Modern women and creativity

[AENeuman]

I'm creating a cultural geography class and was looking at some themes, got thinking about the influence of women...

Why have modern women not been as successful creatively as they have been, for instance, politically?

I would say over at least the last 50 years many women have had a good opportunity and luxury to learn and create. However, the number of great women writers, artists, musicians, directors have been minimal (especially compared to the number of great female politicians and scientists).

Is this a nature/nurture thing? Is our society so successful in teaching roles, likes, and attitudes that it is nearly impossible to break from it? Or is it nature. Women do and like the things they do because it is natural for them?

Or, is my notion of success/creativity just male centered? A women does not see the creative output of men as something they need to mimic.

[Mustang]

What are you basing greatness on?

[I. J. Reilly]

So you don't consider fashion designers artists?

[MikeVic]

I think with directors you have a point... But I believe there are some successful women writers out there (J.K. Rowling for one), and musicians definitely. Maybe being a director is just something that women don't care too much about, so you don't see many "great" ones?

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by I. J. Reilly

So you don't consider fashion designers artists?

My guess that his last statement is correct in that he is very male centered in his definition of greatness in creativity and there are alot of different areas of creativity that he isn't even examining.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by I. J. Reilly

So you don't consider fashion designers artists?

But if you ask 100 people to name five designers of the past 50 years, I'd bet the majority of people will name mostly male designers, not female. No matter what he thinks of them, I think that category still falls under the same general conditions he's citing, just to a lesser degree than some of the others.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

Why have modern women not been as successful creatively as they have been, for instance, politically?

While I just finished trying to sort of argue on your behalf about the fashion designer thing, I'm almost bewildered that you seem to be putting women's political success ahead of their creative successes. I wouldn't even think that's close over the past 50 years & that the creative successes far far far exceed any political successes.

edit to add: For example, Oprah, Martha Stewart, and Danielle Steele are just three examples from the past 20 years of staggering success in their particular niches.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

However, the number of great women writers, artists, musicians, directors have been minimal (especially compared to the number of great female politicians and scientists).

Directors sure, but that's not as much a statement on creativity as it is an 'old boys club' that women are still struggling to break through.

As for the rest... huh?? Women are all over the place in music and writing, music especially. God you could spend hours listing female musicians nowadays.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

While I just finished trying to sort of argue on your behalf about the fashion designer thing, I'm almost bewildered that you seem to be putting women's political success ahead of their creative successes. I wouldn't even think that's close over the past 50 years & that the creative successes far far far exceed any political successes.

edit to add: For example, Oprah, Martha Stewart, and Danielle Steele are just three examples from the past 20 years of staggering success in their particular niches.

Yeah, I see it quite the opposite as well. I see their creativity far ahead of their political successes.

SI

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Yeah, I see it quite the opposite as well. I see their creativity far ahead of their political successes.

SI

+1

[Autumn]

Yeah, I don't see any anecdotal data even to support this theory, and certainly would need to see some kind of real evidence to even argue about it.

But even if it was still true the first place to look would be institutionalized sexism. Even if you think females haven't had much success in film direction, for instance, I would guess the major problem is equal access, equal opportunity, not that women are less interested or able.

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Yeah, I see it quite the opposite as well. I see their creativity far ahead of their political successes.
SI

I think I'm judging on type of contribution. I see a lot of famous women writers, musicians but the vast majority of them write and sing about being a women. Whereas, I think women in politics have gone way beyond just being pro-women politicians. And we as a society expect them to be more than just about women rights, not sure about the artist.

I'm not saying there are not great examples, but the ratio is still way under represented. Without researching it I'm guessing if you listed the truly great movie, book, song writers and movie directors/producers and artist over the last fifty years the ratio of male to female would be at least 10:1. I'm just wondering why this is so.

[Autumn]

Sexism.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I think I'm judging on type of contribution. I see a lot of famous women writers, musicians but the vast majority of them write and sing about being a women. Whereas, I think women in politics have gone way beyond just being pro-women politicians. And we as a society expect them to be more than just about women rights, not sure about the artist.

I'm not saying there are not great examples, but the ratio is still way under represented. Without researching it I'm guessing if you listed the truly great movie, book, song writers and movie directors/producers and artist over the last fifty years the ratio of male to female would be at least 10:1. I'm just wondering why this is so.

