Gender Studies in College

[THE TUBA]

Okay, I'll explain to avoid confusion. I was required to write a response essay based on a Times article that made some controversial remarks. The columnist only interviewed young people, so I thought TubeNet would be a great place to find the opinions of older people on this topic, and to find parallels between trends in the tuba world and those expressed in the article. When I realized that the topic broke the rules of the forum, I tried to delete anything that might not be allowed. In doing so, it made the other posts look out of context. Yeah, that was a bad idea. Oops. Sorry for the confusion and for breaking the rules; it won't happen again.


I would like to know about the gender trends and the traditionally male dominated tuba world. I’m a “young’n,â€

[iiipopes]

Bullshit. My undergrad GPA was 3.96 and I drank more vodka at more parties than the rest of the student body put together in the time I was there: Jan 1980 to May 1982: 27 months from matriculation out of high school to BA summa cum laude.

The essay is all bullshit. The reason I wasn't first in my class was, among other reasons, my roommate had a perfect 4.0, and he kept the heavy metal going in the background as he studied. My first marriage was to a fellow classmate who worked just as hard, and only took a semester longer than I did because she took a summer off when her father died. The fact she turned psycho after we got married is a wholly different matter. Does that make it disproportionate as to who got the honors degrees? NO.

Did it ever occur to anyone that the reason the people who get the honors degrees do so because they work for them? And that those who don't might have worked just as hard but for some circumstance beyond anyones' control, as in needing to work a second job to pay for it? And not just the guys interviewed in the article who I'd like to kick behind the barn for not doing what they know how to do?

Yeah, I was lucky: mine was paid for through a combination of scholarship and my dead father's social security benefits. I had to work through it early and hard so that I maintained my scholarships, and before my benefits ran out!

The bottom line is, unfortunately, that the honors part of the degree might help you get your first job, or into grad school, but after that noone cares. They look at what you did on the job. Maybe that's the reason T L focused on the guys he did interview for the story. It sounds to me that if they're not doing what they know they can do, then they deserve a laterally mobile career in middle management. It's still no excuse for not doing your best in whatever situation you're in.

I hope you do show T L that he really is full of narrow minded bullshit, and that the article should be focused on giving a good kick in the pants to those, male or female, who are giving just a half-assed effort, and not making it appear something is wrong, just because there are those who are doing all they can. Good luck on your essay.

[iiipopes]

The sheer reality is that absolutely nobody cares about your GPA. Does it influence your ability to get into graduate school? Perhaps, but you can get around it.

The most important consideration? Did you learn anything while you were there?

Indeed. Because if you didn't, you wasted an awful lot of people's time and money for nothing.

[ThomasDodd]

When are the "intellectuals" going to figure it out, boys and girls (men and women) are different. They learn differently, and see the workld differently. And it's not just societys influence.

[rwiegand]

The sheer reality is that absolutely nobody cares about your GPA.

As a hiring manager I always looked at grades for people who had graduated within the previous ~5-10 years. I don't think I am alone in doing that. That said, I did it selectively, looking for good marks in the classes I cared about, not so much an overall GPA.

After that they'd better have enough of a track record that historical grades really are irrelevant.

I got into grad school despite my transcript, but it's not a course I would recommend to anyone.

[SplatterTone]

It just occurred to me that one might investigate the kind of degrees that women versus men are getting. Let I heard, degrees in engineering and some "hard" sciences were still going in much higher percentages to men. While, for example, degrees such as bachelor in education were mostly women.

I don't want to start some heated debate about how honorable, or worthy of accolades, one degree is versus another. But I think in the context of this subject, it should carry some weight.

[iiipopes]

There's another heap of bullshit that contributes to all of this. Now, it's no excuse not to do your best in college, but it is reality that a lot of employers treat their employees, even highly qualified and/or skilled, degreed or not, like so many shovelfulls. If you know the employers in your area of interest or study are going to treat you badly, it will affect morale at the undergraduate level.

So we need to kick the backside of employers as well.

[SplatterTone]

And another thought has occurred (brain's going to start hurting soon):
I believe some of the industrial trades -- auto mechanics, for example -- which tend to be mostly male, have become more technology oriented, pay rather well, and require education beyond high school. However, this education does not confer a degree. I wonder to what extent this affects the statistics.

Don't forget Mark Twain's "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Having gotten my degree in Math (of which I've now forgotten most of it), it should really be: lies, damned lies, and the way people (ab)use statistics.

[tubatooter1940]

I never got a degree. My 36 check G.I. bill ran out and I had to help bar owners sell hooch to make a living. However I did study lots-o-gender while I was in college. Hotties were everywhere.
I am using gender in the new definition-a word to replace sex (not p.c.).
Gender used to refer to male and female forms in language-endings of words and such. I railed against this until I realized the permanence of the new usage. It's here to stay.
It's great to see iiipopes in a booty kickin' mood. Go git 'em, boy.
ThomasDodd is absolutely right. Boys and girls differ widely. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Dennis Gray
tubatooter1940
www.johnreno.com/

[THE TUBA]

I didn't want anyone to do my homework! I believe I stated that in the original post. (I tend to think I can do my homework quite well one my own)
I would like to use trends about the tuba world in my essay, and I assumed TubeNet would be a good place to ask.

