why is it so surprising that there are womyn drummers out there? April and I were at a SHB and were approached by this very nice lady who complimented us on our playing. I was stoked and then she added "its so surprising to see female's playing drums." Although her kudos was well liked, it sorta bummed me out at the same thing.
I remember someone else finding it surprising that I played drums. He said he had never seen a female drummer before in a marching band. Wait....WHAT? Are you serious?
Why is it so surprising there are womyn who play drums? I didn't know there was a gender requirement for a musical instrument.
I look back at my time on the snareline at Cal where my gender was never an issue and wonder why these people are so shocked.
Then I remember my high school years.....and how I was fine with the boys (yes boys) on the line until I went from bass drum (lowest on our line auditionwise) to snare (highest audition wise). I was told girls should never be allowed to play anything higher on the line than a bass drum. I slip up at all while playing....and I would get verbally ripped apart. I remember also even trying to play around on a free day on our drum set and I got chased away saying since I was a girl I wasn't allowed to play it.
They tried their best to run me off the line.....I stayed throughout my high school years and ended up being a part of a line my senior year that loved each other regardless. Once the two sexist pigs were gone, everything was golden.
So.....I leave the readers with the original question....why is seeing a female drummer so surprising?
Why on earth would a boy feel so threatened by a womyn on the line that they feel the need to purge it to be male only?
In general......WTF???
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its all part of trying to keep their sense of masculinity.
ReplyDeletebut what about drums is masculine?
ReplyDeleteI felt similarly...when I Bearwalked...people were shocked. They're expecting a large man to protect them. The boys that called in and had little ole me walk them home were probably especially shocked. Seriously, a big man can't do jack for you anyway because we, as CSOs, are taught to run and call the cops. So whatevs...big man, small girl, we're all just gonna radio in. We're not cops and we're not taught self-defense. We don't have a gun. We're not paid to put ourselves in danger.
ReplyDeleteAlso, at church, there was a boy's vball team and a girl's team, and the boys would get to practice on the one court instead of the girls, and I was just as good as some of guys so it was really irritating because it was as if we were second-class citizens.
As nurses, men have a glass elevator.
Oh our beautiful sexist world.