In the first paragraph, you seem to be talking about the quality of the politician / creative type. In the second paragraph you're talking about number of women in a field. I can't really discuss the first, but in regards to the second, do you feel the ratio of male to female is less than 10:1 in politics? How many females currently occupy the chief executive / prime minister role of another country vs. number of countries in the world? I would suspect it's as bad for them in politics, either in your state, the country, or worldwide (if we could even dream of having those types of comprehensive figures for all worldwide politicians).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I'm guessing if you listed the truly great movie, book, song writers and movie directors/producers and artist over the last fifty years the ratio of male to female would be at least 10:1. I'm just wondering why this is so.

Right off the bat, how many men have taken a year (or much more) away from their careers to have & raise a child?

edit to add: As JAG just pointed out, this seems like a different argument/point than the creative vs politician (or other field example). I'm now just thinking that was more of an example than the point of what you're trying to get your head around.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I think I'm judging on type of contribution. I see a lot of famous women writers, musicians but the vast majority of them write and sing about being a women.

huh?

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I think I'm judging on type of contribution. I see a lot of famous women writers, musicians but the vast majority of them write and sing about being a women. Whereas, I think women in politics have gone way beyond just being pro-women politicians. And we as a society expect them to be more than just about women rights, not sure about the artist.

To address this point I don't think that's really the case anymore, and may just be a sample bias of the artists that you're thinking of. I can think of a great deal of women musicians, writers, directors, visual artists who don't focus on the female experience. I don't know the proportions or ratios of females/males or women who focus on these issues and women that don't, in either arts or politics. Similarly I don't know the proportions of what issues males focus on in those fields.

[AENeuman]

Yeah, I didn't mean for the politics example to be the focus...

I think many women (nearly as many men) have had access, income and time to be creative in the last 50 or so years. with this new opportunity i'm just disappointed with the results.

new middle or luxury classes have resulted great works in history. da Vinci, Plato, Shakespeare, Mozart had time to ponder and create after a cultural shift.

maybe it is sexism, on both sides. can it be said that women have not contributed as much to the arts because they choose to focus on families and would rather be a spectator than a performer?

[miked]

Is this for real? There have been plenty of successful women writers and artists, does it matter what they write about?

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I think many women (nearly as many men) have had access, income and time to be creative in the last 50 or so years. with this new opportunity i'm just disappointed with the results.

I think this is where your theory goes wrong. Are we even yet at a point where women have equal access and income and time to be creative? Certainly that was nowhere near the case 50 years ago so I think you're jumping the gun if you expect the results to be anywhere near equal yet. I'm quite sure female income and access are still lagging behind men, and certainly females continue to have many pressures and responsibilities on them that are not equally shared by men.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

Yeah, I didn't mean for the politics example to be the focus...

I think many women (nearly as many men) have had access, income and time to be creative in the last 50 or so years. with this new opportunity i'm just disappointed with the results.

With regards to the "slowness" of advancement, it's all about infrastructure, in many fields. There's sexism in the higher ranks- no doubt about it- and part of that comes from not having women in higher number in higher ranks.

However, eventually, pink or blue doesn't matter in business- green does. If there's a better, more competent woman out there, some company is going to hire her and beat that competitor who passed on her (I realize this is in a perfectly competitive situation- which we don't have, however).

But the bigger thing is that there isn't the working infrastructure out there. It takes time to work your way up the corporate ladder and there just hasn't been that much time. Heck, overt sexism was still very prevalent even into the 90s in most fields (then sexual harassment suits went crazy) so that limited the level of advancement.

Not only that but with few fields thought of as being acceptable for women to go into, it's going to be hard to get to get women to the top of fields where there is only 5-20% participation. If it's 4 or 19 qualified men to every one qualified woman, those are long odds.

It's one of those things, similar to racism, that just takes time to die out. You can artificially try to adjust things (affirmative action, etc), but otherwise, it's just going to take a few generations of people dying and younger, more tolerant ones being brought up to equal this out.

