they never even gave that a thought that a young woman wouldn't feel comfortable working in a huge building at 2am downtown with mostly young dudes running around.

So in your experience do you think that an affinity for ones own kind be a factor in why you do get a company with 30 employees with only one type of the species being represented? People just kind of gravitate to their own kind whether it be in a neighborhood, or a workplace.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

chrisr said:


> If you care to google it you'll find that "positive action" as it's called has been legal in the uk (and i presume other civilized countries) since 2011. The bbc uses this method to hire minorities and thus enjoy the benefits of a truly diverse workforce on a regular basis.



I did google it, and found the guidance on the government website here. 

_"The new positive action provisions mean that it is not unlawful to recruit or promote a candidate who is of equal merit to another candidate, if the employer reasonably thinks the candidate: 

• has a protected characteristic that is underrepresented in the workforce; or 

• that people with that characteristic suffer a disadvantage connected to that characteristic. 

However, positive action does not allow an employer to appoint a less suitable candidate just because that candidate has a protected characteristic that is under-represented or disadvantaged."_

This doesn't allow an employer to exclude demographic groups from the recruitment process on the basis of a protected characteristic, as @davidanthony was recommending.




davidanthony said:


> Fact is, as a straight white male, you have more (I used the word countless but I was not being literal) opportunities available to you, often opportunities that many people aren't even able to dream of, and this is true be it music or almost any other industry.



I suspect that what you're talking about is the opportunities available to residents of the developed world, compared to the Third World. Economics and luck of birthplace are the relevant factors, not race or sex. So let's not compare apples with oranges. 

*IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD, *what opportunities are available to straight white men - or any combination thereof - that aren't available to other social groups? If there are indeed so many, it should be easy to list a few.


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

I have a friend who applied to game development roles under her full maiden name at the time, clearly the name of a non-white woman. Little to no response. After marrying and taking on a very white-sounding surname and abbreviating her first name in a way that could be interpreted as male on her résumé, she tried again and had multiple contacts immediately. Night-and-day difference. This all took place within a few months, during which she was more than qualified and the only thing that changed was her name going from looking "foreign" and female to white and male.

It's easy to say "hiring should remain merit-based" when you've never even had to consider the various reasons hiring has _never_ been entirely merit-based. It's also easy to say everything's equal-opportunity simply because there are laws in place, as if those laws actually keep bias (especially unconscious bias) or discrimination from creeping into hiring practices.


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> This has been on my mind a long time. Now that the Gearslutz name is officially changing now would be a good time to post.
> 
> Composing is no longer a boys only club. I've noticed the increase of women on this forum and in the field in general and with the successes of female composers in the world of film and television it's safe to say for now that the world of orchestral composing, scoring, ect.. is no longer a boys only club, perhaps in a short few years, not even a male dominated club.
> 
> ...


If there's one thing almost no field will benefit from it's increased sensitivity. Coddling and over-protecting will always do more harm than good in the long run, unacceptable behavior is always unacceptable. However, if someone (man or woman) is being negatively affected by a humorous name it probably means they aren't very mature. It's one thing committing crimes, another to have a joke name. Don't really know why the word "slutz" will "harm" women who read it, if anything it's infantalizing. A slut, synonomous with whore is someone who will sell them self at any cost, when joined with Gear it makes sense. 

I used to think that the best thing for everyone is if everyone is as timid as possible and no harmful or potentially offensive word should be allowed, what happens when someone who can't hear an offensive word without starting to shiver goes out into the real world where bad things happen? The best thing for forums like this is just to be as meritocratic as possible, don't promote or ignore music from a man or woman just because of their gender. The rules should be pretty easy to follow, but since outcomes rarely are exactly equal there will be questions. 

What can we do to welcome and make women feel accepted? Use the simple rule! Here we praise good music, period!


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

Actually you're right about that @Cathbad. In pure recruitment terms they can't exclude or discriminate and stop, for example, white males from applying for paid positions. I think they can take positive action in offering interships and job training - ensuring that under represented groups become the most qualified candidates for future positions. In the long term it's hoped that it amounts to a similar outcome and it's to be applauded.

please forgive any typos - typing this on my phone in the bath...


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> I have a friend who applied to game development roles under her full maiden name at the time, clearly the name of a non-white woman. Little to no response. After marrying and taking on a very white-sounding surname and abbreviating her first name in a way that could be interpreted as male on her résumé, she tried again and had multiple contacts immediately. Night-and-day difference. This all took place within a few months, during which she was more than qualified and the only thing that changed was her name going from looking "foreign" and female to white and male.
> 
> It's easy to say "hiring should remain merit-based" when you've never even had to consider the various reasons hiring has _never_ been entirely merit-based. It's also easy to say everything's equal-opportunity simply because there are laws in place, as if those laws actually keep bias (especially unconscious bias) or discrimination from creeping into hiring practices.


People will always chose whomever they can relate the most to. The ones choosing most likely had English names. If it was in America, you think someone named Brianna Williams would get ignored as well?


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

chrisr said:


> Actually you're right about that @Cathbad. In pure recruitment terms they can't exclude or discriminate and stop, for example, white males from applying for paid positions. I think they can take positive action in offering interships and job training - ensuring that under represented groups become the most qualified candidates for future positions. In the long term it's hoped that it amounts to a similar outcome and it's to be applauded.
> 
> please forgive any typos - typing this on my phone in the bath...


Why is similar outcomes to be applauded?


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Anyway, over the years of working and meeting people in our industry I've noticed that people generally stick to their own kind. I never considered that really any particular form of racism or sexism but perhaps it is. Is that would you would consider bias, or do you consider bias just straight up racism/sexism?


That's pretty much the definition of bias. A bias is a preference (or aversion) to a certain group of people. So generally preferring a certain group of people that look like you, or share your culture, etc. is adopting a bias in favor of that group. 

We are almost all biased in one way or another. It's quite instinctual, and often it's not even conscious (people call this "implicit bias"). The issue is when we don't recognize the potential (or impact) of bias.

People can also choose to manifest their bias in extreme, or active ways, which is what I would call overt racism and sexism.



José Herring said:


> So in your experience do you think that an affinity for ones own kind be a factor in why you do get a company with 30 employees with only one type of the species being represented? People just kind of gravitate to their own kind whether it be in a neighborhood, or a workplace.



Absolutely possible. And I want to emphasize don't think this developer should automatically be branded as evil or racist or anything. It's entirely possible this wasn't a conscious decision of theirs. The important part is, knowing what we know now, that they, and everyone, makes conscious efforts to recognize their own bias, eliminate its negative impact, and affirmatively works toward building an actual meritocracy.


