But "very different" are not the words of factuality. "Very different" are the words of value judgement. Value judgements may indeed be "true," but they're not facts. Saying something like "Beethoven is a great composer," which is a value judgement (and doubtless true as well), and then tacking on [FACT] to it does not make it a fact.

And "feeling" that composing "may" be something that males are "plain better at doing" flies in the face of the evidence (and of common sense).

Indeed, the conclusion many people have drawn about women composers in a still largely male-dominated world is that their music is better, not intrinsically but simply because to get a hearing, to get recorded, women must put forward their very best efforts, whereas males (about whom there is no prejudice to overcome, you see) can get hearings and recordings of second and third rate stuff.

That's obviously an oversimplification--I merely note a general situation. The reality is of course much messier and contradictory. And it is equally obviously, I hope it's equally!!, only true for the more adventurous composers. That is, second and third rate composers of either gender can get air time on recordings if their music is nice and pretty and non-threatening (so that timid executives--probably all male--can feel that their investment will sell to equally timid--though not necessarily all male--music buyers).

And that, need I say it?, is also an over-simplification....

In any case, since women have been able to make careers of composing only recently (within the last hundred years or so), the odds are that they're going to be writing the kinds of musics that most listeners will either not be aware of or only aware enough of to have rejected as "atonal" or "noisy" or "experimental" or some such designation of fear and loathing. Hence the female composers of note (oh, nice pun, eh?) are going to be writing the same "difficult" and "displeasing" music that their male counterparts are writing, males who also come in for vociferous thumpings about the heads and shoulders for being so ugly and awful.

Heigh ho.

In my experience, the best composers working today are male some of them and female some of them. Long may that continue to be true.

I'd LOVE to be in the room when you said that to Joni Mitchell's face! And Carole King, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Loretta Lynn, Peggy Lee, Suzanne Vega, Carly Simon and Debbie Gibson!

They'd have your guts for garters. Dolly Parton would hold you down, Carol King whip off your trousers and Peggy Lee daub the Andante genitalia with glue, to which Loretta Lynn would attach a copy of 'Spare Rib'.

Unless you claim different rules apply when women compose popular music? If so, what's present, or absent, in the female human brain which allows her to compete with men successfully in bluegrass composition, yet causes her to go to pieces when scoring a symphony?

Why?? I really am interested in why such an unfounded sexist statement based on essentially no evidence just popped out of your mouth. That is absolutely ridiculous. Women have the ability to be just as intelligent as man (FACT), and just as emotional (FACT). And for that matter, just as musical - I'm at musi college and there are MORE women than men. So what exactly is it that makes us unable to compose??

The BRAIN is the answer, We are programmed differently, this is not sexist it is a biological fact, as you gain experience of life you will realise this, ask any normal married couple and you will find that we think entirely differently, and that is how nature intended it to be. I did not say one was more intelligent than the other, we compliment each other, and have our own areas of expertise. so, in the last 60 yrs, now that we have equality of the sexes how many Female Composers have made the grade?? I have been forced to listen to a lot of rubbish at concerts from both male and female composers because the promoters are told to include works by so and so , I have heard perhaps half a dozen works in the last 10-15 yrs that made the grade and were repeated.
Please look at it objectively.

Classical is a bit more complicated than the music written and performed by the Artists you mention above. You ask what is present/absent from the female brain, I would suggest that you study Biology just a tad more, or go to some of the online forums that go into this with much more knowledge than I am prepaired to venture.

I think this is basically a wind-up. Of course women can compose as well as men.

There will always be differences between male and female that may stem from their biological differences and the cultural issues that surround them. Men can't bear children; women can't make people pregnant (but they are in a position to control fertility) and much tradition, segregation (of tasks) and ritual surround that. I've heard recent arguments about why only a small % of women are represented at the very top of corporations. Inequality! some cried. But it was enlightening to hear a woman voice the view that possibily most women don't want to fritter their lives in such positions when there is so much else more worthwhile for them to do. In the workplace, men are far more about posturing whereas women are about getting a job done. (Which is probably why women can organise themselves far faster in co-operatives than men - they collaborate rather than compete (as a general observation)).

The unfortunate issue is that until recently, the professional administration of music has fallen mostly to males hidebound to their one-time dominance in the arts. Female creators have been allowed in more as a token, a concession, almost, to their existence. That's why female composers are so poorly represented at the proms, in my view. I don't think there's a single female on the list this year - not even the big names: Ruth Gipps; Thea Musgrave; Elizabeth Lutyens; Maconchy and I could add a few more.

Yet, look through the composers represented on contemporary music programmes: there are plenty of females. I attended a few of the Soundwaves Festival concerts this year and met some. So hopefully the breakthrough in attitude is upon us.

One of my composition teachers was a female.

"
Last edited by Frasier : Today at 13:13." (Ohmygod that'll bring bad luck 13- 13? I'll need to edit it again)

Apparently not. Andante’s claiming that women are biologically determined to be less able composers compared to men. The evidence to back the claim has not been produced but, it seems, exists elsewhere on the internet.

Andante: do you extend your theory of music genetics to other areas? Are black people, for example, genetically determined to have rhythm?

Interesting distinction re: word-usage, here. Does this mean that if Andante had said "The Male Brain is very different from the Female Brain. [Really. It's true!]," would you have then been more receptive to the statement? Are we making something other than a semantical distinction... or is it the text of the statement that's at issue?

I have no problem with the statement that currently, there is less obvious discrepency in the quantity and quality of female composers vis-a-vis male composers than there ever has been. Note that I hedged by bet by saying "less obvious." There may have times where this was equally true, it's just that they're not as widely known.

