A year ago I asked the question "Where Are the Female Composers?" and attempted to answer it by briefly touching on the issue of an institutionalized gender gap, among other topics. Sarah addressed the frustrating discrepancies between the male/female demographics in the composition world and the winners of awards in "Competitions and Gender: What's Up with That?" I still feel mostly the same way as I did last year regarding these topics. However, one highly important aspect of the gender gap was left out of our discussion last year: the issue of confidence.
For the most part, I find (in my limited experience) that women are generally unwilling to discuss confidence issues when addressing the gender gap, especially in mixed-gender company. I think we all feel, to a certain extent, that admitting to a lack of confidence or having any kind of self-doubt displays a weakness that can only be harmful to us in this brash, networking, market-driven world.
(Side note: Timidity, hesitancy, or even expressing an appreciation for the complexity of an issue are all qualities that are currently culturally devalued. We can see this even on the national stage in the media, when Obama is criticized for his sometimes bumbling, "professorial" nature and Palin is given kudos for her brazenly over-inflated sense of self. We've all heard this kind of statement, or something similar: "Well, I don't respect her views, but you have to give her credit: she's got balls." I won't even begin to address the frustrating sexual bias of such a statement. The bottom line, though, is that in our culture, Palin's confidence sells and therefore is "valued," whereas Obama's "self-doubt" is considered boring at best and embarrassing at worst.)
We all know from dealing with the posturing and one-upmanship that happens in the composition world that it is just bad business to show fear, to express doubts, or to express other general insecurities (although, when you do, especially to other women, it is interesting how often the response is something along the lines of, "Oh, I'm so glad you said that. I feel the same way!"). So it is perhaps unsurprising that issues of confidence--especially as a factor in the gender gap--sometimes go under the radar.
In fact, Sarah and I debated last year whether or not to address confidence at all and we decided not to. We wanted to raise questions and to focus on the seemingly more damaging aspects of the gender gap, such as condescension, harassment, and exclusion.
Additionally, we both had heard others say, "Confidence is a personality thing, not a gender thing," and we didn't want to alienate our male readers who have struggled with confidence issues themselves. The world (and the composition world, especially) is not a forgiving place to anyone who is insecure, no matter what gender they may be.
A year later, I think we were remiss in not addressing confidence in relation to the gender gap. I do agree that confidence issues can be, to a certain extent, personality-based and therefore somewhat gender- or sex-neutral. However, I think that as composers, women may be more likely than men to have confidence issues. For women, the crisis of confidence is not necessarily an individualized phenomenon as much as it is a cultural and existential phenomenon (and for some shy personalities, it may be both). For one thing, we have fewer role models and a much smaller support network.
It is much more difficult, psychologically, for a woman to envision her place in the composition world than it is for a man (and we all know it's hard enough for anyone to envision themselves as a successful composer). Should she have an off day or a moment of feeling low (we're all prone to these), she is much less likely to find strength in her gendered community than her male peers would be, simply because she does not really have a gendered community at all. Never underestimate the power of role models.
In a musicology class I recently read an article by Erin Wehr-Flowers on female confidence issues in jazz improvisation (Erin Wehr-Flowers. 2006. "Differences between Male and Female Students' Confidence, Anxiety, and Attitude toward learning jazz improvisation." Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 54, No. 4, (Winter, 2006), pp. 337-349). It is a small study that is perhaps lacking in substantial amounts of data (these were the criticisms of my classmates, at least), but I still think it is illuminating to a certain degree. Of the 137 responses (taken from individuals in middle school, junior high school, high school, college, and community jazz ensembles), it is striking that "the mean score for females was lower than the mean score for males on every statement of the three subscales" regarding confidence in jazz improvisation (345).
Basically, when asked to gauge their own abilities in jazz improvisation, the female responses were consistently lower than the male responses on every question, despite there being no significant indication of a talent disparity. Of course this study could be an aberration, but I would bet money that if a similar survey were given to male and female composers that there would be similar results.
The problem with a lack of confidence in a gendered group is that it only perpetuates the cycle that creates the gender gap in the first place. If women are not feeling empowered in the composition world they probably will opt out in some fasion. Sarah noted in her post The Sexist Elephant that women tend to drop away from composition in academia as the degrees get higher. Are women self-selecting out? And if they are, is it because of confidence? We know from statistics that about 20% of composers in America are female. It would be interesting to know if competitions receive submissions that reflect this demographic proportion or if women are also self-selecting out of competitions because of confidence issues.