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

FelixDeepTerror said:


> Why is similar outcomes to be applauded?


Because the broad characteristics of those with power in society should ideally bear some resemblance to the broad characteristics of those that make up the society.


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> This doesn't allow an employer to exclude demographic groups from the recruitment process on the basis of a protected characteristic, as @davidanthony was recommending.


First, I absolutely did not recommend this. I said that the law does not stop people from doing things it says they should not. I do not recommend or endorse that behavior in any way.



Cathbad said:


> I suspect that what you're talking about is the opportunities available to residents of the developed world, compared to the Third World. Economics and luck of birthplace are the relevant factors, not race or sex. So let's not compare apples with oranges.
> 
> *IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD, *what opportunities are available to straight white men - or any combination thereof - that aren't available to other social groups? If there are indeed so many, it should be easy to list a few.



Views on gender and race aside, if you even have to ask this question, I think we're too far apart for constructive dialogue. Enjoy your afternoon!


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## José Herring (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> That's pretty much the definition of bias. A bias is a preference (or aversion) to a certain group of people. So generally preferring a certain group of people that look like you, or share your culture, etc. is adopting a bias in favor of that group.
> 
> We are almost all biased in one way or another. It's quite instinctual, and often it's not even conscious (people call this "implicit bias"). The issue is when we don't recognize the potential (or impact) of bias.
> 
> ...


Very good post. Thank you.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> It's easy to say "hiring should remain merit-based" when you've never even had to consider the various reasons hiring has _never_ been entirely merit-based.



Oh really? Here's a story for you. 

I applied for a vacancy at a very well known central European orchestra and was not even invited to audition, despite having plenty of work of equal standard listed on my CV. The vacancy was not filled, was re-advertised and I applied again. Inadvertantly, I made a typo on my birthdate, slicing many years off my age. This time I was invited. 

At the audition, there was a list of names _with dates of birth alongside. _Everyone was under 30. Age was clearly the selecting factor, because if they had actually read my CV with that birthdate, it would have shown that I gained my diploma at 6 and joined the army at 12...

I would like EVERYONE to get a fair shot without this kind of nonsense or any of the myriad other irrelevant factors used to exclude people. That's why I'm strongly against making exemptions to equality of opportunity on the assumption that someone is a member of a "privileged" group. This "privileged" guy might have all sorts of challenges in his background that have nothing to do with his white skin or male genitalia .


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Very good post. Thank you.


Thank you for starting the thread!


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> That's pretty much the definition of bias. A bias is a preference (or aversion) to a certain group of people. So generally preferring a certain group of people that look like you, or share your culture, etc. is adopting a bias in favor of that group.
> 
> We are almost all biased in one way or another. It's quite instinctual, and often it's not even conscious (people call this "implicit bias"). The issue is when we don't recognize the potential (or impact) of bias.
> 
> ...





chrisr said:


> Because the broad characteristics of those with power in society should ideally bear some resemblance to the broad characteristics of those that make up the society.


You mean that if group X constitutes 2% of total population they should make up 2% in whatever field? What would happen if we implemented that on, say the R&B, Rap and HipHop industry which is a majority of a minority group (in America)? Look at Spotify Global Top 50 right now, 8 out of the first 10 are "minorities" they certainly have power right? Of course a minority will always have less power than a majority (if skin color is a factor worth considering), the job of the majority. Again, I'm not against that people other than the majority should have opportunities, for me the content of your character is all that matters, but then again doesn't most people strive for this today? As the top 10 on Spotify shows, there will always be unbalance, but that is not always a bad thing (or even a moral question).


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> This "privileged" guy might have all sorts of challenges in his background that have nothing to do with his white skin or male genitalia .


Everyone has unseen challenges outside of their skin color or genitalia. The point is some people have those challenges PLUS challenges that result directly from their skin color or genitalia.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> First, I absolutely did not recommend this. I said that the law does not stop people from doing things it says they should not. I do not recommend or endorse that behavior in any way.



Glad to hear it.


davidanthony said:


> Views on gender and race aside, if you even have to ask this question, I think we're too far apart for constructive dialogue. Enjoy your afternoon!



You can't give just one example then? Other than the very dubious opportunity of membership in the KKK and other such groups, what chances are open only to straight white males in the USA? Just one example, please.


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## jon wayne (Jan 20, 2021)

I will say as a former jingle guy for eons, the people that got hired and paid were the ones with ability and a good attitude. Color, sex, religion, age or political party were not requirements. If you showed up and your talent made my product better, you would get calls til the work ran out. If you were in the list of categories aforementioned and quit getting calls, it was because you were a pain to work with, or didn't show up. Complainers, for whatever reason of the complaint get passed over...period. It's pretty simple here.


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> Oh really? Here's a story for you.
> 
> I applied for a vacancy at a very well known central European orchestra and was not even invited to audition, despite having plenty of work of equal standard listed on my CV. The vacancy was not filled, was re-advertised and I applied again. Inadvertantly, I made a typo on my birthdate, slicing many years off my age. This time I was invited.
> 
> ...


That's why many orchestras have blind auditions. Going into political tirade, spinning unproven sociology theories from the 80's to explain the lack of diversity is common these days, there are many articles from the common news sources (NBC, NYT etc) on why blind auditions should end. A lot of this that a big part of the west sees as unquestionable is based on political theories from the Frankfurt school (Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance for example, get visual equality by repression, affirmative action etc), I'm all for and have partaken in events to promote classical music to non-white groups (because I love classical music and think everyone should be able to enjoy it), seeing a good composer who is non-white is awesome (like Grace Moore) and promoting that is good. However, selectively filtering out composers based on their skin color is what is called racism. (If you wanna start the whole "racism to combat real racism"-discussion, let's remember to get some sleep)


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> You can't give just one example then? Other than the very dubious opportunity of membership in the KKK and other such groups, what chances are open only to straight white males in the USA? Just one example, please.


There seems to be no room for nuance in this question. Are you interested in actual practice or theory? The opportunities presented by companies/industries with a strong bias toward hiring white males are only "open" to others in theory, as far as any degree of equal opportunity is concerned.


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I'd like to ask for your very informed opinion if you don't mind.
> 
> I'm going to take this a little away from the original topic.
> 
> ...