And yet... which female Art-music composer has had her works most widely circulated in the past couple of decades or so? Why, that would be ol' Hildegard von Bingen, who was born at about the time Godfrey of Boullion was saddling up his Percheron and departing on the First Crusade. Now, are there hidden gems among the distaff in every era, just awaiting to be discovered in spite our formerly prejudicial ears, or was dear Hildegard a "once-in-a-millennium" occurrence?

__________________
The hardest knife ill us'd doth lose his edge. Shakespeare- Sonnet 95

Isn't that being a tad unfair- Andante never said women are biologically less able to compose than men, all he said was that women, biologically, have a different brain to men. Can someone explain to me why that is sexist?

Now you're wriggling, on Andante's behalf. You're also paraphrasing him inaccurately. Note the second bit, highlighted in red:

So Andante claims:

1. Male and female human brains are very different from each other;
2. Owing to these differences, men do some things better than women, and visa versa; and
3. Classical music composition is one such activity which men do better than women.

So Andante has made a clear, unequivocal, claim: that women are biologically determined to be less able composers than men. So I'm not being unfair to Andante. I've faithfully reproduced what he wrote.

Sure. It's sexist because it condemns women, on grounds of biology and genetics, never to equal men in the field of classical music composition. No evidence is produced to support the claim, beyond an invitation to look on the internet. So it’s a claim backed by bigotry. It's analogous to the apartheid ‘scientist’ claim (without evidence) that black people have smaller brains than whites, or Josef Mengele seeking to prove, in Auswitch, that Jewish people are venal, untrustworthy and overly-libidinous.

In other words, it’s the worst sort of sexism, backed by bigotry - believing something to be true without evidence - which a man is capable of producing. If such beliefs are widespread in the classical music hierarchy it explains, at a stroke, why female composers have a hard time.

Fair point. However, he did just say
"there are some things that either sex is just plain better at doing compared to their opposites, I feel that composition may be one of them. "
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this statement is correct, I just don't think he was saying "Men are better at composing than women.". From here it sounded like a suggestion, not a belief.
I'm totally against discrimination, but for the people who do find this sexist I don't believe Andante was trying to be sexist when he said it.

Anyway, thanks for a very calm and intelligent answer purple. I appreciate that.

Au contraire, mon vieux. The distinction between fact and value judgement (or opinion) is a fairly common, ordinary one. A fact is a particular kind of statement that uses certain kinds of words. It can be either false (a horse is a plant) or true (I typed this on an HP laptop).

A value judgment uses different kinds of words, evaluative ones. It is a conclusion which is (or should be!) based on facts, but is not itself one. My house is a mess, for instance, is a value judgment, a conclusion based on such facts as the dirty dishes in the sink, the miscellaneous papers strewn about every flat surface, the clothes both clean and dirty scattered about the bedroom (and kitchen, too, I just noticed!), the dust balls rolling gently about the floor.

So it's not a matter of my receptivity but of a fundamental distinction between types. Andante made one type of statement (value judgment) and labeled it as another type of statement (fact), that's all.

Comprendez-vous?

Purple99 Re your post #25

You are misquoting i.e.,

You said “3. Classical music composition is one such activity which men do better than women“.
Now what I said is ,
‘ I feel that composition may be one of them.’

You said ‘Sure. It's sexist because it condemns women, on grounds of biology and genetics, never to equal men in the field of classical music composition. No evidence is produced to support the claim’

You are twisting things again, So, Re evidence, again over the past 60 yrs how many Woman have made the grade as Composers and who are they?

You say ‘In other words, it’s the worst sort of sexism, backed by bigotry - believing something to be true without evidence - which a man is capable of producing.’

Now that comment could be classed as sexist!

This is a discussion in answer to a question by David C Coleman go back and read post #1, I have given my reply and reasons, you do not agree but offer no proof to the contrary, quite honestly if you do not accept that men and women are different, you are going to be in for a few surprises,

I apologize to Purple99 for butting in with an answer to this, but the first time it was asked, it was asked of any of us. Besides, it's also been answered many times before, as Andante is probably aware of.

But let's pretend he really doesn't know:

Eliane Radigue
Pauline Oliveros
Beatriz Ferreyra
Elsa Justel
Alice Shields
Zeena Parkins
Annette Vande Gorne
Michele Bokanowski
Natasha Barrett
Elainie Lillios
Anna Clyne
Joan Tower
Chaya Czernowin
Ana-Maria Avram
Roxanne Turcotte
Christine Groult
Meredith Monk
Christina Kubisch
Karin Rehnqvist
Iris ter Schiphorst
Sofia Gubaidulina
Rebecca Saunders
Isabel Mundry
Olga Neuwirth
Sabine Schaefer
Brigitte Robindore
Lissa Meridan
Margaret Brouwer
Unsuk Chin
Hilda Paredes
Frances-Marie Uitti
Francoise Barriere
Suzanne Dycus-Gendreau
Annette Schluenz
Elena Katz-Chernin
Else Marie Pade

I have confined myself to people I know and/or whose CDs I own, people who are still alive (so far as I know), and who are established composers. (I know a lot of up and comers, too (like Diane Simpson), and there are all those people who have worked within the past 60 years but who have died (like Galina Ustvolskaya).

Hi some guy, Sure there are thousands of composers but are these the best composers that you can come up with that made the grade? Because quite honestly until I googled them they were all unknown to me and I have not heard any of their works, on CD, Radio or at a concert, so as far as I am concerned they have not made it, compare them to Part, Cage, Tavener. Etc.
Also you missed out Gillian Whitehead and could have given Lili Boulanger a plug.