Why are there so few female pipers ?

[Cathy Wilde]

I agree, SilverSpear -- your economic/historical point is indeed a major one. And lucky you, no Home Ec! I wouldn't be surprised if you have educational policymakers from my generation to thank for that.

Seriously, I do think what's happened for women in just the last 30 years is a factor in many things, especially things traditional viewed as "male" pursuits. My parents grew up in the 1930s and 40s, as did a goodly number of my teachers & school administrators/educational-policymakers. I was born in the 1960s, and grew up just as feminism as a political movement was getting good -- and I've benefited greatly from it. But that wasn't necessarily the case for my parents' generation; they lived through feminism and felt the change, but so much was already set in so many ways. Girls pursuing math and science were still a rarity, as I suspect any NSF award list from those years will reveal.

So I posit (only my opinion), that old attitudes are diluted with each decade for sure, but they're only diluted, not erased (although again I can only speak from experience). It's only been in the last 20 years here in the American Midwest and South that girls are actually encouraged to pursue math or science. Even in the late 70s they weren't necessarily discouraged, but they weren't exactly encouraged, either -- it took time for policy to catch up with attitudes. A female doctor was a real rarity even when I was in college in the 80s. Fortunately, that's all changing now, and it's awesome how fast it's happening (at last)!

As for the "ladylike" qualms, I'm not surprised you don't have them. If you were my daughter (which you could be -- run away!!!!!) I'd TOTALLY encourage your piping because of when I grew up and what I've seen women become able to do in the last 20 years. But as for doing it myself, hey, I'm the sum of my parts and some of those parts were instilled in me by my parents' generation (in other words, if she wasn't already gone my own mother would have died at my taking up the pipes).

One other observation/"perception" thing: until I saw & heard Louise Mulcahy, I honestly didn't know of ANY women pipers; I'd only seen or heard of men (not that I knew of that many pipers to begin with). Then I met a super young female piper at Augusta one year (she's presently at Willie Clancy Week on scholarship) and then I saw KAD on the boards. That was the first time it occurred to me that I might actually give this a go. A few months in I went to the East Coast Tionol and there were a bunch of women with pipes. Cool! That's where I first heard of Debbie Quigley and Maire ni Ghrada. And then I heard of Emer Mayock and Becky Taylor. But to do this first I had to get into piping -- it's kind of an "insider sport" if you will, and until I came into it I'd only seen men.

So. Money, gender trends & perceptions, cultural mores ... and of course, scarcity of pipes/pipers as examples. Yeah, I'd about buy that.

Oh. And sorry, Ferris. The only boobs who get in my way are usually banjo players.

[Ceann Cromtha]

So the ratio when it comes to CDs is definitely low, compared to the number of women who play. Why is an interesting question. Time? Attitude? Money?

Looks like this pot needs to be stirred again... how about: men produce more recordings because of childbirth envy?

[TheSilverSpear]

I don't think harps and pipes are comparable. A good harp isn't cheap (then again -- neither is a good violin) but it's not difficult to find yourself a playable harp. The one I used to own (sold the thing to buy some drones) was bought in a music store. It's not difficult to learn how to maintain one, either. ACCESS is the thing that puts a lot of people, men and women, off the uilleann pipes. In any case, you're still more likely to find uilleann pipes in a session than a clarsach.

I don't know why players like Maire Ni Ghrada or Louise Mulcahy haven't recorded solo albums like so many of their male fellow pipers. You'd have to ask them. In a lot of cases, many of the female pipers around are quite young and either aren't feeling ready yet or haven't gotten around to it or are busy recording ensemble albums like all the other young musicians these days. In the next ten years, some of them will hopefully record themselves solo.

I think what Cathy said about cultural mores regarding what is and isn't socially acceptable for women have changed rapidly over the past thirty years is spot on. That goes back to my earlier point about nothing being "inherently" masculine or feminine. Our culture, any culture really, has norms which are socially constructed and people create meaning, based on their experiences and kind of cultural zeitgeist, which they attach to things. In 1920 for example, a time when gender roles were more rigid than they are now (and it's not as if they have gone away -- there's expectations for girls and boys to behave in certain ways. It's up to us to buck the norms if we find them ridiculous, or accept them if not. You won't see me at a session in a minskirt and skimpy top, even if that's what most of the other young women in the pub are wearing) the pipes were probably socially constructed as a "man's instrument." But I think playing and recording Irish music generally were more "manly" than "womanly" activities. I can rattle off the names of at least a dozen players who had fairly successful music careers between say 1900 and 1950. By and large, they are all men. The two women who come to mind immediately are Lucy Farr and Julia Clifford. Can anyone name anyone else? It's not just the pipes, folks.

Luckily we've at least moved beyond that.