As you explained perfectly, people are generally more comfortable with people they can relate to. It's indeed sad that both black and white people feel that their skin color make them strangers. The problem is culture, not that one is superior but that they are too different. One of my best friends who was adopted from Somalia, we went to the same daycare, elementary etc. Skin color was never an issue to us, other than "Oh you have lighter skin, lol. Oh you have darker skin, lol", since we grew up in similar households, cultures etc It's interesting to hear from African-Americans who "moved back to Africa" and feel like in heaven for a time, but then realize there's a lot they don't understand about the other culture. We are essentially tribal creatures, we will have hard times associating outside of our tribal regions, historically (pre civilization) people on the same geographical location looked the same and therefore someone looking too different will be deemed a threat and killed. Now however, we can associate with new people through the internet and so cosmetic details like skin color have no merit anymore. As the political war in American has show, when someone doesn't seem to agree with or understand a group's rituals (Trumpers yell MAGA, fraud and conspiracy, Democrats yell systemic racism and ACAB) they're a threat and rooted out (This is anthropology and tribal psychology in a nutshell).


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

FelixDeepTerror said:


> That's why many orchestras have blind auditions. Going into political tirade, spinning unproven sociology theories from the 80's to explain the lack of diversity is common these days, there are many articles from the common news sources (NBC, NYT etc) on why blind auditions should end. A lot of this that a big part of the west sees as unquestionable is based on political theories from the Frankfurt school (Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance for example, get visual equality by repression, affirmative action etc), I'm all for and have partaken in events to promote classical music to non-white groups (because I love classical music and think everyone should be able to enjoy it), seeing a good composer who is non-white is awesome (like Grace Moore) and promoting that is good. However, selectively filtering out composers based on their skin color is what is called racism. (If you wanna start the whole "racism to combat real racism"-discussion, let's remember to get some sleep)



Good point. If a certain group is over-represented in an industry, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are _not_ there on merit and that a "correction" should be imposed. 

Would anyone suggest requiring Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Ben Wallfisch and Alan Menken to make way for the under-represented gentiles in Hollywood film scoring? 




Alex Niedt said:


> There seems to be no room for nuance in this question. Are you interested in actual practice or theory? The opportunities presented by companies/industries with a strong bias toward hiring white males are only "open" to others in theory, as far as any degree of equal opportunity is concerned.



There may well be sectors that are majority white and male, perhaps traditionally relying on university fraternity networking for recruitment. But there are counter-examples by gender in nursing and education, and by race in sport. Everyone is welcome to try out for the NBA, I'm sure. But look who gets picked. 

Inclination and aptitude of the individuals are more important factors than systemic bias - as the range of successful Americans of all backgrounds in all fields demonstrates. I never got picked for the olympic sprinting team firstly because I never tried out, and secondly because the stopwatch goes too fast. There might be bias against people of my demographic, but if I could give Usain Bolt a close race you can bet any prejudice would disappear as quick as he does.


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## chrisr (Jan 20, 2021)

I'm not really sure how to answer your questions about RnB artists etc @FelixDeepTerror - ?? I'm sorry. I don't think anyone who's not into RnB should be forced into the industry or anything like that. Unless you're telling me that there are groups who want in but are being kept out in a discriminatory manner?

If I'm understanding you correctly - you're impliying that for the case in point of a company that hires all white male creatives that's because they consistently happened to the most qualified people for the job? Simple as that. If so then you're entitled to that view i guess.
I need to get some sleep now (uk) but will check in tomorrow. Happy debating everyone...


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> You can't give just one example then? Other than the very dubious opportunity of membership in the KKK and other such groups, what chances are open only to straight white males in the USA? Just one example, please.


You're so focused on limiting your definition of opportunity to "just one example" that you're completely failing to appreciate how much opportunity is generated every time you step outside your front door each day and don't get shot, catcalled, physically harassed, accused of theft, dismissed, or ignored, etc.

If you're content to point to the one person in every field who has overcome massive odds in order to succeed as evidence of a meritocracy, feel free. I've seen far too much for that to satisfy me, so I'm not going to debate it. Sorry.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> You're so focused on limiting your definition of opportunity to "just one example" that you're completely failing to appreciate how much opportunity is generated every time you step outside your front door each day and don't get shot, catcalled, physically harassed, accused of theft, dismissed, or ignored, etc.
> 
> If you're content to point to the one person in every field who has overcome massive odds in order to succeed as evidence of a meritocracy, feel free. I've seen far too much for that to satisfy me, so I'm not going to debate it. Sorry.



We are all thankful for small mercies, of course. But in fact, not getting shot or attacked is a common daily occurrence for very many people. I myself was not shot today, nor yesterday. Not even once. I'm pleased about that, but it's not a privilege arising from my race or sex. On the subject of violent crime, I should also mention that men are much more likely to be victims than women. Physical safety is a privilege that accrues to females. So in actual fact because I'm a man, I'm statistically MORE likely to be attacked than if I were non-white and female.

EVERY person who excels in a field has overcome massive odds. Like the last non-black Olympic men's sprinting champions for example - a 4 x 100m relay team from the USSR in 1988, I believe. By your logic, that would make sprint athletics systemically biased against non-blacks, which it probably isn't any more than Hollywood film scoring is biased against non-jews. 

Your proposition seems to be that straight white men, uniquely, face no significant discrimination barriers to socio-economic success and that any such barriers apply only to other groups. If that's not accurate, do correct me, and I'm quite willing to be persuaded that you're right. But your argument from anecdote and refusal to debate doesn't defend your position.


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## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 20, 2021)

If your industry is dominated by one narrow demographic, it reveals much about yourself when you claim that trying to diversify must mean letting in people who aren't as good.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> If your industry is dominated by one narrow demographic, it reveals much about yourself when you claim that trying to diversify must mean letting in people who aren't as good.



The Green Bay Packers first team is 75% black, 90% under 30 and 100% male. Why don't you volunteer to diversify them for the duration of a training session, and then report back on whether the players are there preferentially because of race or age or gender, or because of ability.


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## sostenuto (Jan 20, 2021)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> If your industry is dominated by one narrow demographic, it reveals much about yourself when you claim that trying to diversify must mean letting in people who aren't as good.


So glad to be a seasoned citizen, male, white, pianist /organist; long overwhelmed with diverse talents, no matter other descriptors.

Yuja Wang, Denyce Graves, Caroline Campbell, Tina Guo, Anoushka Shankar, Imogen Heap, Homay Schmitz, OMG ...... such a massive list !!

