Why DO women like prog?

valravennz wrote: ViolinCyndee wrote: valravennz wrote: [QUOTE=PaperDuck]   First - a great post there, Paper Duck and I personally think you or your mother have "hit the proverbial nail on the head". Lots of women I know just don't want to intellectualize over the music they are listening to. Those who do, are, generally speaking, intellectually inclined. It does not seem to matter if you are well educated in the art of Math - I am certainly not in that league however, I would admit being logic-oriented. I do agree that women in general, like to socialise or network and are very adept at such activities. This leaves them very little time to ponder the phillosophy of prog music. Men on the whole are not great socialisers but I think like to spend more time doing things on their own (The Lone Wolf syndrome). This of course gives rise to being able to spend time intellectualising over progressive music and forming very knowledgeable opinions on the subject. Basically - women are the multi-taskers while men do better concentrating on one particular favourite past-time!!!      That is true!  I guess I am more logically-inclined than most women.  I am also a classically-trained musician, so do appreciate virtuosity in all forms of music.  (not just classical).      HAHAH one 'particular favorite pastime'?? What do you mean?????     LOL - now that would be telling!!!!

ViolinCyndee wrote: valravennz wrote: [QUOTE=PaperDuck]   First - a great post there, Paper Duck and I personally think you or your mother have "hit the proverbial nail on the head". Lots of women I know just don't want to intellectualize over the music they are listening to. Those who do, are, generally speaking, intellectually inclined. It does not seem to matter if you are well educated in the art of Math - I am certainly not in that league however, I would admit being logic-oriented. I do agree that women in general, like to socialise or network and are very adept at such activities. This leaves them very little time to ponder the phillosophy of prog music. Men on the whole are not great socialisers but I think like to spend more time doing things on their own (The Lone Wolf syndrome). This of course gives rise to being able to spend time intellectualising over progressive music and forming very knowledgeable opinions on the subject. Basically - women are the multi-taskers while men do better concentrating on one particular favourite past-time!!!      That is true!  I guess I am more logically-inclined than most women.  I am also a classically-trained musician, so do appreciate virtuosity in all forms of music.  (not just classical).      HAHAH one 'particular favorite pastime'?? What do you mean?????

PaperDuck wrote: Right, I had so much to say I couldn't stand to read the third through sixth pages, so bear with me if I repeat anything I am one of those new females Ghostie was talking about, and I have a few theories about why most women don't like prog. First, women tend to be much more social than men - and IMHO, prog is not by any means social music. Prog is intellectual music, it's music you think about, reflect upon, and absorb over many listenings. Also... it's distracting. I find that when I have prog on and a friend in the room, it's very hard to keep myself focused on the conversation... my mind keeps drifting back to the music. So if you have more social situations, you're less likely to get into prog rock. As a further extension of the "social" characteristic, I'd claim that since prog appeals to individuals rather than groups, women are less likely to get into it because of social pressures. When was the last time you heard a girl described as a "lone wolf," and if you have, when have you heard another, unacquainted female speak even neutrally of her? I'm in college right now, and if I'm walking around campus after all classes are over, I never, never see another unaccompanied female. It's not just about safety: a girl out alone attracts strange looks from anyone, guy or girl, that they pass. I could just be being paranoid, and it could very well be that it's just because the occurrence is unusual, but in any case it demonstrates a point: in general, females don't like being alone. They will often go along with things they don't like just in order to remain part of the group, and eschew things they might like because they might make them stand out. I don't know if this is true once you get out of school, but by then the damage is likely already done. Here's one that may draw some flak: I contend that the people most interested in prog tend to be heavily math- or logic-oriented people, people who are into abstract thinking and all that. Statistically, these people tend to be male. I am the only female prog lover I know personally, and I'm a linguistics/compsci double major; and the only males I've known to like prog are/were math, engineering, music, and creative writing majors. The last one seems like an aberration, but the two men I'm thinking of are both highly logical, just very creative as well. They could be engineers if they wanted to. I have known plenty of mathematical/logical women who weren't into prog, too; in fact, I went to a math and science magnet school, so that describes a healthy percentage of my former peer group. My mom also falls into this category. My attempts to introduce them to prog were an abysmal failure; but I asked my mom why she didn't like it, and I think her answer is illuminating. My mom is an extremely practical person, like most of the logic-oriented women I have known. She uses music as a kind of self-medication - a way to relax, calm herself down, and escape. She could comprehend the intellectual side of music if she wanted to, but she doesn't - "I don't like to think about my music," she told me. And from a practical point of view, she's right: why 'waste' your brain power on music when you could be solving real-world problems? I can easily apply this to my more logical friends, too - they are all highly practical, and likely consider the investment of time which is necessary for an appreciation of prog impractical. Since they don't have any sense of how much better prog is once you've gotten used to it , their judgment is a sound one. In conclusion: Prog appeals most to independent-minded, logical yet impractical people. There are just a lot fewer of this kind of woman than man.

