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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From housetop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen Chris, and I have

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Speaker 1: to start by asking you do you play any music construments?

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Speaker 1: Do I play any musical insturance? Truthfully, Molly, if you

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Speaker 1: walk into my bedroom, you'll see an acoustic guitar sitting

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Speaker 1: quite close to my bed, as though I play it

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Speaker 1: very often to perhaps strum myself to sleep, when in

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Speaker 1: fact I haven't played it in like two years. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I did teach myself to play the guitar, and

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Speaker 1: quite a long time ago. I also taught myself to

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Speaker 1: play the flute. You're quite a self taught genius. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's true. Did you see an instrument you must must

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Speaker 1: teach yourself to play it? Yes? Uh yeah, but you

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Speaker 1: know I dabbled in the in the flute. Did you

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Speaker 1: ever consider maybe playing the tuba? The tuba? No, because

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Speaker 1: I picked up the guitar and the flute because there

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Speaker 1: was a guitar and a flute in my house growing up.

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Speaker 1: I think that you didn't play the tuba because you

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Speaker 1: knew of the gender stereotypes associated with it. Yes, in homeschool,

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Speaker 1: the gender stereotypes were crushing. Um, I had to pick

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Speaker 1: my instruments carefully lest my fake classmates really, do you know,

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Speaker 1: make fun of me. Well, that's where you had the advantage,

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Speaker 1: because if you had been in a school with real classmates,

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Speaker 1: they might have really bullied you. Because today we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about the gender stereotyping of musical instruments. And

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Speaker 1: you know you make jokes, Kristen. But here's one score

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Speaker 1: one for the homeschool kids who could pick their instruments

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Speaker 1: without crushing gender stereotypes and possible bullying of their classmates. Now,

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Speaker 1: before listeners think that we have totally gone off the

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Speaker 1: deep end by talking about the gendering of musical instruments,

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Speaker 1: there is a some there is some logic behind this,

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Speaker 1: okay with this all got started because a listener of ours,

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Speaker 1: Robbie McKay um at Queen's University in Canada, studies musical

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Speaker 1: education and he suggestsed that we do a podcast on

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Speaker 1: women in music, which is a bit topic, huge topic,

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Speaker 1: and he sent us um some research that he had

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Speaker 1: done with with links to other research, and one thing

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Speaker 1: that kept popping up over and over again in all

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Speaker 1: these studies was this gender stereotyping with musical instruments, like

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Speaker 1: determining whether or not boys picked the drums because they

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Speaker 1: want to play drums or because it's more masculine, and

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Speaker 1: why do you know why our girls gonna play, you know,

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Speaker 1: the flute like me instead of say a two uh um.

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Speaker 1: And it's something that researchers have actually been studying pretty

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Speaker 1: intensively since the late nineteen seventies. There was this large

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Speaker 1: study conducted by these researchers Ables and Porter who basically

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Speaker 1: pulled a large group of college students on um gender

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Speaker 1: associations with different types of instruments. They kind of created

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Speaker 1: a gender spectrum, if you will, for musical instruments, and

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Speaker 1: they found that, you know, not surprisingly, drums and guitar

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Speaker 1: are on the male, and the piccolo, the flute, the violin,

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Speaker 1: the clarinet are on the female and smack dab in

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Speaker 1: the middle, the saxophone. The saxophone, we have learned, is

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Speaker 1: the most non gender associated instrument. For every Bill Clinton

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Speaker 1: on the Arsenio Hall Show, there's a Lisa sentence, So

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's very even handed. And there have been

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Speaker 1: since Ables and Porter put out their work, there have

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Speaker 1: been a lot of studies that try to unravel why children,

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Speaker 1: you know, precious innocent children who haven't been tainted by

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Speaker 1: our gender gender wars, can automatically assume that some instruments

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Speaker 1: fall on a on a male female spectrum. You know,

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Speaker 1: they've done things where they've tried to put children in