Sooo glad to be moving ( steadily ) past current cesspool of pot-stirrers, social media buffoons, _long list of others, w_ith no purpose other than detracting from goodness .... _far beyond their reach._


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## Mike Greene (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> You can't give just one example then? Other than the very dubious opportunity of membership in the KKK and other such groups, what chances are open only to straight white males in the USA? Just one example, please.


Fire departments. It wasn't that long ago that pretty much any fireman you'd meet had family (white family) in the department. They're great jobs (excellent pay and benefits, especially considering they don't require college,) so they're really hard to get. I'm sure people of color would love to have these jobs, but ... unless that black kid had a white uncle in the department, good luck. And even then...

The music world isn't that different. For starters, there's a whole lot of nepotism. Having the last name Newman, for instance, certainly doesn't hurt. There's also a whole lot of _"I know a guy,"_ where even today, men often have advantages. My entry to the TV composing business, for instance, was a weekly _"Boys Night Out"_ poker game. One of the other guys was a director doing a Hot Wheels commercial, I told him I was in a rock band, the rest is history. Unless a woman wants to hang out with a bunch of crude guys smoking cigars and bitching about their wives, she's not at that game, so she doesn't get that opportunity.

So it's not so much that there's a sign in front of Paramount that says _"Women and Minorities Not Allowed."_ Even without that sign, certain amongst us have an easier time getting in.


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## rmak (Jan 20, 2021)

Maybe one of these days we will stop seeing highlights that say "female composers," "female leaders," or "female business owners." I sometimes think that highlighting "female" sometimes does more damage than good for feminism. If we are all truly feminist, why are we highlighting "female" in any of these categories? We should just view the individual, whether male or female, for whatever uniqueness and skill set they bring to the table.

I am feminist and truly believe that women are just as capable as men, at least with tasks that are not physically demanding. Hopefully, as a society, we will move away from the need to always highlight that someone is a female. And on the other side of things, I also hope that women will fully embrace the idea of feminism because not all women do, or some women are only feminists when it is convenient for them.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Mike Greene said:


> Fire departments. It wasn't that long ago that pretty much any fireman you'd meet had family in the department. They're great jobs (excellent pay and benefits, especially considering they don't require college,) so they're really hard gigs to get. I'm sure people of color would love to have them, but unless that black kid had a white uncle in the department, good luck. And even then...
> 
> The music world isn't that different. For starters, there's a whole lot of nepotism. Having the last name Newman, for instance, certainly doesn't hurt. There's also a whole lot of _"I know a guy,"_ where even today, men often have advantages. My entry to the TV composing business, for instance, was a weekly _"One Night A Week Away From the Wives"_ poker game. One of the other guys was a director, I told him I was in a rock band, the rest is history.
> 
> So it's not so much that there's a sign in front of Paramount that says _"Women and Minorities Not Allowed."_ Even without that sign, it's hard to deny that certain amongst us have an easier time getting in.



Fair point. And I believe there was a historically a strong Irish presence in some American police forces. But today? surely not... 

I think what we are talking about here is not discrimination because of race and sex etc, but as you say - nepotism. It's natural that people will send opportunities towards others in their social circle, because those are simply the acquaintances they have. And then there is a legacy effect that takes a while to unwind. Jews in Hollywood is a good example. Often these phenomena are linked to waves of immigration, especially in America. 

Dividing people into ever smaller categories on a totem pole of favour or disfavour, then treating them as representatives of their category and not as individuals is A VERY BAD IDEA. History shows us where that leads. Meritocracy and the primacy of the individual is the only way. Disagree? OK who do we want to come when the house is on fire? The fat chick who can't swing an axe? The diversity hire who trained to standards lowered specially for that group? The fire chief's simple nephew who couldn't get a job elsewhere? Or just the best firefighters regardless of heritage..?


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## Sarah Mancuso (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> The diversity hire who trained to standards lowered specially for that group?





Cathbad said:


> The Green Bay Packers first team is 75% black, 90% under 30 and 100% male. Why don't you volunteer to diversify them for the duration of a training session, and then report back on whether the players are there preferentially because of race or age or gender, or because of ability.


So your argument then really is that white men are inherently more suited to the task of composing music, to the same degree that physically-fit young people are best suited to play sports. "Lowering standards" to hire those outside of your own group. Incredible.


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## davidanthony (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> But your argument from anecdote and refusal to debate doesn't defend your position.


I'll say it one final time: no interest in engaging with someone who manages to sum up my posts into reductive statements like this:



Cathbad said:


> Your proposition seems to be that straight white men, uniquely, face no significant discrimination barriers to socio-economic success and that any such barriers apply only to other groups


There is absolutely nothing I can say to "defend" my position to someone whose brain works in that way.


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

rmak said:


> Maybe one of these days we will stop seeing highlights that say "female composers," "female leaders," or "female business owners." I sometimes think that highlighting "female" sometimes does more damage than good for feminism. If we are all truly feminist, why are we highlighting "female" in any of these categories? We should just view the individual, whether male or female, for whatever uniqueness and skill set they bring to the table.


Feminism doesn't mean ignoring achievement. Highlighting women in classically male-dominated positions encourages other women (and young girls, very importantly) to pursue similar avenues, showing that the barriers of entry are coming down. This has a demonstrably powerful effect.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

davidanthony said:


> I'll say it one final time: no interest in engaging with someone who manages to sum up my posts into reductive statements like this:
> 
> 
> There is absolutely nothing I can say to "defend" my position to someone whose brain works in that way.



"That way" being logical and reasoned debate. I invited you to correct my summary yet you chose not to. You say you have no interest in engaging but continue to assert that you're right because you think I'm a horrible meanie (who had the temerity to question your opinion - that you made no attempt to argue for or defend).





Sarah Mancuso said:


> So your argument then really is that white men are inherently more suited to the task of composing music, to the same degree that physically-fit young people are best suited to play sports. "Lowering standards" to hire those outside of your own group. Incredible.



Deliberately and obtusely grasping the wrong end of the stick.

The Packers are there because they can play. If you or I turned up to trials and ran a good 40 and tackled hard, we'd be on the team too.

All those white men scoring movies are there because they're good at it. They'd soon be fired if they weren't. Or perhaps you disagree. Which white male Hollywood composers do you think have substandard skills and are there because of racial and gender privilege? Name some. 

There are many skilled composers of all backgrounds who don't find any opportunities in the industry. Do you think the female, gay and non-white ones are mostly excluded because of discrimination? Why are the many excellent straight white male composers excluded?


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## Mike Greene (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> Which white male Hollywood composers do you think have substandard skills and are there because of racial and gender privilege? Name some.