I imagine the gender gap in the composition world is due to a combination of women self-selecting out (for a wide variety of reasons) and institutionalized discrimination. We do, after all, live in a country that still has a wage gap with a portion that is still unexplained by anything other than discrimination. And we know from the stories that we shared last year (and that our commenters shared) that discrimination still happens. There will always be bigots in the world, so I'm not sure what to do about the discrimination aspect of things. But I do think we need to address this issue of confidence (and role models) head on, as was suggested in this recent article in The Guardian.
I'm very curious about your thoughts on this topic, as I know it is complex. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment on any aspect of what I've just discussed.
Posted by Natalie
I have to side with the opinion that self-confidence is a genderless condition, although I think expression of self-confidence deficiencies is definitely different between the genders. I'd just like to add another dimension to the info you provided...
ReplyDeleteHere is a TED talk by Brene Brown about vulnerability.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html
She specializes in the study of shame, fear, and vulnerability. I think the things she discusses are very relevant to all aspects of life and help demonstrate how massive the problem of self-confidence really is in everyday life for everyone. I'm personally, very glad to have stumbled upon it - it's powerful research!
Thanks for posting! The "couple of beers and a banana nut muffin" bit cracked me up. :)
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt that this is a complex issue, and you've brought up a lot of interesting ideas. I'll just post two quick thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) I tell many of my composition students (male and female) that they have to figure out how to summon more ego if they want to be successful - that a big component of success is simply being willing to put musical ideas out there, whether or not they're appreciated or liked. I haven't had enough total students to be able to say with any confidence if this is more the case for female students, but I do believe this is an important component for success in music composition, as the business is currently practiced. BTW - I'm not saying this is good or bad, simply that this is something I think will help them be successful.
2) I remember hearing about some study years ago that showed that girls were more successful in math classes, and asked a lot more questions, if they were in classrooms without any boys. I don't know how much this connects to this question, though I would be curious to know how different the experience would be at concerts and festivals with only women in attendance and only music composed by women. This study looked at adolescents, and I don't know that these same principles would translate into music anyway, but it's interesting to think about.
Hi Jeff,
DeleteThanks for your comments! I agree that being in the composition world does require significant amounts of confidence. I often wonder what a composition department would be like if it only had women. It would be an interesting case study, for sure!
Anecdotally, I grew up playing the standard piano rep and would compose little pieces alongside what I would practice for my lessons. But I never thought of them really as "pieces" in a classical sense and when I thought of people I could emulate I thought more of Tori Amos than I did of Mozart. Sometimes I wonder if I would have felt differently if I had been exposed to Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Joan Tower, and others at a younger age. Maybe I would have had a more conscious awareness of what it could mean to be a "composer." Who knows!
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Natalie
As I was reading this, I realized that I might be one of those who "self selects out" of higher degrees etc. After finishing my Comp. MM, I'm doing my PhD in Theory. The reasons I decided to do this (a year ago) were 1) teaching theory was the only thing that made me really passionate during a emotional slump 2) I felt that I was better (more confident?) at theory, and 3) I could get a job.
ReplyDeletePart of it is also that I've always been a little more theory oriented; my brain just kinda works that way, but other influences in my decision included the fact that I particularly wanted to work more with that faculty group, and maybe even that there is a strong, non-competitive, grad-student community that includes several women. (Disclaimer: my university does not foster a competitive environment among composers. Unrelated circumstances have led me to feel safer in the Theory group.)
I have never considered myself to be someone who is boxed in by gender roles; my upbringing never suggested to me there was anything I couldn't do. My mom is chemistry professor, my favorite subjects growing up were math and science, I did absolutely everything my brother did (and more), and never even considered till grad school that other people had mental blocks about performance related to gender. However, I wonder how much of never knowing about any female composers led me to unconsciously determine it was not a field where I wanted to even TRY to become employed.
I know that I have a pretty good outward projection of confidence, although inward is another discussion all together. One of the reasons I thought I should pursue composing is because it was the only area that actually made me nervous before performances. I want people to like my work. On some level, I'm still the middle-school outcast that just wants people to like ME.
I started work on this degree because I wanted to learn more, and I didn't have any better plans. I had no idea of how to turn what I was doing into a career path. I never really considered trying to make any money composing. I plan to continue composing when friends ask me for pieces, but I have no desire to compose professionally. I've often said, if I happen to write music that lots of people want to play, great! but otherwise, I'll just keep writing so as to not go crazy.
Krista
That's a great point, Krista. The composition world is so tough anyway, it makes it hard to know how much a decision is completely your own and to what extent it might be related to other factors. And a lot of gender-related topics (discrimination, confidence issues, etc.) can affect us in insidious and subconscious ways.
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