Misandry & Ageism?

[westen44]

https://www.loudersound.com/culture/grace-bowers-quits-youtube

It appears that guitarist Grace Bowers who I had never heard of highly disapproves of old men looking at her and listening to her music.  She is 19.  No problems as far as I'm concerned when it comes to me.  I'll certainly not bother with her music. 

I did listen to some snippets of her music.  She does seem talented.  The problem is I couldn't care less about her music, though.  I just wonder how this might affect her association with Gibson.  They endorsed her as a Gibson artist years ago.  This can't possibly be very good for business.  It's doubtful she consulted Gibson before blocking off thousands of fans.  Now you've got to be young and like her kind of music.  No more old men and blues rock.  If you fall into that category, you're out now.  Maybe be more careful before latching on to a whimsical and temperamental artist. 


https://www.discogs.com/artist/14797598-Grace-Bowers?srsltid=AfmBOoqx4iSiAeMiCkQt_gHAQ91QmhVO-XsMnM4exCTVipziYGvvVbDe

[morrow]

 Female artists are constantly getting hit on by lecherous old creeps.The blues seems to attract about 2% of the population , but you get 2% of everything. Rich/poor , young/old , good looking/ugly. All ages. Some are inevitably predators. And after a couple of beers think women find them irresistible.
Not all do.
If you know female performers you know exactly what they go through ...

[Pilgrim]

Well, we all need to navigate this thing called life in our own way. Some of us complicate it more than we need to, but then again, some are happy that they did.

[westen44]

Female artists are constantly getting hit on by lecherous old creeps.The blues seems to attract about 2% of the population , but you get 2% of everything. Rich/poor , young/old , good looking/ugly. All ages. Some are inevitably predators. And after a couple of beers think women find them irresistible.
Not all do.
If you know female performers you know exactly what they go through ...

One of my best friends that I've known for years is a female guitarist.  I've been in music stores many times with her and also on stage a few times.  I'm pretty familiar with how some people treat musicians who are chicks.  But I've got another friend who refuses to believe that girls can play any musical instrument.  He admits that some of them can sing rock.  I sent him a video several weeks ago of Glenn Hughes and Sophie Lloyd.  He said he could only watch a little of it because chicks can't play guitar.  As someone who has played bass for years, I still can't comprehend that some men just can't seem to tolerate female musicians.  It makes no sense to me. 

In the case of Grace Bowers, it looks to me like she might have overreacted.  But she may have had to experience very lewd comments which may have been unbearable.  However, I wish there could have been a way for her to understand that many men are reasonable and considerate. To me it seems what she did with deleting all of her YouTube videos was a little like the farmer who burned down his barn to get rid of the rats.  It's my guess that her perception of her situation may be different at age 29 than at age 19.  Or maybe not.  I'm a fan of the Runaways and it is incredible what they had to go against.  Having to finish your gig covered in spit time after time.  Things like that are simply inexcusable.  The Runaways had guts; I can tell you that.  I'm not saying Grace Bowers doesn't have guts, too.  But we all handle things in our own way.  There are no clear-cut rules for things like this.

[Ken]

I can't be in her shoes, but it does seem like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  Just like with dealing with racism, you need everyone involved to make change.

[Pilgrim]

The comment about guys who refuse to acknowledge that women can be fantastic guitarists reminds me of a couple of things.

1) When someone WANTS to believe something, the power of the human mind to ignore reality is incredibly strong.

2) A closely related case is guys who refuse to accept that women can be good sportscasters. I've heard a number of women call games (usually football) and I know that afterwards there will be a stream of guys complaining about her voice, her work, her qualifications - - or some combination of the above. I grew up in radio and I know how hard it is to call a game well, so I understand how good they are. I find it frustrating the some guys are convinced that all women are inferior sportscasters.

[westen44]

The comment about guys who refuse to acknowledge that women can be fantastic guitarists reminds me of a couple of things.

