Why DO women like prog?

Ghost Rider wrote: cuncuna wrote: I really don't see this as a thing related to genre. Most men also don't like prog at all. Maybe it has more to do with activity or imagination. Well said! Let's face it, prog appeals to a minority of people, and I still think that most of the reasons why women are not into prog are related to social pressures more than to brain structure or such. We're all individuals, and some of us are more sensitive to aforesaid pressures than others. Sometimes it just takes a strong personality to embrace things that are not as popular as others, and by doing so set oneself aside from the majority of our fellow human beings.

    

my sister love Prog music
but she is too busy doing other work

Sean, I'm going to assume you're not a native English speaker, because if I do otherwise I'm going to be offended at some of the things you've said here, or at least at the way you said them.

Sean Trane wrote: valravennz wrote: PaperDuck wrote: 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. >>> I tend to agree only partly with this, it is true that I am not that much a social beast in the sense I do not spend time around the coffee machine with colleagues to chew the beef only scratching the surface. Generally if I get into a subject, I like to develop it enough but most people drift easily. So instead of boring peple, I just'd rather not participate in dumb surface socializing . However I keep getting asked by many to come down, because once the interesting and more profound conversations starts, I get an idea that people love to have me around and have me actively participtating and even directing the debates. I would certainly not call myself the lone wolf, though . Maybe multiplying my absence is also enhancing my presences. I didn't say that people who listen to prog aren't social, just that it isn't appropriate for social situations - even, and perhaps especially, the "deep" ones, unless the conversation happens to be about the music itself. For example, the conversation I was thinking about when I made this point was not "Who did you sleep with last night;" it was more along the lines of, "If everyone over the age of 20 suddenly died due to a biological agent, what values should we inject into our false religion in order to best control the masses?" My point wasn't that "lone wolves" are more attracted to prog, just that the more time you spend in social situations, the less time you have available for solitary pursuits - such as prog. 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. >>> Unless they have an interest that takes up their times. No, it's not just that. I'm not saying that females become bored when they're alone; I'm saying that, whether biologically or due to early experiences on the playground, we shy away from it when anyone else is looking. It's not a desire to be near other people, it's a desire to not be alone, because being alone makes you vulnerable. I'm not sure if this is everyone's experience, but all of my observations - of females at every level of the social order - point to this being the case. I can give examples if you like. 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. This thing about women in packs is not only human, but most of animals species create this community, a sort of hive. Calls for security in general (safety in numbers)? Nothing to do with being social, I think women are thousands of times more hypocrits between themselves than men are. Plots, counterplots, rumours etc.. But their need to be in groups is stronger >>> Which is often why I find that women often only scratch the surface in anything they do together. If they go too deep they will lose individuals, therefore they make efforts to keep the pack together by never going deep, where men will likely drift in smaller groups or alone tp pursue what they like >> again this can be likened to some animal species Apparently we're operating under different definitions of the word "social." I have no conception of social-ness and hypocrisy being contrastive. I'm operating from the behavioral definition: a social person, just like a social species, is one that tends to move, live, and operate in groups. It doesn't mean they enjoy it. Your next point is one of those things that I would normally strongly take offense at, and which despite my excuses for English possibly not being your first language I am still hurt by. Looking at the words there's nothing in particular I can object to, but your tone seems very dismissive of women, as individuals and in groups. It's partly the "never scratch the surface" part, which implies to me an inherent shallowness of character; and the fact that you make extensive use of animal behavior as a metaphor for women, while only adding it as an afterthought to the part about men's behavior. If you honestly didn't intend that reading, I'm sorry for being oversensitive; but if you did, shame on you. By the way, if my original post came off like that to any of you, I'm extremely sorry. I tried to make it very clear that I was talking about my general observations of the actions of many different kinds of women, but that these actions were indeterminate in cause. I cannot speak to the motivations behind anyone's actions but my own, and those of people to whom I have spoken directly. 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 >> this is what new age is all about, but again these novelties are mostly fads and fashion (the latest being this fenchui about placing your furniture in your house in harmony) , 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," >>> again this is the general way about music for most people using it as background rather than thouroughly enjoying it by getting immersed completely into it.>> i get incredible enjoyment out of progressive (and some more commercial ) music and after having listened to some of it, I feel as fine as if I had a tremendous orgasms >> reed my reviews I often relate to music with "sex issues", but I am like this for most of my interests: I am a hedonist with epicurian tendencies. 