[bensdad]

"Mr Williams also points out in his book"

ok, make that automatic, unexamined, and stubbornly inflexible

(http://academic.evergreen.edu/w/williams/)

[Uilliam]

Thanks William, I’m extremely flattered that you should go to any trouble to find that bit of imformation from 1842.But if you learned to read or at least try to understand what you read you will see that I said that most coal miners ARE men, meaning present day not in 1842, and William stop spending so much time on your computer,it’s not doing you any good.
RORY

Rory ye will of course know that there is no deep mining in Britain anymore thanks to the toraigh bandits.If there were, then I am sure there would be plenty o wimmin doon the pits.
Now then stop trying to wind me up wi yoor non to subtle use of the name William..give a little respect .If ye wish to use the term William then also use the Anglicised Hackett and add the post nominals Esq. FSA Sot. GIFireE otherwise jest stick to Uilliam or Liam.The Williams book can't be that interesting or ye would still be beavering awa with it and where did he get his figure frae? And does it really matter?
Uilliam hAicéad
or if ye prefer and want to send me some money to donate to Charity
Wm.A.Hackett Esq.FSA Scot. GIFireE

[bensdad]

A couple more I heard at the NPU tionol: Siofra Ní Chronín (in the young pipers concert) and Sheila Friel of Glasgow's Friel Sisters; great pipers, both of them.

[highland-piper]

You can choose to disbelieve this, but I swear: my wife can identify the sex of a violinist/fiddler simply by listening, with about 99% accuracy. How could she do that if there are no differences at some basic level?

I don't care if it's cultural, genetic, learned, taught, right or wrong -- it is what it is.

I do choose to disbelieve that. How does she identify the gender of the violinist/fiddler? What criteria? If "delicacy" and "expression" are your criteria, I know plenty of women who rip the sh*t out of tunes and men who play gently and expressively.

I asked her about it, but it's not an analytical kind of thing. It's like being able to tell Irish fiddle from Scottish. Or County Clare from County Sligo. How can you tell Kevin Burke from James Kelly? You just can, if you can -- but many people can't. Sure there are a few things you might describe generally, but there are more you can't, and any given thing you might put your finger on will have plenty of exceptions.

"It is what it is..." I don't think so. If that had been people's attitude, things like the suffrage movement or the abolition movement would have been dead in the water, as women and non-whites were too delicate and weak-minded or whatever to be involved in politics. That's just how it was. The science of the time (say 19th-early 20th century) even offered biological evidence of that. Ridiculous.

I'm not saying things don't change, but if you're looking for explanations of the current state of *is* there's no point to getting pissed off at me for telling you how things are at the moment. What bugs me is people who seem to think that everyone is the same. It's crazy to think that men and women should have the same preferences, wants, and desires. Not without hormone treatments anyway.

The economic explanations don't hold up for highland piping. Unlike fiddle, button box, or harp, which all cost about the same as a set of highland pipes, you can learn how to pipe for free. Everything from the instruction to the instrument and the uniform is provided free of charge by some bands. Not as many as in the past, but it's still out there.

FWIW, I take my pipes to schools to demonstrate. Boys and Girls at a young age are both interested. Boys generally seem more excited about them, and girls are more prone to complain about the noise. Only girls have offered up, unsolicited, "I hate the sound of bagpipes." Not black-and-white or neat little boxes by any means, just trends, preferences, and general tendencies. There is *no* piping tradition where I live. The band I play in is lead by a woman. It's still mostly men.

[TheSilverSpear]

What point are you trying to make here? That there is some kind of inherent, intrinsic, genetic component to female brains which somehow equates to not liking bagpipes?

Obviously individuals are different but even differences construed as gendered have more socio-political-cultural baggage than Heathrow Airport.

BTW, I did a wee experiment last night. I skipped through about an hour's worth of traditional music on my iTunes (all 34GB of it), just playing a few bars from the beginning of each track and made my boyfriend (poor guy) try to guess the gender of the musicians. He was able to get the vast majority of them correct on gender and a significant number correct on naming the musician (I'm not giving made up stats. In the best tradition of utterly halfas*sed research, I didn't bother counting and calculating the percentages of correct answers). He said the playing style was only indicative of who it might be, which made him more likely to correctly guess the player's gender and also that there were a lot of other variables he made use of -- i.e. Something might obviously be Cape Breton fiddle, the recording is quite rough and scratchy, which means it's unlikely to be Natalie McMaster. Not too many other female Cape Breton fiddlers have made that many recordings, especially older recordings, so the musician is probably male.

I don't think that's at all relevant to the OP's initial question.

[jqpublick]

I have noticed that most truly good pipers are green-eyed. Furthermore, I have noticed that most great pipers are only ever photographed in black-and-white. Even further, I have noticed that most pipers are right-handed.

Does this mean that pipers who are not right-handed, green-eyed and dead are either inferior or held down by 'the man'?

Perhaps the question -why are there so few women pipers- has more to do with what is expected than with what actually is. Just because there are less women pipers doesn't mean there is a single reason for it.