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Speaker 1: front of musicians who are playing the opposite instrument of

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Speaker 1: what the previous children had assigned his masculine to see

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Speaker 1: if that would change their minds. Um. They've done things

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Speaker 1: where they just showed them the picture of the instrument

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Speaker 1: and the sound of it. You know, if they've done

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Speaker 1: all these different things that will kind of get into

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Speaker 1: to figure out why children do this, if it can

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Speaker 1: be changed, and if it's actually harming them from reaching

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Speaker 1: their full musical potential, right if there's like a certain

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Speaker 1: instrument they want to play. Say, if if a little

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Speaker 1: boy wants to play a flute, is he going to

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Speaker 1: pick up a guitar instead because he doesn't want to

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Speaker 1: be deemed a sissy? And a lot of the research

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Speaker 1: continually comes back to um not only the fact that yes,

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Speaker 1: these kids are aware from a pretty young age of

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Speaker 1: these sort of gender um attachments to different instruments. But

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Speaker 1: it's also the music teacher and the parents who have

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Speaker 1: the biggest impact, because with these younger music students, the

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Speaker 1: teacher is going to actually assign the instruments for them

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Speaker 1: to play, and so they might naturally give a tuba

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Speaker 1: to a larger boy and give a piccolaw to a

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Speaker 1: little lady, and um, you know, then on the flip

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Speaker 1: side of that, a parent might kind of freak out

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Speaker 1: if um, if the the instrument that the son or

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Speaker 1: daughter chooses does not necessarily match up with their gender ideals,

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Speaker 1: gender ideals, gender constructs, if you will. That's actually something

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Speaker 1: Kristen that summer h Botube picked up on uh in

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Speaker 1: an article in the magazine Canadian Music Educator. She writes

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Speaker 1: about being a teacher, first in a co educational school

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Speaker 1: and then in a single sex classroom. When she taught

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Speaker 1: in the wed school, she assigned the students their instruments

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Speaker 1: or you know, she you know, did little things to

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Speaker 1: help them pick it out, and all the students were

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Speaker 1: thrilled with their instruments, so excited, and then everything was

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Speaker 1: fine for a week until she got calls from the

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Speaker 1: parents who said, you know, my daughter is not going

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Speaker 1: to play the horn. She's a dainty little girl. She

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Speaker 1: cannot play the French horn. She will not be playing

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Speaker 1: the trumpet. Give her, give her a clarinet, give her

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Speaker 1: a woodwind. And then six years later she found herself

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Speaker 1: teaching in that single sex setting that I mentioned, and

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Speaker 1: the girls felt more free in this environment to pick

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Speaker 1: instruments that they might not have picked in a co

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Speaker 1: educational classroom. And then interesting thing that she found through

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Speaker 1: um studying, uh, this this idea of you know, gender

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Speaker 1: and musical instruments. It's that for girls who pick typically

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Speaker 1: male instruments, they're seen as trailblazers and pioneers, whereas for boys,

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Speaker 1: it's a much more different cult process for them to

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Speaker 1: play a stereotypically female instrument, because they tend to be

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Speaker 1: ridiculed a lot more if they choose to play something

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Speaker 1: like a clarinet as opposed to, oh, I don't know, Molly,

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Speaker 1: a trombone. And even the girls in the single sex

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Speaker 1: setting were able to realize that that even though they

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Speaker 1: weren't being taught with boys, they knew that you know,

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Speaker 1: they did have it a little bit easier than males

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Speaker 1: did when it came to picking different instruments, and they

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Speaker 1: specifically said that the flute is the most difficult for

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Speaker 1: males to play in terms of societal expectation and perception. Now,

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Speaker 1: on the flip side of that, we ran across another

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Speaker 1: study trying to figure out what the least gendered musical

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Speaker 1: instruments are. And I mentioned earlier that the saxophone is

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Speaker 1: the androgynous ideal, Okay, but the other instruments that have

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Speaker 1: the least gendered attachments to them are the African drums,