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? >> getting my musical orgasms has never stopped me from resolving other problems in my life, I do not use it as a refuge, and if this happens to anyone he should effectively get treatment. Feng shui is kind of an old fad by now, I'm afraid . Seriously though, I think you missed my point here. I didn't mean that my mom is afraid of not having enough brainpower to get through her real world business if she spends time thinking about music. Maybe you'd have to know a little about her to understand what I'm talking about. Here: on the day when I was born, my dad had to persuade her not to go into work after her waters broke. When she was going through chemo for breast cancer, she was still working ten to twelve hour days and going into work for extra hours on the weekends - and she was a low-level manager in the R&D department for Lucent Tech, which means she had to both oversee a top group of engineers and do plenty of engineering herself. She never complained about the hours she was putting in, only about how tired chemo was making her. She's an extreme - perhaps an extremely extreme - case. It does, however, illustrate my point. She isn't afraid that she'll become so immersed in thinking about music that she'll be unable to do what she needs to - she just doesn't see the point in "wasting" the precious hours of the day, and the work-hours of her brain. Whether or not it is a waste of time is a matter of personal perception, and is also totally beside the point. Also, I'm not exaggerating, even for effect; nor am I coloring events through hero-worship. My mom is just an incredibly driven person. In conclusion: Prog appeals most to independent-minded[IMG]height=17 alt="Thumbs Up" src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley20.gif" width=23 align=absMiddle>, logical yet impractical [IMG]height=17 alt="Thumbs Down" src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley21.gif" width=23 align=absMiddle>people. There are just a lot fewer of this kind of woman than man. 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.>>> Most women relate to music for the very reason I stated in other threads and Rafaella mentioned in her first posts. They use music in terms of festivities, dancing and in general related often also in terms of seduction (discos and mate findings) >> please I am generalizing but all of those love songs are axed towards women because they are in love with the idea of being in love Your point is infuriating and inflammatory, and while it contains a grain of truth it's so generally stated that there's no way it couldn't. Your generalizations are very off the mark, imnsho (not-so-humble ). First, I find it narrow-minded to the point of almost disgusting that you should consider searching for a mate the sole province of the female. There are plenty of men looking for a mate, and also a number just looking for a quick lay; you'd think they would be equally turned off by music that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with love and/or sex. Second, prog does not necessarily not have to do with love, mating, et cetera - I mean, consider Going for the One by Yes. This album is largely composed of love songs. If your statement were even partially true you'd expect that album, along with plenty more that had love songs on them, to have brought more women into the prog fold. 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. >>>Again, I could never (well very rarely) see four women discussing depth in music for hours on end, when this happens frequently with men. It's got to do with involvment/engagement, but also attention span. Generally women drift from subject to subject and do not come back to the original topic. With men often one or two will always bring back the original topic back (unless the deviation from it was sex-related, then all hell breaks loose) More vague, infuriating generalizations. Obviously I don't expect you to have had personal experience as a member of an all-female conversation; but I'd think that you would have paid enough attention to at least notice that we have brains too, and can focus on things. How do you think girls get projects done, just by sitting around chattering about their last parties? Not working on their thesis papers and research projects except in half-hour increments because they can't pay attention long enough? I guess all the women who are valedictorians of their high school classes must be giving out sexual favors to the boys in their physics classes, because otherwise how ever could they hold their concentration long enough to learn the calculus required! Never mind that myself and two of my three closest female friends lived, ate, and breathed Hamlet for three weeks straight, including Thanksgiving break, during our film-adaptation project for junior English. Never mind that we brainstormed what interpretation we wanted to portray for hours, becoming enthusiastic enough to hop up and give impromptu blocking instruction while trying to sell each other on our ideas; never mind that we pored through the whole play together, looking for which selections to include to best get our point across; never mind that two of us literally spent Thanksgiving break at the other's house so we could do the requisite filming, script revision, costume making, and soundtrack arranging; never mind that we spent our breaks in between classes in the editing room, putting our film together. It's too bad we couldn't focus on one thing for weeks at a time, so intensely that our other classes suffered, and ended up with a piece of project which only lasted for three times as long as the minimum length and which got nominated for more "Hamlet Academy Awards" than any other Hamlet film within my English teacher's memory! And no, these two women with whom I worked do not like prog. Basically - women are the multi-taskers while men do better concentrating on one particular favourite past-time!!! [IMG]height=17 alt=Wink src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley2.gif" width=17 align=absMiddle> >> highly biased comment sister in arms (or should I say sister in harm[IMG>height=17 alt=Wink src="http://www.progarchives.com/forum/smileys/smiley2.gif" width=17 align=absMiddle>)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get that angry. However, I think I can safely say that you deserve it.