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Right off the bat, how many men have taken a year (or much more) away from their careers to have & raise a child

One of the biggest arguments I've ever had with my wife revolved around this. It was one of those "someone taking the argument a lot more personally than the other" situations and I learned quite a bit from it. Anyways, here's how it went:

If everything else is equal- you have 2 qualified candidates, one a male and one a female and can statistically prove they are equally efficient, then there will be a problem. If one gender is granted protections to "take leave" from work for long periods of time while the other isn't, then, as an employer, you would be predisposed to hire the one without protections or hire the one with protection at a lower rate.

Let's just assume the average 2 kids with a simple 6 months of leave to make the example round with 1 year off. Each employee works 50 years for you* - but one actually puts in 40 years of work while the other only 49 because she takes off 1 year for kids. So, should women be paid at 98% the wage of men? No? Well, then if not, you're penalizing the guy as he has to do 102% of the work to get the same wage as a woman. Or how about the employer? Why not hire all men as you'd get 100% productivity from them as opposed to 99% from you competitor who hires men and women?

Yeah, about this time, things fell off the track. But you can see what I'm getting at here. I realize there are some assumptions, but again, the system is set up to perfectly illustrate how this is a problem either way. I'm not sure how to rectify this difference.

SI

*again a fallacy in this day and age but my counterargument was "ok, fine, then if you're female and around family-starting age, say 25-35, then you can just expect to not be hired since the company is worried you might want to start a family soon

[DeToxRox]

Women aren't funny. Just FYI.

[RendeR]

I dunno about the creative "greatness" though. There is a shit ton of women in the creative "mediocrity" area, but really greatness?

You could name off musicians for hours on end, true, but only 3 or 4 could even be considered great. at best, none of them compared to male historical standards.

[MikeVic]

Tina Fey ftw.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by RendeR

I dunno about the creative "greatness" though. There is a shit ton of women in the creative "mediocrity" area, but really greatness?

You could name off musicians for hours on end, true, but only 3 or 4 could even be considered great. at best, none of them compared to male historical standards.

Well, of course if we dip off into this we'll find that nobody has universal standards for greatness.

But ignoring that, how many Great male musicians have there been in the past 10 years, the past 20 or 30? Given that I would say it was only until very recently that women have had anywhere close to equal opportunity in the music field, that would be the fair comparison. I doubt people list very many Great male musicians from the past decade either (especially since it's something that is much easier to see decades later).

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Are we even yet at a point where women have equal access and income and time to be creative?

I'm quite sure female income and access are still lagging behind men, and certainly females continue to have many pressures and responsibilities on them that are not equally shared by men.

This is what i was getting at. So, to you, the environment is the reason. All things being equal there would just as many greats on both sides?

I'm not too sure about this. There have been lots of men who created more while coming out of less than equal environments.

How many artistic areas are women superior in their category? Is this because of the sexism in our society? seems to me for every joan baez there is a better dylan.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

This is what i was getting at. So, to you, the environment is the reason. All things being equal there would just as many greats on both sides?

I'm not too sure about this. There have been lots of men who created more while coming out of less than equal environments.

How many artistic areas are women superior in their category? Is this because of the sexism in our society? seems to me for every joan baez there is a better dylan.

I think until environmental sexism is dealt with it's meaningless to have the discussion, basically. To me the institutional sexism and its effects still dwarf anything that might be more intrinsic to gender differences. I don't think we're qualified to have this discussion until we've lived in a culture that treated female artists and scientists and politicians and so on equally.

Basically we were all raised in a culture that in many ways teaches us to think of females as inferior, so how can we have a lucid discussion about this subject? It will probably be up to our children.

[Autumn]

To give a specific example, Joan Baez is who she is partly because of the cultural environment. The fact that she is forever tied to Dylan is partly because that was the acceptable role for her. Just as many of the first female politicans were wives of famous male politicians. That's a role we're willing to accept a prominent female in, tied to a male.

How many female musicians were out there, possibly greater than Dylan, who nobody listened to because they were not willing or able to take that role?

[sterlingice]

Hell, for that matter with women still making 70-odd cents on the dollar in an artistic environment that is still dominated by business, how can they be fairly compared when it basically takes 3 female votes to equal 2 male?

Again, as I said above, it all comes back to infrastructure.

SI

[chesapeake]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

This is what i was getting at. So, to you, the environment is the reason. All things being equal there would just as many greats on both sides?