I can name a bunch that are definitely sub-par. (But won't, for obvious reasons.) Not big names, but in the B-level and TV world, there are a whole bunch of downright hacks. They're not necessarily there because of explicit racism or sexism, mind you, but again, my weekly poker game story is very common, which while not evil in intent, still carries bias to who's more likely to get the gig and who isn't.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> the barriers of entry are coming down.



I don't think that's true. 

A career in media composition requires a lot of expensive equipment and training. It's greatly advantageous to live near a media production centre: LA, New York, London, Berlin, Tokyo etc. All of this means huge expense.

Compared to the financial barriers, any obstacles related to racial or gender discrimination are much less significant. Assuming equal ability, a black woman composer living in California with wealthy parents will have it much easier than a white male Nebraskan from a working class home. The latter is unlikely even to be able to make it to the start line.




Mike Greene said:


> I can name a bunch that are definitely sub-par. (But won't, for obvious reasons.)


Oh go on, please. We all promise we won't say we heard it from you.


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## rmak (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> Feminism doesn't mean ignoring achievement. Highlighting women in classically male-dominated positions encourages other women (and young girls, very importantly) to pursue similar avenues, showing that the barriers of entry are coming down. This has a demonstrably powerful effect.


I am in total agreement with you, and it is important to encourage involvement of women. But after a while, labels or highlights like "female composer" can be distracting and take away from the efforts and accomplishments of composers that happen to be female. I was watching a spitfire live stream recently, and one of the questions posed to one of the guest female composers was "what is it like being a female composer?" Both of the female composers awkwardly paused, and one of them just proceeded to say that asking that question is like asking someone how it feels to be a human that composes. I hope you get what I mean; constantly highlighting that someone is female can be more detrimental than beneficial. Seeing the label "female composer" does not convey anything about the composers themselves; it's no different than saying a composer is tall, poor, blonde, or has 4 legs!


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## rgames (Jan 20, 2021)

Two important points that need to be raised in these kinds of discussions:

First, race, gender and ethnicity are indicators of diversity but they're not foolproof. If you hire a mix of men and women, blacks and whites, jews and arabs who all think the same way then you're not fostering diversity. Unfortunately, common use of the word "diversity" means diversity of race, gender and/or ethnicity but it's actually diversity of thought that is most beneficial to society. A group of white guys from various socioeconomic backgrounds is likely more diverse than a mix of races/genders/ethnicities who all have a pretty simliar background.

Second, it's OK if some traits are ON AVERAGE better represented in certain races, genders or ethnicities. We don't all have to be the same. Pushing the limits of human potential usually involves deep cultural roots (e.g. chess in Russia back in the day) which might also include gender-based norms. So it stands to reason that certain races, genders, or ethnicities emerge with "superpowers" in some focus area. That's perfectly fine - others outside that specific race/gender/ethnicity can learn from it and should be allowed to engage in associated activities without regard to the fact that they're not of the race/gender/ethnicity that developed the "superpowers."

The trick is to embrace that diversity, not ridicule others for it and not create a hieracrhy of "my good traits are better than yours". That's one element of discrimination. Trying to get rid of race/sex/ethnic differences is one way to address the issue of discrimination but the resulting homogeneity would make the world a pretty boring place.

Denying someone an opportunity because they don't fit the "average profile" for someone with a given strength is, of course, a bad idea because it diminshes the pool of human potential that society has to work with. But if it turns out that there is an "average profile" for someone with a given strength, well, that's OK. Better to embrace those differences and build upon them.

rgames


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

rmak said:


> I am in total agreement with you, and it is important to encourage involvement of women. But after a while, labels or highlights like "female composer" can be distracting and take away from the efforts and accomplishments of composers that happen to be female. Seeing the label "female composer" does not convey anything about the composers themselves; it's no different than saying a composer is tall, poor, or blonde.


That may be the case for _you_, but it is not the case for the young girls who are greatly encouraged by seeing women flourish in a field that interests them. So much of this conversation would be vastly different if half the men replying had ever sat and just listened to women discuss this stuff amongst themselves.




Cathbad said:


> I don't think that's true.


Shifting to financial barriers as a means of downplaying the actual barriers being discussed is "deliberately and obtusely grasping the wrong end of the stick," to use your own words. And have your hypothetical Nebraskan move to California and see what happens. I moved here from Missouri and had no problem being treated with respect while seeing qualified women taken less seriously.


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## rmak (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> That may be the case for _you_, but it is not the case for the young girls who are greatly encouraged by seeing women flourish in a field that interests them. So much of this conversation would be vastly different if half the men replying had ever sat and just listened to women discuss this stuff amongst themselves.


I just quoted the response of a female composer to the question "what does it feel like to be a female composer?"... You are taking snippets out of my original response to you, so it's a bit out of context. Okay this is pointless. You don't get my point. You can stick to your stubborn view.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> And have your hypothetical Nebraskan move to California and see what happens. I moved here from Missouri and had no problem being treated with respect while seeing qualified women taken less seriously.


But you _did _move to California, to LA to pursue a music composition career I assume. That means you have enough money to buy all the equipment and training required to enter the marketplace, plus money for living expenses, proving my point.

It's unfortunate that some female composers in LA are treated less seriously, but at least they're there. For every one of them, there are many thousands of male and female music lovers of all races who have no hope of getting anywhere near that.

And this is precisely the right end of the stick, because one of the themes here is privilege. We have a small number of female composers (and some males too) whining about not getting as much opportunity as they think they're entitled to... while sitting next to $10k worth of kit and living in the richest state of the biggest economy in the world with the globe's biggest media production centre. So it's not really a complaint about equality of opportunity is it? Otherwise the concern would be for the much less advantaged musicians who we might help. The focus is on grabbing more territory for one's own group at the expense of a group one is not part of.


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

rmak said:


> I just quoted the response of a female composer to the question "what does it feel like to be a female composer?"... You are taking snippets out of my original response to you, so it's a bit out of context. Okay this is pointless. You don't get my point. You can stick to your stubborn view.


LOL, I quoted your exact post at the time, *which you've since edited*. And I totally get your point, but I don't think harping on the negative aspects of a generally positive thing is all that constructive.




Cathbad said:


> We have a small number of female composers (and some males too) whining about not getting as much opportunity as they think they're entitled to... while sitting next to $10k worth of kit and living in the richest state of the biggest economy in the world with the globe's biggest media production centre. So it's not really a complaint about equality of opportunity is it? Otherwise the concern would be for the much less advantaged musicians who we might help. The focus is on grabbing more territory for one's own group at the expense of a group one is not part of.