Funny indeed, and quite true for me too. I prefer to hear some kind of soothing music, if any, while I hold a conversation.

As for logical and math-oriented people, PaperDuck, maybe those who like prog do so because they just like to think deeply about many things, including their music. This kind of thinking is fun for them.
    
    

Edited by Swanhild - October 01 2006 at 20:37

Thanks

I'd also like to note that, though my boyfriend and I have similar music tastes, I'm the one who can't stand his Van Halen and AC/DC... and he's the one who can't stand my The Mars Volta

Not that Van Halen and AC/DC are particularly melodic or girly, quite the contrary - but they're certainly poppier.

Edited by PaperDuck - October 01 2006 at 17:41

Right, I had so much to say I couldn't stand to read the third through sixth pages, so bear with me if I repeat anything

I am one of those new females Ghostie was talking about, and I have a few theories about why most women don't like prog.

First, women tend to be much more social than men - and IMHO, prog is not by any means social music. Prog is intellectual music, it's music you think about, reflect upon, and absorb over many listenings. Also... it's distracting. I find that when I have prog on and a friend in the room, it's very hard to keep myself focused on the conversation... my mind keeps drifting back to the music. So if you have more social situations, you're less likely to get into prog rock.

As a further extension of the "social" characteristic, I'd claim that since prog appeals to individuals rather than groups, women are less likely to get into it because of social pressures. When was the last time you heard a girl described as a "lone wolf," and if you have, when have you heard another, unacquainted female speak even neutrally of her? I'm in college right now, and if I'm walking around campus after all classes are over, I never, never see another unaccompanied female. It's not just about safety: a girl out alone attracts strange looks from anyone, guy or girl, that they pass. I could just be being paranoid, and it could very well be that it's just because the occurrence is unusual, but in any case it demonstrates a point: in general, females don't like being alone. They will often go along with things they don't like just in order to remain part of the group, and eschew things they might like because they might make them stand out. I don't know if this is true once you get out of school, but by then the damage is likely already done.

Here's one that may draw some flak: I contend that the people most interested in prog tend to be heavily math- or logic-oriented people, people who are into abstract thinking and all that. Statistically, these people tend to be male. I am the only female prog lover I know personally, and I'm a linguistics/compsci double major; and the only males I've known to like prog are/were math, engineering, music, and creative writing majors. The last one seems like an aberration, but the two men I'm thinking of are both highly logical, just very creative as well. They could be engineers if they wanted to.

I have known plenty of mathematical/logical women who weren't into prog, too; in fact, I went to a math and science magnet school, so that describes a healthy percentage of my former peer group. My mom also falls into this category. My attempts to introduce them to prog were an abysmal failure; but I asked my mom why she didn't like it, and I think her answer is illuminating.

