"Women (in general) are less obsessed with music than guys. "

Now, whether this is a biological/chemical/evolutionary thing or whether it is a societal thing is, I think, well out of the scope of our collective expertise. (prove me wrong!)

So there you go.

Sure. I guess I'm just sort of annoyed with this notion that women are less interested in music as it makes me feel rather alone as a woman that is extremely interested in music. And the idea that some people - not referring to people on the board but in general - don't take my interest in music as seriously because I am female.

Obviously this was a few years ago, and is somewhat related to my attending an all-boys school, but I believe it has some relevance in that it indicates the existence of widely-held beliefs that women aren't really as interested in music as men.

I can think of plenty of obsessive hobbies in which there are hardly any men...knitting, scrapbooking, beanie baby collecting for example. Maybe it's just chance and society that make the hobby a 'male' or 'female' pursuit, and it's like a snowball effect, attracting more members of that gender as it goes along because part of the appeal to such a hobby is the non-sexual companionship, getting to bond with other men/women.

Music actually seems like one of the more gender-balanced obsessions that I can think of. Sports (tho it tends male depending on the sport) could be another.

The big fairs at Wembley etc. are probably more balanced!

I was brought up to obsess - my father is a total audiophile who is also big on ham radio, collecting random bits of electronics in the shed and buying guitars/amps.

Women just obsess about music in different ways. Where men tend to get obsessed with catalogue numbers and white labels, women tend to get obsessed with personalities and will know who managed who and whom is related to whom in what ways. And women are more likely to obsess on one particular artist, while men will get obsessed with a genre. Women treat fan-communities in a different way than men, or rather, women build communities around their interests, while men engage in pissing competitions.

And women have the ultimate advantage in fandom. We can actually *fuck* our idols, while men can only masturbate over them. So hah!

I know more female music types than I know men. Is that just because I have more female friends than men? Because I pick my friends because of their music obsession?

Maybe women are less likely to go to clubs or concerts or whatever, because you know what? It's a real hassle to be a single female standing in the front row of a specialist music gig. I can handle geeks staring at the Other Music logo on my tits. A lot of girls get disgusted with that and let it scare them off. Whatever.

I don't disparage women such as you who do not fit the general pattern, nor do I make any claim for this kind of obsessing being a more 'true' love of music than a more relaxed approach.

And I wasn't trying be to be snarky with my different worlds comment. It was just an off the cuff end to a post.

But to counter your other argument, how do you know that just because your female friends do not "know so many facts about it or talk about or buy so many records as the men" that they aren't just as obsessed, but in different ways? Who's to say that one form of enjoyment is any better than another?

As for the second point, I quite agree. That's why I said "nor do I make any claim for this kind of obsessing being a more 'true' love of music than a more relaxed approach" in my post above.

Now you've got me obsessing about this different worlds thing. Your life does seem glamorous in a way, though I don't envy it because you're always going on about band members and stuff and that doesn't interest me because I am *male* ha ah. Actually, I used to get pretty obsessed with the interpersonal stuff too. I still sometimes wonder about what it would be like if musicians X, Y and Z were locked in a room together etc. How they'd get on, not what awful supergroup they'd come out with. Though it never involved drone rock.

::swans about the flat grandly in her ratty cardigan and smelly corduroys::

This is the first time in my life that anyone has ever called me glamourous. I'm so happy.

I never said my life was glamourous. I just said it was different. Given that I live in a different city from you right now, I grew up on a different continent, I am a different gender, and I have a different occupation, it's to be expected that my life would be *different*. I often don't like my life at all. However, it's the only one I've got, hence thank fuck.

Funny, yesterday (was it only yesterday?) Hilton was saying something about how he wished that he could be normal and live in a big house in the country and have a nice wife and nice life and be normal, etc. etc. and I called him on it and told him it was bullshit, but sometimes I wonder. Not that I think that people like me and him envy the lifestyle, but perhaps the *ability* to be normal and well balanced enough to be happy in it. Or maybe I'm projecting...

)-:

yesterday you were talking to a guy named after a hotel--G L A M . I cannot argue.

my life is made all the more glamourous by the simple fact that I know mandee. and mandee knows it. she should talk, though, if she doesn't.

[this was typed at the same time those-^ people were typing]

(Actually, I should change the sheets. He sheds.)

It's all contextual.

"Uranus is on the phone."

you are named after a star!=you are a star [can't think of a good example]

Or maybe guys are more likely to hang around internet message boards while woman get on with doing something useful.

I'm sorry, what is this thread about?

*swoons*

In the film of my life, I am played by Disco Stu.

whu? That'll be 2am I suppose. Night night!

Or HAIR COLOR distinction threads? Are brunettes smarter than redheads?

Are societal assumptions TRULY correct? Truly truly? Like, with no exceptions? Truly truly?

Gotta go play some Grant Lee Buffalo now.

The difference between dissecting music and losing yourself in it, which we've discussed on the other board...

Facts and figures help me lose myself in the music! Like, the fact that Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man" was later covered by The Yardbirds and then became pretty much the blueprint for all Garage Rock blah blah blah blah...give me an additional layer of pleasure when listening to it, because apart from enjoying the song I'm also enjoying how wonderful it is that music can travel through all these boundaries and then mutate into all these fascinating diferent forms. Which is not to say that I wouldn't enjoy "I'm A Man" if I didn't know about all that stuff but I dunno, it makes it even greater!

I think both approaches are equally valid and "intimate" in their own way.

You might have something there, Daniel. Cuz I know my bf cares deeply about music and he has that sort of 'facts & figures' approach.

what's the point of all this shit? does one of the genders get to say they win? Besides, guys have made and recorded more music than women (maybe because they spent more time with facts and figures!). Bleh. We win. And if someone brings up the repression of women, nobody ever said we didn't cheat to win.

I hope the level of sarcasm in that was evident, but just in case I'll make it blunt here.

The only time I wanna see boys vs. girls are in silly intramural sports. Or on the Road Rules/Real World Athletic Challenge whatnot. Remember we all have to fight the true oppressors: the police.

All this talk of obsessive collecting makes me think of nesting habits.

Please forgive the crack-addled lunacy that boys THIS girls THAT crap inspires from me.

Women seem to be more obsessed with being women than men are with being men. But that's society's fault.

Pah!

Case in point: I've been going to WFMU's record fairs (i.e. collector-geek central) for about ten years now, and the M-to-F ratio at them has changed DRAMATICALLY in that time. Ten years ago, it was something like 95-to-5, not counting the dragged-along girlfriend effect; now it's more like 70-to-30, and I'm starting to see a dragged-along boyfriend effect too. I mean, that's not anything like gender equity, but it's a HUGE difference.

People who justify their own habits of which they are not proud or with which they are not happy as "that's just how men/women are" = dud dud dud.

I hope I you don't think I was doing this.