Edited by PaperDuck - October 02 2006 at 22:23

My girl listen to jazz ,i listen to prog...and we both apreciate classical music,i think its a perfect combination.

Ghost Rider wrote: I've noticed that, in the past few days, quite a few fellow women have joined the PA forum - hopefully to stay for a while and not just disappear into thin air immediately afterwards. In the past, there have been several threads and polls about why women can't get into prog, some of them descending into gratuitous, sexist stereotypes about women being only interested in 'mating' music like all kinds of dance music. I thought it was time to have a thread dedicated to the opposite situation, i.e. women like me and others here who do like prog, and have for some time. I, for instance, have never been able to stand either dance music or, even worse, traditional 'female' music such as romantic pop songs, and have been into classic rock, prog and even metal for as long as I can remember. I suppose all the women who frequent these forums have a similar story to tell. Of course, guys are welcome to come here and discuss their own experiences with prog-loving ladies. So, what do you think makes a woman go for such an 'unwomanly' genre as prog, instead of piling up the Celine Dion or Barry White CDs?

I can't really say something valuable about this. To reach the core would take somekind of scientific effort, with statistics, polls, etc., wich I feel nobody will develope. Many of my friends (women) are into artistic activities, such as theatre or dance, so their music tends to be more suitable to those tasks. Or, perhaps prog is too manly driven. My girlfriend loves Meredith Monk's music, wich is not prog per se, but is thoughtfull experimental idem. Anyway, it is just music. Most people don't read books, unless those books are best sellers. I think that is a silly thing to do to your brain, but...perhaps not too many ladies spent their time using internet as a recreation activity.
    
    

Edited by cuncuna - October 03 2006 at 01:07

I'm getting into this discussion a bit late, and many really good points have already been made by both male and female posters.
Also, I realise that I'm a total noob at this board, I've just posted a few messages, but I've read quite a few threads since I registered here and I like this place, so I think I'll try to stick around.
Why DO women like prog? Well. I'm a woman so it seems only natural to explain why I like it and how that came to be. First of all I was brought up in a home where there were never any purposely drawn out rules concerning how and what me and my older brother should play, girl-toys and boy-toys and all that (of course very often girls and boys do tend to play in the stereotypical female and male way without any interference from adults, but you do see a lot of parents who mold their girls in a pink world from start - whether there's anything wrong with that is a completely different discussion though). As a child I played a lot with my brother, and my best friends were all male. Most girls on my street played with dolls (which I sometimes enjoyed too) but during summer I preferred to build treehouses with the boys or taking part in wrestling tournaments. And I think I share this type of childhood with a lot of my prog-loving, female friends.
As a teenager I got into metal, by means of my brother. It took me a year or so to warm up to it, but it grew on me and eventually I started discovering favourite bands of my own. Then my brother got into Dream Theater and Symphony X, and the progressive aspects of their music really threw me off at first, but after a couple of months of telling him to turn "that crap" off I realised that I'd started liking it and I grew very fond of Prog Metal, leaving 90% of the Power Metal I'd previously listened to behind me at the age of sixteen (or so).
Prog came into the picture two years later when I joined a new rock forum online and the people there who listened to Prog Metal also talked about bands ranging from 70s Italian Prog to Opeth and this whole new world opened up to me.

I have always been around music, my family has always been listening to it, playing it, singing it and the vast possibilities and different genres have fascinated me ever since I grew out of making gag noises at my mother's Mozart CDs. I love music that is well-written, well-arranged, well-performed, well-recorded and well-produced. Music that doesn't become boring after a few listens. Music that can make me stop for a second (or twenty-five minutes) and listen while I'm supposed to be cleaning or writing.

Intellectual? Well, I suppose so to some extent, at least. The previously mentioned rock forum has about five women between the ages of 16 and 46 who participate actively in threads about prog bands, and probably around four times as many men between the same ages. These women are also some of the most active in threads about politics and literature and basically threads that aren't discussing who made out with whom during the last "forum-party". Of course, there are other women participating in them as well, but the female Iron Maiden-fans are not as well-represented as the female Prog fans. But clearly, this is just a generalisation.