This is such a thoroughly disingenuous argument. The expectation that your opportunity is not hampered by your gender is neither whining nor entitlement. It's a basic appeal to decency. Having $10k worth of equipment and living in the richest state of the biggest economy in the world with the globe's biggest media production center does not make one immune to discrimination based on gender. And concern for the less financially advantaged is a separate topic from gender, but certainly a convenient deflection when you're trying so hard to downplay the actual topic at hand yet again. And the focus is not on grabbing territory for a group at anyone else's expense, but making territory equally available for the qualified, regardless of gender. There is no need to overcomplicate such simple principles by spinning everything into a negative.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> This is such a thoroughly disingenuous argument. The expectation that your opportunity is not hampered by your gender is neither whining nor entitlement. It's a basic appeal to decency. Having $10k worth of equipment and living in the richest state of the biggest economy in the world with the globe's biggest media production center does not make one immune to discrimination based on gender. And concern for the less financially advantaged is a separate topic from gender, but certainly a convenient deflection when you're trying so hard to downplay the actual topic at hand yet again. And the focus is not on grabbing territory for a group at anyone else's expense, but making territory equally available for the qualified, regardless of gender. There is no need to overcomplicate such simple principles by spinning everything into a negative.


You are right that expecting not to be judged on irrelevant factors is reasonable, but let's have a sense of proportion. So a few rich women in California miss out on a few scoring gigs because a few guys are a bit sexist. Boo fucking hoo.

People get knocked back for all sorts of irrelevant factors. Being the "wrong" religion, or none; going to the "wrong" college; voting for the "wrong" president; being unattractive; being disabled; being a military veteran and many more. These can apply to straight white men just as well as anyone else. And there are people who directly discriminate against white people, or heterosexuals or men, because they dislike them. I've met such people. You can find plenty of their opinions online.

If you're opposed to discrimination, you _must_ necessarily oppose these types too, or else by definition you're not against discrimination. Do you? You seem only concerned with discrimination that applies to groups OTHER THAN white males.


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## rmak (Jan 20, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> LOL, I quoted your exact post at the time, *which you've since edited*. And I totally get your point, but I don't think harping on the negative aspects of a generally positive thing is all that constructive.


The edit to my post came before your response. I never intended this back and forth to be contentious as I said in my response to you that "I am in total agreement with you." I am sorry that you have to be in this sort of attack mode. 

I hope you can keep an open mind to your interpretation of things and ask yourself if there are cons to using the label "female composer" so readily? What is the message being passed to future generations of boys and girls that observe such labels and no equivalent labels for males?


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## Mike Greene (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad, you're getting tedious here. That's not to say some of your points aren't valid, but you're in _"prove them all wrong"_ mode, rather than a meaningful discussion. Given that we've been down this road before, plus I've got enough volatile threads to monitor at the moment, please take a step back and take 24 hours off from this thread. Thanks.


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## Cathbad (Jan 20, 2021)

Mike Greene said:


> Cathbad, you're getting tedious here. That's not to say some of your points aren't valid, but you're in _"prove them all wrong"_ mode, rather than a meaningful discussion. Given that we've been down this road before, plus I've got enough volatile threads to monitor at the moment, please take a step back and take 24 hours off from this thread. Thanks.


 Tedious as in difficult to refute.

A couple in this thread have been much more argumentative and intemperate than me. Will you be sending them to the naughty corner too?


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## Mike Greene (Jan 20, 2021)

Lets make it a few days. Hint - If I ask you to take a break from a thread, and I mention that I've already got my hands full moderating other volatile threads (this is a hell of a lot harder than you might think), then it's not a great time to try to drag me into a debate about whether I know how to run a forum.


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## Alex Niedt (Jan 20, 2021)

rmak said:


> The edit to my post came before your response. I never intended this back and forth to be contentious as I said in my response to you that "I am in total agreement with you." I am sorry that you have to be in this sort of attack mode.
> 
> I hope you can keep an open mind to your interpretation of things and ask yourself if there are cons to using the label "female composer" so readily? What is the message being passed to future generations of boys and girls that observe such labels and no equivalent labels for males?


I must have started replying before your edit went through, otherwise the quote would have encapsulated your edit. Honestly didn't mean to mix anything up. I don't know what the situation will be for future generations. But the current reality is some of us would like to bring attention to female composers to show the current generation growing up that female composers can indeed succeed in spite of sexist attitudes. Hopefully for future generations, the boys' club thing will be a bad, distant memory and these discussions won't even be necessary.




Cathbad said:


> So a few rich women in California miss out on a few scoring gigs because a few guys are a bit sexist. Boo fucking hoo.





Cathbad said:


> You seem only concerned with discrimination that applies to groups OTHER THAN white males.


Ah, there it is.


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## purple (Jan 20, 2021)

Cathbad said:


> But you _did _move to California, to LA to pursue a music composition career I assume. That means you have enough money to buy all the equipment and training required to enter the marketplace, plus money for living expenses, proving my point.
> 
> It's unfortunate that some female composers in LA are treated less seriously, but at least they're there. For every one of them, there are many thousands of male and female music lovers of all races who have no hope of getting anywhere near that.
> 
> And this is precisely the right end of the stick, because one of the themes here is privilege. We have a small number of female composers (and some males too) whining about not getting as much opportunity as they think they're entitled to... while sitting next to $10k worth of kit and living in the richest state of the biggest economy in the world with the globe's biggest media production centre. So it's not really a complaint about equality of opportunity is it? Otherwise the concern would be for the much less advantaged musicians who we might help. The focus is on grabbing more territory for one's own group at the expense of a group one is not part of.


Wouldn't you be pissed too if you spent all your savings on gear, airfare, and years of study, just to end up losing gigs because of sexism? Or racism? Or transphobia?

It also seems to silly to me to engage in "oppression olympics" rhetoric here. Women having access to opportunities they would normally have as a man does not take anything away from the men who can't afford to get to LA in the first place. I can't afford to move to LA either but I'm not gonna knock women who are there for fighting sexism in the industry. And this also seems to forget that most women in the industry or women who want to be in the industry are also just as unfortunate as the abstract "average joe" you are trying to defend... progress on issues like this affects _all _women in the industry, not just the few who make it into big budget hollywood scoring. In fact it probably helps out the nobodies more in the long run.