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Speaker 1: the cornet, the French horn, saxophone of course, and the

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Speaker 1: tenor horn. Interesting. Yeah, so a lot of these kind

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Speaker 1: of light brass and they can be in the middle

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Speaker 1: of That makes sense because a lot of the other

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Speaker 1: research we had said that girls are going to play

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Speaker 1: up high, they want very high tones, dainty instruments, um,

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Speaker 1: and the boys want down low. They want to get

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Speaker 1: down and dirty. And uh, they also like difficult instruments,

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Speaker 1: is what one said, you found because they want to show,

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Speaker 1: you know, that they are mastering something. Now, the more

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Speaker 1: research we did, the more we realized too that this

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Speaker 1: isn't just an issue that is unique to American classrooms today.

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Speaker 1: The roots of this gendering of musical instruments not surprisingly

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Speaker 1: goes back not only in history but also too different cultures.

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Speaker 1: For instance, UM, I post a little fun fact of

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Speaker 1: the day on our Facebook page, Uh not too long

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Speaker 1: ago when I was that comes from this research saying that,

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Speaker 1: for instance, in Victorian time times, women who played the

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Speaker 1: cello had to play it side saddle so that they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be sitting there with this giant instrument in between um,

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Speaker 1: in between their legs. And throughout all these different cultures

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Speaker 1: you'll find these instruments that are reserved specifically for men

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Speaker 1: and for women, and in some like men can't women

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Speaker 1: at least aren't even allowed to touch these very sacred

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Speaker 1: male instruments. And it's more rare to find the flip

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Speaker 1: side of that where female instruments can't be touched by men.

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Speaker 1: And you're talking about a study that we found called

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Speaker 1: Sounds of Power and Overview of Musical Instruments and Gender

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Speaker 1: by Vernica double Day, which goes into different practices throughout

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Speaker 1: these different cultures and really takes a very deep look

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Speaker 1: not just at the relationship between who's playing the instrument

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Speaker 1: and who's observing that person playing the instrument, but also

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Speaker 1: just what went into making the instrument, who made it,

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Speaker 1: how they made it, um, what sort of gender cues

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Speaker 1: they installed within that instrument. You know, there are something

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Speaker 1: I wanted to call this episode things you don't know

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Speaker 1: about loots, because depending on the kind of lute you're playing,

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Speaker 1: you are sending all sorts of gender messages. Um. But

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Speaker 1: she goes into not just your typical bang, you know,

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Speaker 1: band class instruments, but things that uh, through ancient times

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Speaker 1: have been played as ways also to signify gods. And

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Speaker 1: then she gets into the gender of the gods. There

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Speaker 1: are some instruments that you play when you're trying to

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Speaker 1: summon a male god versus a female god. And uh,

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Speaker 1: she says, you know, it's impossible to play these instruments

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Speaker 1: and those cultures without you know, bringing to mind all

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Speaker 1: of these gender politics issues. So do you have a

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Speaker 1: great example that we come throughout their CHRISTA. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: do have a great example, she mentions. And this goes

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Speaker 1: back to um, not just the shape or the sound

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Speaker 1: of an instrument, but actually the materials used to make it.

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Speaker 1: And she says that in Eastern Iran makes of the

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Speaker 1: long necked dutar loot prefer to use the wood from

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Speaker 1: a female mulberry tree to that of a male because

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Speaker 1: it's less um, it's drier wood, and therefore sounds better

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Speaker 1: female mulberry tree. Here's another one. There are these drums

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Speaker 1: in Indonesia and they, according to her illustrate consistently virile

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Speaker 1: associations with with frame drums. These drums are always played

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Speaker 1: by men and its mystically potent objects, maybe bequeathed from

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Speaker 1: father to son. Performers are members of devotional brotherhoods or

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Speaker 1: male religious or secular ensembles, and the drumming at companies

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Speaker 1: text praising the male profet. Now, this gendering of instruments

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Speaker 1: is kind of interesting because while the construction makes it male,

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Speaker 1: gives it. This instrument, this loot if you will, well

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Speaker 1: not if you will it is a loot, gives this

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Speaker 1: loot a male identity. It is meant for women to play.