Out of the set of all musicians, what percentage of that set play mostly irish traditional music? Does that mean that we are being held back, either culturally or personally? Or does it have to do with personal preference? Having said that, I think that historically there were many reasons, chiefly having to do with men keeping women 'where they belonged'.

I could ask why there are not more black people piping. Would that be a reasonable question? No, I don't think it would, other than that it would be an interesting argument/discussion. But would it go anywhere, reach any meaningful conclusions? I don't think so. I think this is a case of seeking agency where there is none; seeing exclusivity where there is none, or only a little.

I will admit that I did wince at the 'but the last two were lesbians' statement. You have my permission to punch that bast*rd. Really hard. Tell him I sent the message if he starts crying. Actually, call him a wussy-boy first.

I for one couldn't care less what sex you are, I care if you can play the things, and if you like the playing of them.


Just sayin'


Mark

(Now do I get flamed?)

[Nanohedron]

I will admit that I did wince at the 'but the last two were lesbians' statement. You have my permission to punch that bast*rd. Really hard. Tell him I sent the message if he starts crying. Actually, call him a wussy-boy first.

I also note that he wasn't a piper himself, but a bodhrán player. All very fine for him to make prescriptive declarations...

(Now do I get flamed?)

Not by me. Sorry.

[rorybbellows]

Heres a couple of articles that shed some light on the musical instrument gender thing,
Boys' and Girls' Preferences for Musical Instruments: A Function of Gender?
Susan A. O'Neill
Michael J. Boultona
Department of Psychology, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire, UK, ST5 5BG.
This study investigated children's preferences for learning to play musical instruments and the extent to which boys' and girls' preferences are based on the gender stereotyped associations that have been found in previous studies. During individual interviews, 153 children (aged 9-1 1) from the north west of England stated their preferences for learning to play six musical instruments, and gave their views on which instruments should not be played by members of each sex. It was found that girls showed a significantly stronger preference for the piano, flute and violin than boys, whereas boys expressed a stronger preference for the guitar, drums and trumpet than girls. Log-linear analyses revealed that boys and girls have similar ideas about which instruments should not be played by members of each sex. Implications for music education are discussed, along with an explanation of the results in terms of children's social understanding of gender differentiation.

Are Musical Instrument Gender Associations Changing?
Hal Abeles
Teachers College, Columbia University, abeles@tc.edu
The researcher sought to examine gender associations across three decades to determine if changes in the sex stereotyping of musical instruments has occurred. First, the study examined the paired comparison gender—instrument rankings of 180 college students. The results confirmed a reduction of instrument gender associations reported in the 1990s. The second index of gender associations employed was the instruments that middle school children played (N = 2001). A comparison of the instruments played by boys and girls across three studies conducted in 1978, 1993, and 2007 showed little difference in the sex-by-instrument distribution. Girls played predominately flutes, violins, and clarinets, and most boys played drums, trumpets, and trombones. There was some evidence that in band settings, girls were more likely to play nonconforming gender instruments than were boys. Further studies that focus on parents' influence on children's instrument choices and the effect of ethnicity are recommended.

It only remains to decide if bagpipes fall into a male or female gender association bracket

RORY

[Nanohedron]

What I think would be more informative - to me, at least - is determining whether and to what degree normative gender socialisation colored those choices in the first place (could there be any doubt of its substantial relevance?); the choices themselves don't tell me anything that I couldn't have predicted myself. After all, we're bombarded by gender expectations from birth, so a child in the 9 to 11 year range will not have popped out of the bottle as a blank slate, if you'll pardon the awkwardly mixed metaphor.

[Black Rose]

Fairly obvious answer to this question. Traditionally men control household finances. Pipes are expensive. Mystery solved.

Not that I'm a male feminist or anything.

The suggestion that women are less able to cope physically with pipes than men is pure rubbish. Just think of the current generation of pipers in your locality. Lots of women among the best. Here in Toronto, Debbie Quigley and Kelly Hood. Lots in Ireland too.

In what culture is that then--where men control the household finances?

[Black Rose]

Mr Williams also points out in his book that the ratio of female harpists to male harpists is coincidently also about 20 to 1, I think it is without doubt that some instruments are preferred by men and some by women. I wonder is it possible to ask why that is without some jumping on their sexist soapboxes and discuss the question with intellect instead of emotion.

RORY

I suppose there are psychologists who might offer a yonic vs. phallic symbolism type argument to support your data and implied assumption, but I really don't want to get involved in this one... I suspect that the next time I check this site this thread will be locked.

Sometimes a chanter is just a chanter.

[Black Rose]

... Oh yeah, and the bag and bellows can be kinda hard on the arms, especially at first.

Not really a girl-thing, if it's any consolation. Had a little spell eating aspirin, myself; I may be no hulk, but I'm not altogether a wisp, either. Plus that black-and-blue mark on my bellows hip...not attractive.

I prefer opiates.