Mark Versus Women

Pitchfork features more reviews by dudes named "Mark" than by persons of a female persuasion. This via Ann Friedman and Amanda Marcotte who provides a much longer commentary, including a list of myths that "run women out of insufferable music snobbery." Here's number one:

Women are born with bad taste and need men to set them straight. Therefore a woman with good taste probably got it from her boyfriend. I’ve mentioned this noxiously specific stereotype before, so now I want to address why it has a lot of staying power: Confirmation bias. Hey, our lovers have influence on our taste. If anyone’s worth dating for any stretch of time, he/she is going to be able to turn you on to new bands and new songs and show you stuff in a new light. And if a guy teaches a woman about some stuff, then that becomes a confirmation of the “women get their taste from men” stereotype. But because there’s no converse stereotype, a man’s acquisition of taste from women doesn’t get noticed—hell, most people probably assume straightaway that he gathered that knowledge himself in a female-free fashion. Women can internalize this, too. It took me awhile to get over feeling weird that my high school boyfriend got me into Bowie, even though I in turn got him into the Pixies, until I realized I was dealing with an internalized stereotype and that it wasn’t as one-sided as I assumed it was. But I’d gone so long with the assumption that I didn’t have native good taste that it was too late to really get into writing record reviews.

Eerily reminiscent of the time I was trying to tell Kathleen Hanna how awesome she is and she bitterly replied, "what, your ex-girlfriend had a lot of Bikini Kill records or something" which I guess was my brief taste of how the other half lives.

Comments

I'm at a loss to decide which group I care less about: insufferable music snobs or self-absorbed victimhood-fetishizing bloggers. At least the Pitchfork reviews can be sometimes fun to read.

Posted by James Gary | September 20, 2007 8:39 AM

Well, the only thing to do when Kathleen Hanna disses you in public is to apologize, and explain that you mistook her for Evan Dando:

http://artists.letssingit.com/bikini-kill-lyrics-i-wish-i-was-him-h3dj981

Posted by rea | September 20, 2007 8:39 AM

self-absorbed victimhood-fetishizing bloggers

Yeah, stories about women being shut out of every organization with the smallest cultural influence are so boring. Why don't they talk more about MY problems?

Posted by Matt Weiner | September 20, 2007 8:48 AM

At least the Pitchfork reviews can be sometimes fun to read.

And James Gary manages to continue being wrong at everything.

Posted by Christmas | September 20, 2007 8:53 AM

Amanda fails to point out that the whole notion of "good taste" in music is a construct of the patriarchal music-industrial complex.

Posted by peep | September 20, 2007 9:05 AM

From the quoted text:

...I’d gone so long with the assumption that I didn’t have native good taste that it was too late to really get into writing record reviews.

I find this infuriating. If the writer chose to tell us how she wrote reviews and they weren't getting published--fine. I might even feel some sympathy for her (especially if I could actually read her rejected material--which I can't because she didn't write it.) But she's not doing that--the quoted paragraph is about how her boyfriends undermined her musical self-esteem until it was "too late" (too late!?) for her to write. To which I say: Boo-F*cking-Hoo.

Posted by James Gary | September 20, 2007 9:11 AM

Did they include "having better things to do" in the list of reasons?

Posted by Alex | September 20, 2007 9:13 AM

Music is like a large city park. Some are content to just sit in the sun or play frisbee. Some explore all the trails, learn about the plants, or watch the birds. Some run around, piss on the trees, and growl at everyone else.

Posted by apm | September 20, 2007 9:16 AM

women being shut out of every organization with the smallest cultural influence

huh ?

the basis for this was one shitty little indie-rock magazine. it's hardly "every organization with the smallest cultural influence".

--

Women are born with bad taste and need men to set them straight.

where's the data behind this assertion ?

Therefore a woman with good taste probably got it from her boyfriend.

baseless

And if a guy teaches a woman about some stuff, then that becomes a confirmation of the “women get their taste from men” stereotype. But because there’s no converse stereotype...

she invented the first stereotype but she refuses to invent the second. who will win the battle of strawman v. invisible strawman ?!

hell, most people probably assume straightaway that he gathered that knowledge himself in a female-free fashion

where's the data that shows what "most people" think ?

It took me awhile to get over feeling weird that my high school boyfriend got me into Bowie, even though I in turn got him into the Pixies, until I realized I was dealing with an internalized stereotype and that it wasn’t as one-sided as I assumed it was.

that's her own issue, not anyone else's. she shouldn't try to make it everyone else's.