My mom is an extremely practical person, like most of the logic-oriented women I have known. She uses music as a kind of self-medication - a way to relax, calm herself down, and escape. She could comprehend the intellectual side of music if she wanted to, but she doesn't - "I don't like to think about my music," she told me. And from a practical point of view, she's right: why 'waste' your brain power on music when you could be solving real-world problems? I can easily apply this to my more logical friends, too - they are all highly practical, and likely consider the investment of time which is necessary for an appreciation of prog impractical. Since they don't have any sense of how much better prog is once you've gotten used to it , their judgment is a sound one.

In conclusion: Prog appeals most to independent-minded, logical yet impractical people. There are just a lot fewer of this kind of woman than man.

Most women dislike prog. rock has been my experience.

darksinger wrote: very simple really-i do not like music that has emotional men crying about their woman leaving them or cheating on them (grow some damn balls!) or women shreiking like they got their tit caught in an iron door.

BePinkTheater wrote: See the problem with threads like this, theres no good answer that is not stereo-typical.   For some reason (one i can't really explain) the majority of prog fans are men. Very few women enjoy prog and are into as much as men are. Becuase the raito of men:women is SO high, there's, unfourtantly, only answers that play into stereo types based of differences between men and women.   Some things just are...

The point is that there are indeed women (a small a minority as they may be) who enjoy prog. The question, then, is not to delve into specifics but to draw generalizations. Why do women tend to shy away from progressive music more than men? This question demands a general answer -- a specific answer is necessarily wrong because there are necessarily exceptions (the thread creator happens to be one). You can complain about stereotypes, but the most proper answer here is probably a form of stereotype in its own. Consider this statement: "That most women do not listen to prog is a stereotype." This statement is absolutely, undeniably correct. However, the stereotype also contains a modicum of truth (which you proceed to affirm). Thus, you cannot fault a reasonable response for being stereotypical. Stereotypes are not inexorably wrong. If you would care to do some psychological research, you might notice from what I derive my "stereotypical" response.

If you bear such an aversion to stereotypes, I challenge you to generate a reasonable or acceptable response without using one. And no, "some things just are" is by no means an acceptable answer. It's only a means of evading the question.

BePinkTheater wrote: See the problem with threads like this, theres no good answer that is not stereo-typical.   For some reason (one i can't really explain) the majority of prog fans are men. Very few women enjoy prog and are into as much as men are. Becuase the raito of men:women is SO high, there's, unfourtantly, only answers that play into stereo types based of differences between men and women.   Some things just are...

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Oh no, there are no things in this world that "just are", and for better or worse I, at least, find it interesting to ponder WHY rather than just shrug my shoulders and leave it at that, even at the risk of generalisations (which really are inevitable in any kind of research at some point or another). Afterall, with that kind of passive attitude we might still be thinking the Earth is flat rather than round

Some very insightful replies here since I last visited -even from Raffaella (aka Ghost Rider) who probably misunderstood me a tad there, lol, but hey, her point of view made me rethink my own post so no harm done!

For sure, I believe music -even prog- is at its most enjoyable when there is an emotional connection made to it, and I have no doubt that men are capable of this much in the same way as women are (doh!) But on top of that emotional level, there is also the more analytical, dissecting level to tap into, and it doesn't have to go further than listening to the various instruments in a song and appreciate the way they interact, for example. Prog lends itself beautifully to this kind of analysis IMO and I find it hard to believe that anybody, who listens to a lot of prog, be it a man or a woman, could escape such an approach at least to some extenct. This is what I refer to as the purely musical aspects of prog and for me it takes nothing away from the genuine enjoyment of a song if I let myself "objectify" it this way rather than have it resonate with me only emotionally. These things don't have to be mutually exlusive as far as I'm concerned, and neither does one have to be a musicologist to do it :) And I do think that overall men more than women have understood this when it comes to prog...or music in general, really.

Then again, just like some posts indicated here, for a variety of reasons females are just not exposed to prog to the same extent as males, and I believe this does play a significant role in the male-female ratio where prog is concerned.

I remember once reading a rather good study about females into prog that was published online, but unfortunately I have been unable to find it again. But hey, at least these things have been studied! :)