I'm not too sure about this. There have been lots of men who created more while coming out of less than equal environments.

How many artistic areas are women superior in their category? Is this because of the sexism in our society? seems to me for every joan baez there is a better dylan.

I think the premises on which you are building your arguments are deeply flawed. Your argument is predicated on the point that the playing field is somehow close to level between men and women. Although women have certainly made strides, the field is hardly level.

As an example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a man's average wage is about 25% greater than the average woman's wage. The gap is the largest at the top end, of course -- among the folks that have the hiring/firing authority.

The studies of gender-bias in the classroom that were really popular in the '90s still say the same thing today -- boys get a lot more personal attention and encouragement than do girls, on average.

You seem to be focusing on the entertainment industry. Just recently have women been able to break through into the top ranks in any numbers in the biggest studios. They are still a distinct minority. Until you have female decision-makers in an even proportion, you are unlikely to see female talent given the same kinds of opportunity that male talent is given.

But your most flawed argument is that Bob Dylan is anything more than an unlistenable, tuneless hack.

[Noop]

How many of these female musicians actually write their own music? My guess not many.

[thesloppy]

Chicks can not hold they smoke. That's what it is.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Noop

How many of these female musicians actually write their own music? My guess not many.

Seriously? How many male musicians write their own stuff? Probably the exact same amount. I could spend all day listing female artists that I'm personally aware of that write their own stuff, and I'm certainly no music expert.

In addition, writing your own music isn't the only measure of artistic talent. Many of the greatest musicians and singers ever did not write thier own material.

This shows one of the problems in having this sort of argument though. Clearly different segments of the arts have different populations. There are many many artists that some of us may have never heard of, and that doesn't mean they're not great. Meanwhile we all see a lot of pop stars shoved in our face, and clearly that's not the best place to find great artists.

I think if you listen to certain types of music maybe you're never exposed to great female artists, that's probably half the problem here.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Seriously? How many male musicians write their own stuff? Probably the exact same amount. I could spend all day listing female artists that I'm personally aware of that write their own stuff, and I'm certainly no music expert.

In addition, writing your own music isn't the only measure of artistic talent. Many of the greatest musicians and singers ever did not write thier own material.

This shows one of the problems in having this sort of argument though. Clearly different segments of the arts have different populations. There are many many artists that some of us may have never heard of, and that doesn't mean they're not great. Meanwhile we all see a lot of pop stars shoved in our face, and clearly that's not the best place to find great artists.

I think if you listen to certain types of music maybe you're never exposed to great female artists, that's probably half the problem here.

Most singers do not write their own music and if they do its usually one or two songs. Off the topic of my head the only great female artist I can think of is Alicia Keys and even then she works in tandem with another person to make her music.

I try to listen to everything but I do admit I am not well versed in every genre. Being able sing something is a nice skill but without the words would it matter? I say no.

Also isn't being great subjective?

[chesapeake]

Are you saying that Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra, for example, are not great artists because they don't write their own stuff?

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Noop

Most singers do not write their own music and if they do its usually one or two songs. Off the topic of my head the only great female artist I can think of is Alicia Keys and even then she works in tandem with another person to make her music.

I try to listen to everything but I do admit I am not well versed in every genre. Being able sing something is a nice skill but without the words would it matter? I say no.

Also isn't being great subjective?

Do you mean that most "female singers" don't write their own music? Because otherwise you seem to be disagreeing with your point.

Yes, being great is certainly hard to define, which is why we can't really get too far in this discussion. But in my mind clearly there is an art form called singing, just as a musician can be a great artist, a writer, a painter. Is Jessye Norman not a great artist because she didn't write her music? Are there no great opera singers then, or singers of jazz standards? Billie Holiday, Etta James, Lena Horne?

But beyond that, again, I can think of plenty of females who write their own work:

Ani DiFranco
Carole King
Joni Mitchell
Patti SMith
Tracy Chapman
Sinead O'Connor

That's just a few off the top of my head, and obviously not a very diverse bunch. People who know a lot about jazz, R&B, etc, could add a ton to the list.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

Are you saying that Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra, for example, are not great artists because they don't write their own stuff?

They're great singers but an artist is more the complete package in my opinion.