But I’d gone so long with the assumption that I didn’t have native good taste that it was too late to really get into writing record reviews.

oh fer fuck's sake - she should write the damned review if she wants to. if it's any good, people will notice.

feh

Posted by cleek | September 20, 2007 9:18 AM

Is it really a stereotype that women are "born with bad taste" in music and need to be set straight? I've never heard such a thing. If it is, my question would be why people are so stupid. My second question would be why women would bother to date such stupid people. The answer to the problem lies there.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | September 20, 2007 9:24 AM

Amanda's post doesn't make sense to me. How does "wankfest" music, which Amanda describes basically as music by men for men, fit with the rest of it? I mean, is she saying that men respond differently to music than women, or interpret or understand it differently? What support for that does she offer, and, whatever it is, how does she avoid undermining the rest, particularly the first point?

The whole idea of "wankfest" music is odd, at least if one believes, as Amanda does, that IMSes secretly long for the days of hair metal and groupies and the rest (the sort of ugly stereotype Amanda would object to if it went the other way). Apparently guys who like "wankfest" music that only appeals to other guys also secretly long for the days of hair metal, when music appealed to women. Or something like that.

All of this over what? Amanda's inability to deal with the fact that most music geeks are guys? And thus that, in the world of music geeks/snobs, most people with good taste are guys, and that most of the educative function in that subculture is undertaken by these same guys. At some point, this is just math. (Just like some of the bad music is.) The stereotype, such as it is, reflects just that, nothing more.

Posted by Thomas | September 20, 2007 9:29 AM

There's some strong overlap between this argument and the whole "why are women underrepresented in the political blogosphere" argument. The common thesis is that boys better enjoy shouting each other down with their overbearing opinions. Of course, I have no data to back this thesis, but it strikes me as eerily plausible.

Posted by Adam | September 20, 2007 9:42 AM

I'm outraged!

Anybody have the number to M.A.D.L.I., the Mark-Anti-Defamation-League-International?

This slur against my brothers in Markhood will not stand.

Posted by Mark Adams | September 20, 2007 9:52 AM

I am an insufferable music snob, and I will say that my girlfriend does indeed have horrible taste in music. Worst of the worst. I don't even know why I am dating her sometimes.

Plus, I think back to my stint in college radio, and yes, most of the DJs were guys. Hmm...

Posted by what | September 20, 2007 9:59 AM

If the music I'm forced to listen to at the gym is any indication, women indeed have lousy taste in music. Can someone please drop a bomb on the Grey's Anatomy studio?

Actually, my position is a little more refined -- lousy taste in music is equally spread between the sexes, but women are more influential in determining hits, so their tastes are given more airtime.

Posted by Matt B | September 20, 2007 10:23 AM

I find this highly ironic. Feminists tend to view white men's tendency to play and listen to white men's rock as somehow a prejudic against women. Never do you read Amanda complain that pitchfork's reviewers are also white. Or that hipster rock is mostly white. Is there some sort of racial bias against blacks in indie rock? Or perhaps music is cultural, and women, like black men and women, don't like to listen to or perform hipster rock music, and empty headed feminists like Amanda perfer to internalize this as being a victim of the paternal order. Idiots.

Posted by freddiemac | September 20, 2007 11:01 AM

There are female insufferable music snobs, some of whom will even send angry e-mails to the Black Cat after their "Britpop Dance Party" fails to play a sufficient amount of high-quality Britpop. I know this because I married one.

However, my wife does seem to think that Pitchfork are a bunch of wankers. And I can't say I really disagree with her. Feminism is something of a red herring on that point.

If I had to guess, I'd suspect that the dominance of male music writers has as much to do with the legacy of the groupie subculture as anything else. Rock and Roll was an incredibly sexist scene in its heyday, and to varying degrees it still is.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | September 20, 2007 11:06 AM

Scientific studies have shown that listening to Alanis Morissette albums will make your testicles shrivel up and drop off.

Something about the high frequency caterwauling..

Posted by Don Williams | September 20, 2007 11:12 AM

Just because more dudes become serious insufferable music geeks, does that really make this a feminist issue? And who defines what "good taste" in music is, anyway? Oh, yeah, it's all those insufferable music geek dudes.

In my experience, women do have worse taste in music that I do. But then so do Christians, Muslims, Mexicans, and any other group you can name that I am not a part of. I wonder why that is? Is it possible that women just have different taste in music than men do? Why must women buy into the stupid idea that they must join the insufferable music snob dudes to have "good taste"? Why can't they say that the music snob dudes are the ones with bad taste and that Tori Amos, Julianna Hatfield, the Cure, etc are just plain awesome?