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Speaker 1: So there's this relationship between like male female union. The

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Speaker 1: Double Day also talks about, but she says that in Yemen,

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Speaker 1: the point where the strings of the quanda salute are

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Speaker 1: attached to the base of an instrument is called the

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Speaker 1: little penis, indicating a male identity for the instrument, and

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Speaker 1: she says that another researcher has noted that this conforms

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Speaker 1: to a legend about the origin of the arab loute

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Speaker 1: as derived derived from the body of a dead boy.

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Speaker 1: So that's an instance where the player and the instrument

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Speaker 1: come together in some sort of union and to you know,

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Speaker 1: put up with heteronormative ideals. Then a woman would only

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Speaker 1: play an instrument that signified a boy, whereas vice versa

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Speaker 1: would happen. One thing that she points out that um,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting is the naming of instruments. She

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Speaker 1: talks about how the bells church bells in England have

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Speaker 1: male names like Big Ben in Westminster, Oxford's Great Tom,

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Speaker 1: and then she points out that we're not past naming

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Speaker 1: things today. Think of Bob King's guitar Lucy Ill. And

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Speaker 1: that's another example where a man is playing something that's

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Speaker 1: been signified as a female. Now I want to just

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Speaker 1: jump right ahead though, to the old saxophone, because we

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Speaker 1: can't leave the saxophone dangling, because some people have probably wondered, like,

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Speaker 1: why is a saxophone considered this ideal gender ideal in

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Speaker 1: the music world, and Double Day really hits um if

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Speaker 1: you will, she nails it when she plays she I

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Speaker 1: guess she plays a solo. She nails the She nailed

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Speaker 1: that's what we're looking for. She nails the solo. Now.

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Speaker 1: She says that um, the various physical forms of the saxophone,

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Speaker 1: it's shape can be interpreted as either masculine um and

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Speaker 1: she refers to the soprent effect saxophone as especially phallic

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Speaker 1: looking or feminine. And she says especially the s shape models.

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Speaker 1: And the other issue relates to it's um, it's straddling

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Speaker 1: woodwind and brass instruments, and then also the toe nality

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Speaker 1: of it. It's not necessarily it can go pretty high,

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Speaker 1: but it can also go proughted low. So it just

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Speaker 1: it spans this gender spectrum. And so that's why a

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Speaker 1: lot of these studies will point out that right in

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Speaker 1: the middle we have the saxophone. And Double Day you know,

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Speaker 1: finishes up by saying that obviously we're probably not gonna

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Speaker 1: view loots as these gendered you know objects forever that

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Speaker 1: this sort of um, all these you know, meanings we

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Speaker 1: put into the instruments are shifting or people are choosing

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Speaker 1: to be less cognizant of them. And I think that

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Speaker 1: that really echoes what the educator found in the single

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Speaker 1: sex classroom that you know, even though these these stereotypes

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Speaker 1: still exist, they are breaking down. In fact, ables who

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Speaker 1: championed that study we talked about at the very beginning

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Speaker 1: of the podcast did a similar one you're three decades later,

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Speaker 1: to see if these gender stereotypes still held true. He

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Speaker 1: found that, um, they are, they are going down a

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Speaker 1: little bit. That people are choosing to see instruments is

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Speaker 1: less associated with one particular gender than another. And uh,

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Speaker 1: then it gets into what can we do to stop that.

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Speaker 1: There was one thing in the Sunday Times that pointed

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Speaker 1: out that, you know, the single sex classrooms classroom teachers

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Speaker 1: experience was not unusual that when you are in a

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Speaker 1: um all female or all male ensemble, you have more

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Speaker 1: freedom to choose. And also you kind of have to

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Speaker 1: play the instrument that is not in your comfort zone

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Speaker 1: because if you don't, you won't have a balanced, balanced sound.