I think there are more professional women tuba players now than thirty or forty years ago. I was not alive to know, and I thought that it might be a good idea to find out what people thought that were living then. I have interviewed people (in person) about this and thought creating TubeNet thread would be a way to introduce the question to a knowledgeable audience.

I probably shouldn't have given any background about the assignment, and I thought asking about the numerical progression of women tubists would be within the boundaries of this forum.

[iiipopes]

OK, THE TUBA, now I'm getting hacked at you. Since you edited your initial post, my ranting at the NY Times commentator without the link to the article makes no sense, and makes the entire thread have no sense.

If you don't know what you want to research, then get your **** together before posting.

The bottom line is that professional tuba playing is no different than any other historically male dominated profession. Finally a few talented women, like at Philly, are securing positions, but have to play twice as well to do it, and may not always get paid the same for the position.

There. There's your entire thesis. Front, back, sideways, and center. It's not much of a paper, is it! Now go research something else, and in your next post tell us where you are published in a reputable abstract journal. Just don't waste the forum time going off one direction, then switching to another and making all the subsequent posts look out of context.

[iiipopes]

Played twice as well and is getting payed less? That's horseshit!

Indeed, that's the reality of it, and I hold the same opinion of the practice.

[Rick Denney]

Has it ever occurred to anyone that MAYBE the reason there are fewer female tuba players is that fewer females WANT TO PLAY the tuba?

Connie Weldon won symphony tuba gigs back when most women were professional home executives (which I hear is a very demanding job that has excellent compensation, just not in money). When the auditions came, she delivered the goods. It was true then, and it's true now. Those who might have worked against her because she was a woman might have just as readily worked against her because she was (or was not) Polish, or Catholic, or whatever.

To a much higher percentage, women I meet in business are more career-oriented than men of their age, experience, and training. They are less likely to do the work for the sheer joy of the work, and more likely to keep close tabs on their professional standing and pay (read: They are more ambitious and focused about their ambition, but less geeky in technical fields). My observation of this holds for other groups that perceive themselves as victims of past discrimination. Of course, exceptions abound, but it's enough of a trend that I've noticed it.

If the trend I observe is real, then I would expect women in general to be choosier about what they study. Playing tuba is not a field for those who are professionally ambitious, because it's too hard to actually make a good living doing it. Thus, I would expect career-oriented women to choose it less often.

Mary Ann's insight would be useful, if she reads this. I'm curious if my perceptions are general.

Rick "who finds women no more capable of leadership than men, on average" Denney

[TubaRay]

Has it ever occurred to anyone that MAYBE the reason there are fewer female tuba players is that fewer females WANT TO PLAY the tuba?

Duh!!!

[MaryAnn]

Weeellllllll. Hmmmm. I can only give personal observations, and some will not be popular. Some not popular with you, Rick, I'm sure.

Culturally, when I grew up, and a lot of the time still today, by the time women are in high school they have learned that a lot of boys do not like smart girls. They do not like, especially, girls who compete with them. They don't perceive girl-competition the same as they perceive boy-competition; like, the girls are not supposed to do that, and boys are, so it is perceived differently. A girl competing is the B-word, and a boy competing is a boy.

With that background provided: women who succeed in management are the ones, in general, who do not mind the B-word. In my company, they are quite aggressive, not women whom I want in my circle of friends. They are the ones who can take the heat of the men seeing them as B-words. The enviroment filters out the less focused women, the ones who want to do/be something else than an executive. Since men who are self-promoting are not seen as the B-word, but just as guys who are competing, the filter acts differently on them.

I do agree that those who campaign against someone just because she is female, might do the same based on race or ethnicity. Jerks are jerks.

Yes, Rick, I agree that your observation of this holds for other groups that perceive themselves as victims of past discrimination. I've moved around a bit, and one thing I noticed is that when I moved to a new part of the country, the ethnic group that was discriminated against would TELL me they were the underclass. Their experiences in that local culture changed the way they perceived themselves, and hence the way they acted. It's not "just women," it's entire groups within subcultures. I presume that somewhere subcultures exist that don't have underclasses, but I haven't run into one yet.

(Rick "who finds women no more capable of leadership than men, on average" Denney.)

Another observation, about leadership. Men and women ARE different in how they perceive leadership, and how they innately go about leading. Women, the ones who are not clawing their way up the corporate ladder, tend to try to gather consensus and then move forward. Men don't do that; they decree. I realized, where I work, that my trying to gather consensus was perceived as a lack of leadership, instead of the opposite that I perceived it to be. I don't particularly enjoy being ordered about like some kind of slave and figure other people don't either, but the corporate mindset is all about that. I gave up any thoughts of management because I would not be happy either trying to get there or being there; I want consensus, not kingship. Note that I am not talking about the women who adapt to the competetive culture, but the rest of us. I think the aggressiveness of the women who do adapt is a result of having to go against their innate natures, or perhaps the few who want that do have different innate natures, but it doesn't make them like men.