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## chocobitz825 (Jan 20, 2021)

So I had an experience that opened my eyes to the “boys club” subtle dynamic. I was tasked with a project that involved a theme of motherhood. I didn’t feel quite up to the task of creating this project as I’ve never been and never will be a mother lol. my perspective as a father would not suffice either. I wanted to get some sort of authenticity, so the goal was to gather a bunch of professional working mothers & players and producers for the project. people i knew who had great skills and also could give insight into the project and how various mothers really feel about the topic. 

the project hit a snag when it came to finding a producer. for marketing, I was told that if we didn’t have a grammy winning producer the marketing wouldn’t really hit. So i did a quick google search to find some grammy winning producers who might fit the bill. No luck finding a grammy winning mother because there has never been a grammy winning woman period. 

So this happened often where I’d hear you need to have a grammy winning producer to make the package work out...but if you limit your options to a group that women are not included in, how do you open this gate and move forward? from my circle it wasn’t an active effort to oppress women...but rather it was like all the men rushed into a room, and shut the door before the women came in and never thought about if the door was locked to everyone on the outside. 

I think its easy to assume that efforts to include women come down to a superficial effort to find any woman regardless of skill, but i think we’re ignoring the obvious part of our art and industry. We benefit from hearing a variety of stories. Every male composer is different because of who they are, where they grew up, how they were raised and all their experiences. We arent just hearing men composers, we’re hearing their stories, and their gender is one of the many things that makes them who they are. 

I feel like we’re losing out on the opportunity to not just hear the music and stories of women, but rather the variety of experiences many women have, based not just on their gender but everything else that makes them who they are. We dont get as much access to their work and total perspective because of often race and gender and that is just incredibly sad. So much incredible work we’re missing out on.


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## Henu (Jan 21, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> I know a lot of people in gaming, including some women, and at this point, most women are aware of how toxic the gaming world is toward them


I too know a lot of people in gaming- including a ton of super-professional, ambitious and career-happy women. I've been working in the game industry since 2004, and I have _never_ witnessed inappropriate behaviour towards women in the development world I've been working, but I guess my point is naturally negated due to the "if it hasn't happened to you, it doesn't mean it didn't happen"- argument. 

Where I come from, we are professional people working in a professional enviroment and if someone was actually showing some misogynistic bullshit, that poor idiot would just be laughed at and ignored. I couldn't ever _imagine_ that some of my (male) colleagues would actually treat women in any other way they'd treat their male colleagues.

And yes, I'm not saying it doesn't happen anywhere, but rumours and generalization doesn't really help anything.


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## MartinH. (Jan 21, 2021)

Henu said:


> I too know a lot of people in gaming- including a ton of super-professional, ambitious and career-happy women. I've been working in the game industry since 2004, and I have _never_ witnessed inappropriate behaviour towards women in the development world I've been working, but I guess my point is naturally negated due to the "if it hasn't happened to you, it doesn't mean it didn't happen"- argument.
> 
> Where I come from, we are professional people working in a professional enviroment and if someone was actually showing some misogynistic bullshit, that poor idiot would just be laughed at and ignored. I couldn't ever _imagine_ that some of my (male) colleagues would actually treat women in any other way they'd treat their male colleagues.
> 
> And yes, I'm not saying it doesn't happen anywhere, but rumours and generalization doesn't really help anything.



Was your onsite working experience all over the world or just in one country? Finnland if I remember correctly? I think northern European countries might well be a little further ahead in this regard than e.g. LA. If that's the case, then keep up the great work!

Also how much of it was mobile games vs AAA games? Afaik the AAA space is a little (much?) more toxic than mobile gamedev, because mobile games don't draw in the bro-type guys like a AAA shooter does, but I could be wrong.


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## Henu (Jan 21, 2021)

Finland, yes. But that's my whole point, that wide generalization -especially if it's based on rumours and "words from a friend" - doesn't work as long as there are places who don't fit to that generalization.

I've also been in various conferences and whatnot around Europe, but my location-based experience is narrowed to 90% Finland and Sweden.


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## MartinH. (Jan 21, 2021)

Henu said:


> Finland, yes. But that's my whole point, that wide generalization -especially if it's based on rumours and "words from a friend" - doesn't work as long as there are places who don't fit to that generalization.



I don't think the goal of such generalizations is to accurately reflect uniformity of a worldwide state, but instead to accurately reflect that widespread problems still exist, even if not uniformly spread accross the whole world.

To use an analogy - I don't see any Nazis in my neighborhood, but where they are, they still are a general problem. One doesn't invalidate the other.


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## visiblenoise (Jan 21, 2021)

Like a lot of things, I think that how an individual feels about this subject depends on their temperament. Let's assume that nobody still thinks sexism/racism is fine (an increasingly safe assumption). Some are happy if their conscience is clean and think, "let the [oppressed group of your choice] join us when they will." Others feel the need to welcome said oppressed group with open arms. Heated disagreement arises when the former is made to feel like some kind of monster, just because they don't share the same nurturing instincts.


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 21, 2021)

Alex Niedt said:


> There seems to be no room for nuance in this question. Are you interested in actual practice or theory? The opportunities presented by companies/industries with a strong bias toward hiring white males are only "open" to others in theory, as far as any degree of equal opportunity is concerned.





chrisr said:


> I'm not really sure how to answer your questions about RnB artists etc @FelixDeepTerror - ?? I'm sorry. I don't think anyone who's not into RnB should be forced into the industry or anything like that. Unless you're telling me that there are groups who want in but are being kept out in a discriminatory manner?
> 
> If I'm understanding you correctly - you're impliying that for the case in point of a company that hires all white male creatives that's because they consistently happened to the most qualified people for the job? Simple as that. If so then you're entitled to that view i guess.
> I need to get some sleep now (uk) but will check in tomorrow. Happy debating everyone...


I'd say this. If a company of orchestral composers are 100% white guys, that has a higher chance of being the result of a meritocratic process than if 20% were white guys, 20% white women, 20% black men, 20% black women, 20% asian guys, 20% asian women. Since the majority of people in the west are white and "composing" is seen as a male thing the majority of composers would be white males, the best way to change that if you think it's a problem is to promote the genre to more people. Should a company with 100% white guys be looked at for potentially breaking discrimination laws in their hiring process? Sure, all for that. Should the fact that there are 100% white guys be enough to draw the conclusion that the ones hiring are evil racists? No, a great claim requires great evidence.