This kind of reminds me of that Molson commercial from a while back that aired in Canada and got a lot of press in the US. A guy is talking about how he's a real Canadian and in the process he's supposedly overturning stereotypes about Canadians. At one point he says "I saw about, not aboot." And my reaction is, why would you embrace the American pronunciation of that word? I've met a lot of Canadians. They ALL freakin' say ABOOT. Obviously they believe that is how the word is pronounced. He should have said, "I say aboot, not abooowwwwwt." Vive le difference. Be proud of it.

And the same goes for all you wannabe female music snobs out there.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 20, 2007 11:48 AM

I have no insights as to whether there is a consistent difference in quality regarding musical taste between men and women. It can categorically asserted, without fear of real contradiction, however, that there is no field of writing which produces more utter crap than popular music criticism, and anybody who doesn't know this by the time they are 21 years old is hopeless.

Posted by Will Allen | September 20, 2007 12:16 PM

Did that Kathleen Hanna story really happen? I knew you were a Le Tigre fan, so that all checks out.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | September 20, 2007 12:26 PM

Everybody is born with no taste (not bad taste). Some people are more interested in developing their taste than others. I don't hold it against either men or women when they aren't really interested in music (and I'm a musician). Everybody 'likes' music, but a majority of both sexes aren't very interested in it. Clever boys are more impressed by other clever boys than women tend to be. Whoop-dee-doo. The bottom line is Will Allen's closing comment:

there is no field of writing which produces more utter crap than popular music criticism, and anybody who doesn't know this by the time they are 21 years old is hopeless.

So true. Pop music crit. isn't even *about music* most of the time. It's about lyrics and posing. That doesn't make the music being pawed over bad or good - it's just not mainly about music at all. It's about writing.

('Music' for the sake of this discussion is actually a small subset of the total art - of the total *popular* art: one of many curious, overweening white/anglo phenomena).

Posted by jonnybutter | September 20, 2007 12:35 PM

Well, from Olympia, WA onward, Kathleen Hanna's gone from one sugar daddy to another. Hardly a befitting a feminist.

That first Le Tigre record is a classic though.

Posted by Lois | September 20, 2007 12:39 PM

What she's forgetting is the extent to which there are different pressures on men and women from fellow men or women to conform to certain tastes. Young (especially white) teenage girls are told that if they don't listen to crappie teen pop, they are unpopular lesbians. This pressure to conform are a major factor in why so much of the Top 40 is manufactured pop drivel. Who is really buying the Pussycat Dolls, men or women? The majority of music that is propelled to the top from this near- universally bad genre are based on a female fan base. While some artists, such as Amy Winehouse, have reached Stateside success based on a female fan base, this is more of an exception. At least when bad rappers reach the top on a male fan base, that says that white kids in the suburbs don't know what good rap is. The pressure on men to listen to certain music is summed up as don't listen to what the cheerleaders are listening to or that means you're gay. The pressures are more fragmented, with jock crowds conforming to rap and some forms of rock, etc.

Posted by Reality Man | September 20, 2007 1:11 PM

Rob Mac's bit about the Molson's beer commercial reminded me that (at least south of the 48th parallel), beer commercials are pitched towards men, while the vast majority of other commercials are pitched towards women.

If you're entirely bored at work, hit Youtube and compare beer ads to, say, ads for makeup or The Gap. The sensibility and humor are completely different.

Posted by beowulf | September 20, 2007 1:25 PM

the vast majority of [non-beer] commercials are pitched towards women.

The vast majority of all advertisment and marketing in the US is pitched toward women, since women make 80% of the buying decisions. Hence, the comoditized 'You Go Girl' facsimilie of feminism we float in - a merely blander version of 'Riot Grrrl', BTW. Since what advertising does best is flatter/insult (ie pander), it's very effective.

Posted by jonnybutter | September 20, 2007 1:36 PM

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like institutional sexism-

I can’t speak as well on that, but I can talk about the structural sexism of Insufferable Music Snobbery quite well. Because I’ll bet, if you ask them, the editors at Pitchfork would make all sorts of noises about how they want women to write more record reviews, but there’s not enough women out there to do it. Which I suspect is true to a degree, though it’s probably also true to a degree that sexist assumptions about women’s lack of taste also factor in

Check.

Personal flaw blamed on other people's sexism -

But stoner rock (which is about 95% male, for whatever reason) was a big deal then, and pretty much everything they sent me to review was in the genre. And so my reviews amounted to, “This sucks and I fell asleep listening to it,” which is not even fun-nasty, so basically we all gave up hope of moving me into that section of zine writing.

Check.