A last word....I like being an engineer but yes am less nerdy than many, maybe because the music degree came first. I also like playing tuba despite being pint-sized. It takes all kinds!

MA

[iiipopes]

Hey, MaryAnn -- having been raised by my mother who had to run her own business after my father died when I was a boy, I just have one comment:

You Go Girl!

[TubaRay]

In general, I agree with the opinions expressed by Mary Ann in her post(above). The one thing that I would add would be my opinion that good leadership should probably consist of both approaches. Sometimes there is time and reason to gather consensus, and sometimes a decree is in order. Ideally, a leader would be able to tell the difference, and those being led would understand.

Anyway I look it at, however, I have to agree that, in general, men and women look at this differently. Then again, they seem to look at everything quite differently. Of course, we have that famous quotation from Professor Henry Higgins: "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" Personally, I'm really glad they're not.

[Rick Denney]

Weeellllllll. Hmmmm. I can only give personal observations, and some will not be popular. Some not popular with you, Rick, I'm sure.

What you said about aggressiveness doesn't contradict my observations much, if any, about women. I would suggest one difference: You assume that men don't mind when other men are aggressively competitive. That may be true with some men (just as it is true with some women), but most men I know reserve the A-word for men who behave the same way as women of whom they use the B-word.

I think it's an even call.

When I played sports as a boy, there were those who were very aggressive and felt that the rules of the game were a burden to be overcome (or set aside if possible), while others enjoyed the game and saw the rules as the boundaries that shaped the game. Nobody in the latter group particularly liked playing with those in the former group. Sports provide fertile ground for bullies of either sex, and bullies were thought to be bullies by all others, including other bullies.

It's interesting to watch driver behavior as a test of general behavior at times when people think they are not accountable. I have not seen any trend that women are less aggressive--even dangerously aggressive--as drivers than men. In fact, I see the typical parent attitude ("you WILL NOT be allowed to move in front of me!") more commonly among women than men, while men are more often merely competitive ("you won't get in front of me because I'll get there first!").

In my work in the development of communications standards, reaching consensus is a critically important enterprise. We have both men and women involved in standards development, and I have not noticed that women are any more interested in consensus than men. They are no more or less able to transcend their own point of view. I wholly agree with Ray's assessment that good leadership sometimes requires consensus and sometimes requires the responsible person to just make a decision and move on. And I think that the decision works best when there is a clear winner who will take ownership of it and make it work. Too often, concensus means that nobody likes the result and therefore nobody will be committed to it. There is a balance there, and good leaders find it. Keeping score is usually harmful, but in my experience women keep score as much as men, though they may score by a different measure.

Rick "who has rarely been interested in keeping score" Denney

[iiipopes]

In my work in the development of communications standards...

Hell, no wonder I have misunderstood your posts in the past!

[MaryAnn]

On the driving behavior: when I moved to Tucson in 1988, the roads were still reasonably courteous. About five years later, a significant portion of Los Angeles had moved to Tucson and they had brought their driving habits with them. The roads here have been pretty rude ever since then. My trip last December to Virginia involved driving from the Baltimore airport south and around DC, where I ended up unfortunately at rush hour going west on whatever highway that was. I was astonished at the courtesy of the drivers in letting me into the far right lane to get on the off ramp, from the far left lane, in very heavy slow traffic. No such thing would occur here....when driving here you have to find a hole and put yourself in it, because no way is anyone going to move to let you in.

I have been honked at the very worst by women driving expensive cars, when I was silly enough to pull out into traffic in such a way (near my home) that they had to take their foot off the gas. Some women OWN the road much worse than any men I have encountered; but....the drivers who frighten me, in terms of being afraid to cross them because instead of honking at me they will blow my head off....have all been men.

It's interesting to me the different "levels of violence" that men and women will go to. Women seem to be the more obnoxious and men the more dangerous. Women will tongue-lash you until you wish you were dead, and men will make you dead. Not all of them, but a trend can be observed.

On the consensus/decree thing: I agree we need both. Some of what I do is write computer programs for the use of the rest of my department in doing transmission planning studies. For those, I will do what it takes to get consensus so we can all use the same basic program and not all have our own little idiosyncratic undocumented alien programs. The other part of my job is emergency support of the control center when things go haywire with the transmission system due to "unplanned" outages. When that happens....I get a bunch of control room operators asking me what to do NOW to alleviate the situation, and in that case I issue immediate decrees of do THIS. They don't want consensus, they want direction.

MA, who has been criticized at times other than emergencies for a lack of communication standards, by, always, women. Whoops...nope, a few months ago, it was Rick who didn't like my communication standards. I might have been decreeing, and I might have been tonguelashing. We female engineer-tuba players do both.