Re: Looping Laurie Anderson

["Laurie Hatch" <lahatch@dnai.com>]

My response is veering off-topic from looping...

> From: K. Douglas Baldwin [mailto:dbaldwin@suffolk.lib.ny.us]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 1999 11:51 AM

[snip]
>I believe the spacey, ambient
> looping style
> is particularly "feminine" while the hard sampling and non-pitch/noise
> styles are more "masculine".

Douglas, I do not question the validity of your statement as being true for
you and your experience.  But I am personally uncomfortable with the 
concept
because from my point of view it reflects and reinforces gender-biased
cultural conditioning (as opposed to chromosomal programming), a circular
loop (LOOP, yes, on topic...:) from which it is so hard to break free.  I
mentioned cultural indoctrination for women in my previous Chix and Tech
post.  But what about the other side?  Traditional "masculine" role models
have not necessarily encouraged or rewarded boys and men for being warm,
loving, mellow, sensitive in the same way that women are.  Are you
biologically/hormonally any less endowed in those areas than the women you
love?  Maybe more males would feel freer to develop those qualities if the
cultural bias didn't make some guys feel like wimps for doing so.  I think
it's an enormous loss for those men, and that we all should be fighting to
regain what has been sadly diminished.  Besides, women like that kind of
stuff in a guy!  <3

>One may expect to cultivate appropriate audiences for each style.

If women and men were equally encouraged to fully develop _all_ aspects of
their humanity, I see no reason whatsoever why audiences "for each style"
would not be equally balanced.  The appreciation of certain styles would be
based on personal preference, not necessarily on gender.

>     The whole concept of "using tools", though, is a
> gender-charged one.

Likewise, if I might liberally paraphrase, I do not believe that estrogen
inhibits the propensity or desire to create and enjoy hard sampling and
non/pitch noise (I'm only one example).  Furthermore, given the opportunity
(without some know-it-all guy butting in to "show us how" or "do it better"
:) many women totally get off on driving big trucks, wielding pipe 
:wrenches,
soldering wires, stomping pedals, and they do it damn well --- jeez, don't
get me started... When I was 4, playing with dollies was OK, but my 
favorite
scenario by far was a big pile of dirt, a water hose, and my Tonka
payloader.  Yet, I certainly don't think I'm any less "feminine" for having
excavated a mountain of mud instead of serving tea and crumpets to my
Barbies!  I _did_ have a whole lot more fun! :)

> The
> (perhaps overly Freudian but still still resonant with me) explanation I
> received is: Males have external genetalia, females have it inside. This
> manifests itself in a masculine propensity to manipulate external
> things and
> a feminine propensity to look inwards. I received that from a
> woman, by the
> way.

I think the above Freudian hypothesis is exactly as described -- an (IMHO)
overblown and misaligned theory.  While it may indeed work for some people;
it definitely doesn't work for me and a lot of the women and men I know.
Yes, you and I have different biological/evolutionary functions and
propensities, but I assert that I am absolutely no less motivated and
capable of using tools than you, and I do hope you are no less motivated 
and
capable of looking inward than I.  If either of us is deficient in those
areas I suggest it is because we are products of a long history of cultural
gender inequality, not because we are at the mercy of our gonads.

We can actually do a lot to change cultural inequities in our own lives, 
and
I know many of you extraordinarily cool guys (I truly mean that) on the 
list
already are.  Maybe your girlfriends/wives didn't grow up fixing tractors 
or
climbing trees or pounding nails or building pre-amps or listening to weird
music.  Maybe their big brother pushed them out of the way when they asked
"why?" too many times.  So they don't know they _can_.  They probably don't
have a frame of self-reference for it, with very little, if any, confidence
generated from positive reinforcement and hands-on experience.  No wonder 
so
many women aren't interested!  (Neither are a lot of guys, I assure you!
You're an unusual bunch, which is why I hang out on this list.)

Anyway, I would suggest that you encourage the girls and women in your 
lives
to see themselves in a multi-dimensional, non-traditional way, and give 
them
a lot of room to experiment and discover how interesting and fun "boy 
stuff"
is if that opportunity has been lacking.  If they've grown up with a strong
dose of our culture's typical "feminine" paradigm, _encourage them to
question it_, and support them in fully developing their dynamic potential.
And ask them, from their unique feminine perspective and wealth of
experience, to do the equivalent analogue for you.

laurie