Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Why don't we have very famous women composers?

Always a lifetime student of classical and other styles of piano performance here...Thank you for your continued educational contributions to me. I am reflecting now and will be for some time upon your academic based answers. One more thought and wondering if anyone has input please? My stepfather is a now retired Senior Genetic Research Scientist, Georgetown Unv, his is only 2 years older than am I, he is appx. 70 now. We still discuss genetic predisposition, etc.
Could it be because women have not in general, to date, had the mind set to compose, their hardwiring of this talent has been ignored? What about the offsprings of the famous classical composers who are women? Dormant talent available to them upon command? Women becoming responsible members of our composers society? I so value your input as educators and thank you in advance for your replies... The old story we do not have equal rights, as women, is no longer an excuse? Sandy B

Jason:
I keep forgetting that in spite of wriitng smileys and "j/k" (which stands for just kidding), that people really don't get humor on these forums. It was an honest joke, and nothing more. I never once said I knew more about Clara than you did. I simply said that in my opinion, I really enjoyed her art songs. You obviously do not, and so the conversation pretty much ends there, as opinions can't really be debated. No offense was intended, I just have a wierd sense of humor, I guess. I apologize.

Ignor please as I double posted. Sandy B

Don't forget that Clara probably did most of the household management. Her eldest daughter did a lot of the housework, but Clara had eight children, at a time when men didn't do much in the house. She sent them to boarding schools, all the while dealing with a crazy husband and concertizing. We can't blame her much for anything.

All the more reason why I would adore meeting you. Over a few drinks we could have a blast!

Cheers,

In ages past, what woman has had time to create amidst all that pro-creating? And how many women could afford to avoid joining the marriage merry-go-round?

I'll let you know if I ever make the trip across the pond .

Two reasons.

1. Kids.
2. Female IQ curve - in a typical population they have less idiots, but also less geniuses than males.

When touring Hyde Park, New York, years ago, a visit to the Rooseveldt mansion, I kept noticing in all the family photos, 5 children, I believe, how sad the mother, Eleanor looked. She was not an attractive woman by contemporary standards, but her sadness was overwhelming to me, also a parent of 5 children.

I read a quote she made once and it stuck with me: "There are two kinds of marriages, his and hers. His is better."

My comments would be that a wife and mother (especially in that era) had a host of family responsibilities that took precedent, and she of course, had political responsibilites, too. I would think that the things she, herself, longed to do, were not even on the daily "to do" page while she was primarily at the disposal of her family.

A lot of music did not get played, nor composed, a lot of books not being written, a lot of dreams by the wayside, because the day only has 24 hours. For many women, it was a struggle to find time and space to be themselves. Fortunately, that is changing because societies expectation of women changed, and more opportunites have presented themselves.

I don't think the "IQ curve" has anything to do with it, by the way. Here's to achieving women!

I agree with Betty.

Even in the era of my own mother, beyond being a housewife there were only a couple of acceptable professions for women: school teacher, nurse, and ...? and did I mention that a lady would (have to) quit teaching school as soon she fulfilled her true purpose in life and married?

Most women taking piano lessons in the piano-happy late-1800's were primarily being allowed to do so to have a cultured way to court a future husband in their parent's parlor. A career in music? Pardon? Perhaps offering lessons for a time inconspicuously.

But compose? Maybe a composed salad.

Thank you so very much teachers for your thinking on why we do not have famous women composers... Sandy B

I have not heard about reason #2 before. Can you cite any reliable sources that discuss this in detail?

It's a well-documented finding in psychology, Morodiene. The distribution of IQ for men is "flatter" than it is for women, although the average IQ is the same for both sexes. This means that there are indeed more male geniuses, as well as more men who are severely retarded.

I've got to run off to a meeting, so I can't dig up any primary sources, but I believe it's talked about in Stephen Pinker's "The Blank Slate" in the chapter on gender differences, and Herrnstein & Wilson's "The Bell Curve" as well.

Of course there are those who would say that methods for testing iq are skewed towards certain characteristics (gender being one) so while not being "wrong", you have to understand what the numbers are saying (are there really more male "genius'" or are there merely more males that exhibit the attributes that an admittedly male dominated society values as genius like)

Plus, has anyone really done any research on whether composers really were what we'd consider "genius" anyway? In other words, does scoring a high IQ actually relate to the ability to create what most would consider meaningful compositions?

Funny but my daughter asked me this very same question about a month ago. I just tell her that if she works hard enough that maybe she could be the first

That is absolutely the crucial question, bitWrangler. I'd have to do some lit searching, but my imperfect memory is that while compositional talent may be slightly or even moderately correlated with IQ, they are by no means overlapping constructs.

As for your first set of concerns, we could have an hours-long debate on what exactly intelligence is and what exactly IQ tests measure. There's not perfect agreement among the leading researchers in the field on that. And certainly the fact that the distributions differ for men and women tells us nothing about the root causes of those differences. Maybe it's genetic/biological. Maybe it's socialization. Nobody knows for sure. It's probably a little of both.

Sometimes it's embarrassing to be in a field where often the best answer you can give is to throw up your hands and say "we don't know."