Insuffurable hipsterism -

As a wee IMS, though, I encountered many difficulties that have run me off of any pretensions to being a professional IMS ... IMSes might, by the time they’re 30, mostly be cantankerous farts who have learned to cultivate their basic nerdiness into a veneer of cynical sexiness (the geek glasses look has been perennially popular since Elvis Costello for a reason), ... It’s hard to say if this has much influence on Pitchfork, who I mock a lot, but deserves credit for being blatant pop whores who reject music that’s got a tendency to show off chops without doing a damn thing to entertain the audience ... Austin, for instance, has a really nightmarish stoner rock scene, which I will admit strangled my hopes of being any kind of even amateur record reviewer in the cradle.

Check.

Decrying a stereotype, then affirming it -

Then there’s the insidious tradition of shoving women off to roles where their talents can be downplayed, which is why women gravitate towards singing so often—it’s a “safe” role in no small part because it’s easy to write off singers as if they aren’t real musicians. ... music that’s got a tendency to show off chops without doing a damn thing to entertain the audience, which is, for whatever reason, a kind of music scene that is even more male-dominated than most.

Check.

And that is why Amanda Marcotte is one of the most persistently unintentionally hillarious writers out there.

Posted by MattXIV | September 20, 2007 2:15 PM

This seems very odd to me. True, most of the music geeks I've known—hell, most of the people that are just really into music—have been male. But I've never really thought about it and certainly never assumed there was some innate, or even cultural, factor at work. I always just assumed it was accidental and contingent—a lot of the more "cool" music has always been at least a bit angry and counterculture and that appeals to the teen male sensibility more than teen female sensibility because teen males and females are different in this respect.

But the person most influential on my musical tastes was my six years younger wife (now ex-wife) who introduced me to alternative in 1989. She's easily the person with the best musical taste I've ever known, she grew up in the live music club scene in Toronto, knew everyone there. She worked in college and alternative public radio. After we divorced she moved to Seattle and was involved in the recording industry there. She looms so large in my mind in the context of this debate that I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that women have bad musical taste and only learn from their boyfriends.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | September 20, 2007 3:02 PM

Women certainly don't have worse taste in music than men, but there are more male music obsessives. I'm one. The women I've known GENERALLY have listened to more top 40ish type things because they haven't spent the time to find the really good stuff. I like to expose them to the really good stuff and they mostly are appreciative. Conversely, my girlfriend has taught me more about food and danish culture than I would ever have been interested in on my own. I don't know why this is a big deal.

Posted by JasonC | September 20, 2007 3:49 PM

Weird. Most of the women I've known have better taste in music than the men. I don't think I've ever bothered to stereotype it as a gender issue until this thread, though. Is it really a generally accepted idea that women as a group have worse taste in music than men?

Underlying Amanda's post is the really odd idea that music critics (mostly male) actually have better taste than most people (and/or women) anyway. Isn't it understood in most of the arts that critics generally suck anyway?

Come to think of it, why do we generalize from what hyper-music geeks think to what 'men' think anyway? Are music geeks generally thought to be representative of men in general?

Posted by Sebastian Holsclaw | September 20, 2007 4:28 PM

What this whole discussion is missing is that face that there is no such thing as objective, quantifiable "good taste" in music or any other medium for that matter. Critics and art snobs exist to convince others through their intellectual pretension that their own random likes and dislikes represent "taste," and that the likes and dislikes of others represent vulgar low-brow garbage.

Posted by Rob Mac | September 20, 2007 5:01 PM

Matt,

Is this part of your continuing series to make feminists look stupid and whiny by quoting them complaining about stereotypes that happen to be stereotypes because they are, on average, true?

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 20, 2007 5:52 PM

Every time Amanda Marcotte tries to describe some aspect or corner of the world I have even passing familiarity with, I realize anew how completely her models conform to her own mental terrain and absolutely nothing else.

Posted by Senescent | September 20, 2007 8:53 PM

As someone twice or thrice the age of most persons reading this blog, I probably shouldn't be commenting, but what the hell.

I can't say anything about today's pop music (can't stand it), but forty-fifty years ago, young women mostly liked what was popular, whereas young men--at least among the college-bound-- were apt to be more venturesome in their tastes.
And women were by and large willing to accede to the preferences of their lovers, though the reverse was occasionally found.

Tastes in music, as well as attire, became largely fixed by the age of 21 or so. I know that was the case with me. That's why my CD collection is so heavily weighted with jazz from the 1950s.

Posted by Henderstock | September 20, 2007 10:51 PM

No converse stereotype?

Try cooking. "Your dad teach you to cook?" "Hey, nice meal, you learn that cooking from your brother?" "Hey, I'll bet the guys on your team taught you that dish!"

Never heard that kind of remark? Hunh. Go figure.

No converse stereotype indeed.

Posted by Doug | September 21, 2007 5:44 AM

Another 'stereotype' Amanda pointed out to me. She really can create them out of thin air can't she?

Posted by crack | September 26, 2007 1:31 PM