Comments on: Does the internet make it easier to be a female music fan?

By: Kathy

Kathy — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:23:11 +0000

I’m strictly a fan, not a musician, and have been on a number of forums since the late-nineties. I can say with certainty that I’m treated equally as long as I don’t make my gender known. Actually, if I go in with a gender ambiguous user name, I’m usually assumed to be male. (This could be because most of the artists I follow tend to have male-heavy fanbases.)

The sexism is subtle, though, a lot of the time. Mostly I feel as though I’m not taken as seriously, or ignored.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:03:23 +0000

Very interesting points.

A few years ago I realized that the majority of musicians I have met in New York (mostly through our freelance day jobs) are women. Generally around 30, playing in bar bands; from what I can tell, they’re not seriously dreaming of making it big, but more keeping some freedom and rock ‘n’ roll in their lives.

However, the majority of musicians I have gone to see, without having a personal connection to the band–in other words, the successful ones–are men. Still, I hope the situation is gradually improving. There is the Willie Mae Rock Camp.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:32:27 +0000

In the spirit of being perhaps a teeny bit more helpful, I’ll note that my (Holly Kruse :-) book chapters use what I saw as the most relevant parts of the earlier sources I cited, but YMMV. Mostly not about fans, but some about them. The Steward and Garratt book has a nice section at the end on girl fans called “Teenage Dreams.” All validate the good and sometimes different from men/boys ways that women/girls engage with pop and rock music.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:47:47 +0000

I’m not sure in which of the three possible venues to respond to this ;-), so I’ll go for here. Not so much a response, because of my current minimal brain functioning, but a few resources of old, most of which you may have already read. Some about fans, some about other women and girls in music, some about both. None about the internet, but about all the other stuff. So just in case…

Sue Steward & Sheryl Garratt, _Signed, Sealed and Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop._ Boston: South End Press, 1984.

Mavis Bayton, “How Women Become Musicians.” In Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds.), _On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word_. New York: Pantheon, 1991. (And reprinted Routledge, 2000.)

Gina Rumsey and Hilary Little, “Women and Pop: A Series of Lost Encounters.” In Angela McRobbie (ed.), _Zoot Suites and Second-Hand Dresses: An Anthology of Fashion and Music_. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.

Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber. “Girls and Subcultures.” In _Resistance Through Rituals. Eds. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Hutchinson, 1976.

And, with great trepidation, I might add, FWIW:

My section on gender in indie music in _Site and Sound_, pp. 138-144.

Me, “Gender.” _Popular Music and Culture: New Essays on Key Terms._ Eds. Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss. New York: Blackwell, 1999.

Me, “Abandoning the absolute: Transcendence and gender in popular music discourse.” In _Pop Music and the Press_. Ed. Steve Jones. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:13:08 +0000

That’s a very interesting post, and has angles that I’d never thought of, even as a female music fan. As a female musician I almost take it for granted now that people are going to assume I’m “just” somebody’s girlfriend/wife (well, I am married, but not to a musician). This bothered me at first, and gradually I came to realize that if I was going to be serious about being in the music industry, I’d have to get over it. Now I enjoy surprising people when I appear on the stage with my bass, and I’ve noticed that I get a lot more nods and eye contacts from the other musicians after I’ve played a set than I did before. I suppose that means I’ll continually have to prove myself, but right now I’m enjoying that.

Sadly, I’m not immune to sexism – I’ve found myself making the same assumptions about other female musicians. Sometimes before a show I’ve seen a girl hanging around and assumed she was there to work at the merch table – then she appeared on stage playing keyboards.

Ultimately, it’s human nature to generalize, and when most of the music industry is solidly male, it’s easy to make these assumptions. But I’d never thought of it in association with fandom, and the implications of being a female music fan. I guess I’ve never been close enough to a band to have anyone think I was a groupie. Maybe good-natured jokes, but guys make the same jokes about female musicians that THEY like, so I might not have noticed the difference.

Anyway, thanks for the food for thought.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:31:56 +0000

Great post Nancy…..