Re: [microsound] The women of microsound

[Jeremy Tolsma <ccws@xxxxxxxx>]

> Is electronic music really ungendered? Is this meant to be a sort of
> posthuman or machinic lack of gender? Microsound seems like a very male
> thing to me.

'Microsound' is an invention of this email list that apparently hopes to
bridge the gap between academic and popular electronic music.  Women seem to
have carved more equal footing in academic electronic (particularly
electro-acoustic) music than they have in popular electronic music, perhaps
because of the unexpoitiveness of academia - unless women can be exploited
for profit, they are left to their own devices.   Lately in popular
electronic music women are exploited as vocalists, especially evident in
'trip hop'.

So if the world at large is the product of thousands of years of patriarchal
rule, then its not surprising that microcosms within would be equally
subject to such a bias, including the fraternity of 'microsound'.  That is,
unless a conscious effort not to feed the cycle were adopted by the people
of this list, which doesn't seem likely given the climate.  It could also be
that microsound is a sex-centric activity with no value whatsoever, like men
watching football and guzzling beer or women gossiping about soap operas and
popping valiums.  Neither of those activities are something the other sex
would be wise to emulate.