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Speaker 1: So they recommended, you know, as much as possible trying to,

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Speaker 1: especially when the kids are young, you know, put them

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Speaker 1: into sort of saturated groups just to get them playing

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Speaker 1: different instruments, so that by the time they come back

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Speaker 1: together for something like high school band, they've all had

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Speaker 1: experience playing different things, They've seen different genders playing different things,

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Speaker 1: and those old stereotypes that you know, a teacher might

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Speaker 1: have inadvertedly handed down or their parents might have inavertedly

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Speaker 1: handed down will be you know, wiped away a little

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Speaker 1: bit more. And this is also something of the National

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Speaker 1: Association for Musical Education has looked at as well, this

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Speaker 1: issue of of ensuring that teachers aren't uh giving out,

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Speaker 1: making sure that teachers aren't assigning musical instruments just based on,

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Speaker 1: you know, purely on size and on gender. And they

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Speaker 1: really recommend that the teachers remain cognizant of these kind

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Speaker 1: of stereotypes that they might have in mind and really

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Speaker 1: try to uh hone in on children's interests and they

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Speaker 1: are just natural talents, rather than just making a judgment

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Speaker 1: called based solely on their appearance. And also addressing the

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Speaker 1: issue of, uh, you know what about the parents. You know,

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Speaker 1: you have to deal with their reactions as well if

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Speaker 1: you give their daughter a tuba. And I think one

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Speaker 1: point they made that would be really easy to implement

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Speaker 1: even just in your own home with your own children's

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Speaker 1: just to to dial up the YouTube and find clips

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Speaker 1: of women playing typically mass on instruments and vice versa,

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Speaker 1: finding men playing what we consider the more feminine instruments,

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Speaker 1: just to show them that, you know, it does exist

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Speaker 1: that people cross over, for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 1: with their instruments. And I think, and we'll get to

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Speaker 1: this in our kind of follow up podcast if you

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Speaker 1: will on women performers in music, Um, you're gonna there's

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Speaker 1: there's it's becoming more accepted in general with popular music

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Speaker 1: for men and women to kind of cross over those barriers.

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Speaker 1: It's not strange to see a woman with a guitar,

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Speaker 1: it's not strange to see a woman playing the drums,

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Speaker 1: and it's not strange to see men picking up different

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Speaker 1: instruments as well. Sting plays the lute. Sting plays the lute.

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Speaker 1: Molly really obsessed with lutes now, And just to close

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Speaker 1: things out and drive the point home that yeah, it

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Speaker 1: does matter that we facilitate children's interests in music, whether

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Speaker 1: you know boy wants to play a piccolo or a

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Speaker 1: girl wants to play a trombone. We wanted to toss

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Speaker 1: out a couple of facts also from the National Association

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Speaker 1: for Musical Education that we hear all the time, you know,

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Speaker 1: because we're always worried about saving the music and all

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Speaker 1: of that. But it's always good to be reminded of

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Speaker 1: the importance of music in education, because, for instance, children

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Speaker 1: with music training have better verbal memory, and they are

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Speaker 1: better with spoken language, and they have markedly different brain development.

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Speaker 1: It also improved memory over the course of a year

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Speaker 1: compared to kids who do not receive musical training, and

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Speaker 1: that brain development manifests itself later down the road with

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Speaker 1: higher SAT scores and higher math and English scores and

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Speaker 1: those statistics. They even stripped out all the socioeconomic factors

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Speaker 1: that might have influenced that, because my first instinct was, oh,

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Speaker 1: a school that has a music program might have more

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Speaker 1: money than a different school. No, that wasn't a factor.