[Noop]

Autumn I meant most singers(male and female)

[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. 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?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

You seem to be focusing on the entertainment industry. Just recently have women been able to break through into the top ranks in any numbers in the biggest studios. They are still a distinct minority. Until you have female decision-makers in an even proportion, you are unlikely to see female talent given the same kinds of opportunity that male talent is given.

Very valid point indeed and one that also applies to many, many fields. It's only been recently that women have broken through in a number of areas, and it will probably take a generation for that to really bear fruit. I mean currently the number of females in colleges & universities is great than men (and in some instances by such a long shot that affirmative action for men is being considered). But that isn't going to instantly manifest itself.

[molson]

As others have said, I think women have done well in art compared to politics and other areas.

But when you're talking about "greatness" in art, you're really talking commercial success. Which means a woman isn't just facing obstacles on the way up, they're facing them on the consumer end. I would imagine if there were two identical movies, or books, but one had a female author/director and the other a male, the latter would sell better. Female artists don't have the benefit of the "coolness" factor that ethnic minorities might (in some genres). Their work would be perceived as more feminine, which isn't a great selling point for anything but feminist works.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I have two basic questions which I don't think have been addressed.

First of all, you said the class is a cultural geography class. Therefore, women in the United States would be compared to women in what other geographic area?

Second, every lesson plan should have an objective. So if everything goes according to plan what are you hoping the students learn from the theme that you are suggesting?

[Fidatelo]

Maybe it's because guys like Justin Timberlake can sing like women but there aren't any women that can sing like Barry White. Think about it.

[Autumn]

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.

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.

[Autumn]

Here's one little essay about the difficulties of being a female director, for those interested:

hxxp://womenandhollywood.com/2009/06/17/an-open-letter-from-a-female-director/

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by Autumn

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.

I would say, for the most part, the people i mentioned changed their field in some fundamentally unique way. i guess great would be people who if you were doing a history of the subject you could not leave out heir contribution to their field

Originally Posted by Autumn

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.

I agree. I'm wondering though, if for the vast majority of human time women have not been given the opportunity to creatively contribute to society, can they start now? What effect has 1000's of generations of norms had on the biological creative expression of women? Is it unreasonable to say (as malcom gladwell states) Asians are good at math because generations of being rice farmers therefore, women are not as culturally creative because of their emphasis on family?

I also can see this in a conflict view. Men (those in charge) create the rules for others to play by. Those rules will always keep them in power, and others with the false hope of gaining power.

[AENeuman]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

I have two basic questions which I don't think have been addressed.

First of all, you said the class is a cultural geography class. Therefore, women in the United States would be compared to women in what other geographic area?

Second, every lesson plan should have an objective. So if everything goes according to plan what are you hoping the students learn from the theme that you are suggesting?

I'm not sure what groups i want to cultures i want to look at yet. I know for sure the South, Brazil, Korea and Russia.

I want to have some lenses to look at each group. This is a brief survey course so I just want them to have an understanding through a few themes. I'm thinking of use of blood and merit in political rule, role of the youth and women, impact of geography, and religious influence.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

I agree. I'm wondering though, if for the vast majority of human time women have not been given the opportunity to creatively contribute to society, can they start now? What effect has 1000's of generations of norms had on the biological creative expression of women? Is it unreasonable to say (as malcom gladwell states) Asians are good at math because generations of being rice farmers therefore, women are not as culturally creative because of their emphasis on family?

My first thought on this would be that while women have not been given much opportunity to be a part of the American culture creatively, that has not stopped them from exercising creativity. Most of what we have here is an obstacle between us, the listener, viewer, consumer, from being able to see those amazingly creative women around us, not that they're unable to be creative. The screenplay writer in the link I made is still writing, we're just not able to see her work, just as Emily Dickinson continued to write despite being unknown.

In addition I think the scope of your thought might be too broad. I'm not sure how universal, both geographically and historically, this exclusion of women has been. I think in other cultures and times it may have been the women who were at the forefront of art.

[whomario]

why not take a look at some unbiased data ? I am at work and can´t do it excessively now, but why not take a look at some best seller lists for Books and Music available on the web ? Sure not the ultimate answer or measurement stick, but it´s factual at least.
Actually i did find that the 2008 global Top20 books include 8 written by women and the current NY Times Top35 has 15 in it. Not too far behind there.