Quote:
Originally Posted by AENeuman
First, thanks for the great points...
There's no female Lennon, Cole Porter, Dylan, Ellington, Clapton, Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, Tarantino, Spike Lee.
|
First of all, you're taking a subjective opinion about who you think is great and then saying you can't thinkof any females as great. But you haven't even told us or presumably determined in any methodical manner how you measured greatness and how these people meet that measure. by that standard I could say
"There's no male Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Georgia O'Keefe, Jane Campion, Barbra Streisand. Males have had any opportunity and haven't reached that level."
Neither argument has any underpinnings and so can't be debated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AENeuman
And many of the people mentioned above came from environments much harder than the average female of the last 30 plus years.
Lots of women have been going to film school, art school, music school and have had great opportunity to express themselves. Why has there been so little greatness?
If we accept this mediocrity due to an un-even playing field theory, why not apply to every social group?
|
I don't think the issue with women is that they're coming from a harsh environment. It's that they're in a culture that devalues the artistic input of women, discourages them from creative fields and doesn't let them rise to the top.
The arts are an area that are rather equal opportunity socially in the sense that artists often rise up from socioeconomic and ethnic classes that are otherwise not able to have a lot of economic opportunities. So, yes, people born in poor areas have been able to be successful artists. But I don't think anyone has the sort of bias against a poor black male artist that they have against a female artist.
It is accepted and established in our culture that black men can be musicans, that's an avenue that's acceptable. It is less so for women to be musicians. They are considered either a pretty face singing someone else's words, or someone parroting someone else's work, both things that have come already in this thread. There is a cultural barrier to accepting them as a real artist, just as there has been against women in all the arts for a very, very long time. It's not opportunity in the sense of being too poor to go to music school. It's opportunity in the sense of not being taken seriously.