You seem to have a very firm belief that the film music industry is racist in it's core and non-white people are antagonistically being kept out of it, I've seen no proof of this whatsoever. In my experience the music industry (from orchestral film to pop) is one of the most liberal fields in the west, find me one open Trump-supporter who also is a successful film composer? (I hope you can read that without jumping to conclusions). Of course people can be very different publicly vs privately. I think the "problem" (if you think natural imbalance is a problem) is that many people who have little relation with "white upper middle-class" people who stereotypically are the ones into orchestral music will feel like it's "not for them", it's not strange at all for people to feel this way. That's why I like events and promotions of orchestral music to all people.


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## chocobitz825 (Jan 21, 2021)

FelixDeepTerror said:


> I'd say this. If a company of orchestral composers are 100% white guys, that has a higher chance of being the result of a meritocratic process than if 20% were white guys, 20% white women, 20% black men, 20% black women, 20% asian guys, 20% asian women. Since the majority of people in the west are white and "composing" is seen as a male thing the majority of composers would be white males, the best way to change that if you think it's a problem is to promote the genre to more people. Should a company with 100% white guys be looked at for potentially breaking discrimination laws in their hiring process? Sure, all for that. Should the fact that there are 100% white guys be enough to draw the conclusion that the ones hiring are evil racists? No, a great claim requires great evidence.
> 
> You seem to have a very firm belief that the film music industry is racist in it's core and non-white people are antagonistically being kept out of it, I've seen no proof of this whatsoever. In my experience the music industry (from orchestral film to pop) is one of the most liberal fields in the west, find me one open Trump-supporter who also is a successful film composer? (I hope you can read that without jumping to conclusions). Of course people can be very different publicly vs privately. I think the "problem" (if you think natural imbalance is a problem) is that many people who have little relation with "white upper middle-class" people who stereotypically are the ones into orchestral music will feel like it's "not for them", it's not strange at all for people to feel this way. That's why I like events and promotions of orchestral music to all people.


You might need to reconsider the takeaway. Blatant racism and sexism are separate issues, but what many well meaning people might be missing is bias. A bias toward hiring like people. A bias toward promoting works from people only in that limited circle. Hiring biases are extremely common and because many people don’t feel it’s malicious in intent, that it doesn’t count as a problem. This need not be as political as people make it. It’s just a time for self reflection to see if we’ve been unintentionally blocking truly talented people from opportunity by gatekeeping in its various types.


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## FelixDeepTerror (Jan 21, 2021)

chocobitz825 said:


> You might need to reconsider the takeaway. Blatant racism and sexism are separate issues, but what many well meaning people might be missing is bias. A bias toward hiring like people. A bias toward promoting works from people only in that limited circle. Hiring biases are extremely common and because many people don’t feel it’s malicious in intent, that it doesn’t count as a problem. This need not be as political as people make it. It’s just a time for self reflection to see if we’ve been unintentionally blocking truly talented people from opportunity by gatekeeping in its various types.


To get rid of bias in people you either need authoritarianism (remove from view) or a lobotomy (remove from mind), using safety-measures against bias is another thing, all for that. If there is one bias in the music industry it's personal connections. Hans assistants all come from friends who recommended them, how many composer got a gig 'cause they knew someone recommending them? There could be a black person who knows someone who knows Hans vs a white guy who has no connection, who you think would get the assistant job?


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## chrisr (Jan 21, 2021)

FelixDeepTerror said:


> Since the majority of people in the west are white and "composing" is seen as a male thing the majority of composers would be white males, the best way to change that if you think it's a problem is to promote the genre to more people.


You know, I wrote quite a long thing this morning about how meritocracy is really a complete illusion when it comes to hiring people. Hiring is a really messy process which is all about soft skills, first impressions, future potential etc... it honestly has zero comparisons to running 100m - but then I thought - no sod it, step away from this thread - it's getting too toxic. Everybody knows perfectly well already about how hiring works in real life, without it needing to be explained.

This thread is really about sexism (re-checks title...) - racism seems to have come in as a side-issue, which I don't object to discussing - but lets not try to narrow in on that please.

If you're asking me - then yes I do absolutely think that both racism and sexism exist in our industry. Certainly _not _rampantly - about as much as in other areas of life I would estimate - I certainly _don't_ think the arts are any more virtuous than other areas.

I'm pinning your words above as a reminder to myself of where you're coming from.

Oh and there is_ zero_ chance - absolutely zero - that a large company can be perfectly uniform in it's staff demographic - whether that's an evenly split demographic (your maths is off) or a single uniform one, unless there has been discrimination, conscious or otherwise. The talent pool is such that at some point the best candidate presenting would be of a dissimilar profile. It's staggering to me that people could doubt that.

Chris


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@Cathbad - I know you can't reply yet - but I think you're highlighting that white men can also be discriminated against - and that there are some subtle disadvantages in society to consider like poverty/class issues. I absolutely take the point. In the UK there's been a well publicised stat for a few years now that young white males from a background of poverty are statistically the least well represented group in universities, and are the most neglected by the education system as a whole. Also - the arts, media and music in particular are not awash with people from a working class background. I definitely agree with that. Also I recognise that you were clearly discriminated against because of your age, which is of course equally as bad as discrimination on any other grounds, and I was sorry to hear that story.


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## chocobitz825 (Jan 21, 2021)

FelixDeepTerror said:


> To get rid of bias in people you either need authoritarianism (remove from view) or a lobotomy (remove from mind), using safety-measures against bias is another thing, all for that. If there is one bias in the music industry it's personal connections. Hans assistants all come from friends who recommended them, how many composer got a gig 'cause they knew someone recommending them? There could be a black person who knows someone who knows Hans vs a white guy who has no connection, who you think would get the assistant job?


To tame bias requires nothing more than us taking a moment to contemplate if we’ve let it slip by. if you mostly hire people you know, and most of those people are men, you arent necessarily hiring the best people for the job, you’re hiring the people closest to you. While that may work for you, you can’t turn around and then say that because it works there is no bias and the best most qualified people are occupying that space. It’s one or the other, either you hired the best there are or you only hired the best you know.

In my perspective and experience it’s worth some deeper thought. In my field of work in japan, few women hold top management positions and so many times I had to work with people who were absolutely terrible workers, while more qualified and skilled women were stuck as their subordinates. It was frustrating because the job could have been done better if the best person for the job, regardless of gender, actually had the job. Problem in japan is that more blatantly many women aren’t promoted because companies worry about what will happen if they get married and/or get pregnant.

its a messy situation but it doesn’t take a lobotomy or government intervention to improve it.


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## givemenoughrope (Jan 21, 2021)

I'm surprised no one has mention how this all relates to collaboration as every area filmmaking/media production requires some level, if not a ton of, collaborative effort.


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