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Speaker 1: Even kids who are in very simple music programs that

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Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of money still demonstrated those amazing

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Speaker 1: brain changes. So it is pretty cool. Yeah, So music

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Speaker 1: is good. It's good for the ears, and it's good

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Speaker 1: for the brain and for the soul and for the

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Speaker 1: soul and the rest Assured, like Kristen said, this will

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Speaker 1: not be the last time we visit music and women

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Speaker 1: and gender and all that good stuff because it's such

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Speaker 1: a broad topic. But we did start with instruments, so

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Speaker 1: we'd love to hear your tales of learning to play. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: women out there touting around a double bass, men touting

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Speaker 1: around a harp, we'd love to hear from you. Yes please,

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Speaker 1: Mom stuff at house stuffworks dot com. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: we'll read an email or two. I'm gonna start with

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Speaker 1: one from Rebecca, who is writing response to the Women

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Speaker 1: in Art podcast, and she writes, I would say that

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Speaker 1: the next time you're in the New York City area,

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Speaker 1: skip the overpriced and overcrowded moment and take a short

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Speaker 1: ride out to Brooklyn on the two three train and

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Speaker 1: visit the Brooklyn Museum. I'm not sure whether or not

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Speaker 1: it is a conscious effort on their apart, but I

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Speaker 1: feel like they always have a good representation of current

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Speaker 1: female artists. It is, of course, the permanent home to

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Speaker 1: Judy Cargo's renown feminist piece at the Dinner Party, and

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Speaker 1: the last time I was there, I was treated to

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Speaker 1: an extensive and very moving solo exhibit by Keith Smith

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Speaker 1: and worked by another favorite contemporary female artist, Kara Walker.

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Speaker 1: So thank you, Rebecca and anyone who's headed to New

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Speaker 1: York anytime soon. There's a travel tip, all right. I've

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Speaker 1: got a long distance relationship story here from Mark, and

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Speaker 1: he was in a long distance relationship and has now

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Speaker 1: reunited with his love. He says, we went to high

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Speaker 1: school together, never spoke, met after college, and started seriously

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Speaker 1: dating soon after. Unfortunately, we got together knowing full well

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Speaker 1: that she was leaving a month later for Americor in

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Speaker 1: Washington State. We're from New Hampshire. I told people this

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Speaker 1: something to be effective. Oh she's moving to Washington for

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Speaker 1: about a year, and he usually said, oh, that's not

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Speaker 1: too bad, A quick flight out of Boston and cheap

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Speaker 1: two to which I always had to say Washington State,

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Speaker 1: and then they said so. The whole time she was there,

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff you guys mentioned in your podcast

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Speaker 1: did happen. I as jealous of her friends that they

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Speaker 1: could see her and I couldn't. I wasn't suspicious, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't doubt her. I just envied the people she

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Speaker 1: got to see, the people she got to go out

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Speaker 1: with and experienced things with here that even I didn't

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Speaker 1: have the chance to do with her yet it was

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Speaker 1: particularly interesting because we were so early in our relationship,

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Speaker 1: still learning things about each other, so at times it

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Speaker 1: was especially challenging. But for some reason, we were both

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Speaker 1: extremely confident that we would be okay, because we said

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Speaker 1: in the beginning we wouldn't have gotten into this if

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Speaker 1: we didn't think we could do it. I totally agree

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Speaker 1: with what you've said about the diconomy between the visit

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Speaker 1: and actually living together. It's hard to adjust to you.

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Speaker 1: So we've learned to kind of relish time apart, and

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Speaker 1: now we've been going strong for over a year. How exciting.

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Speaker 1: Thank you Mark and everyone else who has sent us

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Speaker 1: your wonderful long distance relationship stories. They're also happy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: dreams can sickening. Actually, um, well, if you'd like to

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Speaker 1: sticken us further, um or delight us heart, I'm just joking.

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Speaker 1: I'm molly joking. It's mom Stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com or you can post it for were post

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Speaker 1: a relationship success for all of our fans to see

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Speaker 1: on Facebook, and you can also follow us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcast. Then finally, you can check out

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Speaker 1: our blog and you can find that at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com For more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics because it how stuff works dot Com. Want

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Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house.

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