1) When someone WANTS to believe something, the power of the human mind to ignore reality is incredibly strong.

2) A closely related case is guys who refuse to accept that women can be good sportscasters. I've heard a number of women call games (usually football) and I know that afterwards there will be a stream of guys complaining about her voice, her work, her qualifications - - or some combination of the above. I grew up in radio and I know how hard it is to call a game well, so I understand how good they are. I find it frustrating the some guys are convinced that all women are inferior sportscasters.

I hadn't heard the thing about sportscasters.  I had no idea.  But overall I'm still genuinely puzzled that there seem to be so many men determined to prove that women can't be good at so many things.  Is the motive jealousy? What's the point?  I really don't get it and never have been able to.  Yes, this kind of thing actually is frustrating and sometimes outright stupid.  No wonder there are some women out there who call men chauvinist pigs.  Not that I agree with that terminology, but it's no surprise to hear it said. 

[ajkula66]

I like Miss Bowers' playing and believe that she's talented. Having said that, the material on the debut album did nothing for me.

However...she seemed like a genuinely nice and perhaps naive young lady in the couple of interviews that I've come across. I'd tend to believe that there was a reason for her anger, as poorly as she might have worded her feelings.

She might have just seen the light and dodged the bullet.

I tend to give young people a benefit of a doubt more often than not so...

We'll see what she comes up with next.

[morrow]

Gender has absolutely nothing to do with musical ability.

[Alanko]

Part of me thinks you shouldn't get too hung up on anything a 19 year old says, and part of me thinks she is probably 100% correct. By playing such an orthodox, staid form of popular music she is sort of biting the hand that feeds by criticising the core market for that music so openly. At the same time she probably thought a lot of the dinosaur attitudes died off forty years ago, yet they are there to see on any music forum or on social media.

On other forums I've seen people question how well Rush's new "female" drummer will cope. Will the "female" make it through Tom Sawyer? As if Geddy and Alex are taking a risk here. And when Rush fans start using the term "female" as the repeated signifier you know that they have limited experience of the opposite sex...

Women artists are constantly scrutinised by a male audience. It starts with how pleasing their appearance is to the male gaze, long before their musicianship or creativity is assessed. Did they dress too austerely? To risqué? She probably only got the gig because she's good looking, sleeping with the guitarist, I would have played a better solo there, etc.

[uwe]

It seems to me that Grace likes leggy performances and lots of hair ...

Now there's nothing wrong with that and I would never deduce from putting a little sex in your performance to the musical ability of the artist. But if you do that and later on complain that men take notice (aren't they supposed to?), then her reaction is a trifle naive and immature.

BTW, her guitar playing is fine.

Sex and art can be a complete package, that's an age-old thing, don't try to chemically separate it.

[westen44]

If Grace had red hair or if she were a brunette, I might become guilty of the things she accuses men of.  Or if she wore deliberately provocative attire, even more than the leggy stuff she's wearing.  As of now, I think she's safe from me. 

BTW, that's a good point about sex and art sometimes being a complete package.  Grace is from California.  She should know about the sex/art merger thing.  Although not the song's writer, I think Robert Palmer was doing a brilliant job of merging sex and art here.  Of course the same could be said for his rendition of "Addicted to Love."  Incidentally, I just learned the other day that those models on  Addicted were drunk.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlPHmYtqSdA&list=RDDlPHmYtqSdA&start_radio=1

[Pilgrim]

An advertisement has been (semi-humorously) defined as "An attractive woman using, wearing or standing next to the item that is being advertised."

That's a male point of view, but it is a surprisingly effective definition for many products, especially those marketed to men.

I have always thought that Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love (one of my all time favorite music videos) had reduced the music video to its most basic and primal form, meaning that it consisted of two critical elements:

1) Music
2) Attractive women moving to the music

His other videos didn't depart very far from that formula.

[Ken]

Look up Bill Hicks' bit on the Coke ad.

[Ken]

Here you go