Genetically speaking, I suppose men have always been collectors. I know women who collect music in the same way that many men do. I would never purchase the exact same album on, say, two different-coloured vinyls just to have both. I DO collect music with some bands to such an extent that I want to hear all their songs and different demo versions and live versions of songs. And I've just come back from my first ever trip to another country for the sake of a concert, so I do put time, money and effort into my interest in music even if I wouldn't pay half my rent money to buy an album I already have on eBay just because "this one is blue!".

Well, this was a much longer post than I had intended it to be. Congratulations are in order if you've actually read the whole thing. (;-)

PaperDuck wrote: K. Sean, first I'd like to apologize for my post. I answered it all in one go, and my train of thought carried me away. I hope you'll forgive me.  You have done nothing to be forgiven so forget about this Also, I'm getting annoyed at the nested quotes, largely because a) I'm lazy and b) I pulled an unexpected all-nighter last night and am very tired. I'll just address your points in order. Agreed, many women want boyfriends for the sake of having boyfriends - but not, I think, because they're bored. It's because they feel inadequate outside of a relationship, which is something that, judging by the "WOMEN" thread in the general discussion forum, is not limited to the female sex. >> of course this goes both way also. But generally the guys posting in that thread have more than girlfriend problems, they seem to have friends problem too. Also, I didn't mean alone in terms of a relationship, I meant alone in terms of the moment - if there's no one else around, you're alone. Actually, I prefer female to male friends for a similar reason. In my limited experience, guys tend to be put off by the fact that I say what I mean when I say it more than most girls do - the girls often seem relieved, even, but the guys are totally confused, and don't know how to deal with it. Maybe they just don't expect blunt honesty from a female; but whatever the reason, I tend to feel much more accepted for who I am around girls. Well I always feel a bit uncomfortable having real female friends the way I have male friends. And I find it quite unsettling women find it unfair that most men cannot be friends the same way with males than females. But let's face , this sex thing is always getting in the way. I actually think it will always be that way, because men cannot get it out of their system >> Queen said it all: Fat Bottomed Girls make the RnR world go round! Trying to get around this evidence is doomed. I even suggested one day that maybe the best way around this would be to have one sexual intercourse between potential opposite-sex friends just to get the tension away (sorry for the double entendre), but you can imagine how well this was received by the opposite side. Even I did not think this was possible, but it was worth a try!!! A work-hour is like a man-hour. An hour of labor. And there's a difference between your analytical functions and your entire brain, dear. Trying to squeeze the most productivity out of your brain leaves little room for something with such a high initial investment as prog to be your relaxation activity - it's much quicker to get your music fix from something immediately accessible. I sort of understood this but thanks for the clarifcation. Somehow my mind seems always be switched on. Which means that I am always analytical even when it would be best not to be. I think the reason you might think women don't focus on one thing as much may stem from a difference in approach. Perhaps men tend to ask questions, while women instead propose topics? That might make the conversation seem less focused to you, even though the discussion remains on course. You got a point. We generally address an acute point and discuss it to death. Women in their idea of being inclusive will prefer a wide topic as to include everyone hoping that there is always something in it for everyone. And I'm sorry for that rambling tirade, but you didn't say initially that you were talking about personal conversations - you just said women had shorter attention spans. Obviously, I completely disagree with that statement , but the clarification helps.   Well I can give you one example of how I heard women's conversation and drew some conclusions. It was on a Friday night (round 1AM) and the 12 friends drifted apart.. Most of the guys drifted to the buddy car-workshop for hard booze and car discussions, some women left for a disco and I was "stuck" with three girls (one of which was my ex and another was a very possible future I had my sigfht upon. Feeling completely excluded from their conversations, I found a book to read and lied down on the floor (my fave reading position) behind a couch and somehow still heard what the conversation carrying on. And I started realizing soon they did not know I was around anymore because after many different shallowedly-approached subjects (sorry I call them as I hear them)changing very qiuickly, they started to jump on men's individual cases (>> I could've blackmailed a few guys, because this was getting really dirty and bellow the belt) then it became downright sexual with their own private experiences and even their common sexual experiences (I knew my ex was partial to women also, but this was news to me whom with of late, and apparently this was on for years with these two, starting out in high school) >>> you bet  by now , the book I was reading was completely ignored , but my throat was getting very dry and another thing pretty hard. When they came to the touching each other, I did not know how to go about this, because my interest for one of the three of them was even more actual but my presence would simply make it impossible for her afterwards. So I reached a point where I had to reach out for my beer (that throat was drier than the Sahara in drought) and knocked over an empty one. I cannot even begin to tell you who was more embarrassed here.   It ended up by them buying my silence and having a one-in-a-lifetime experience I will never forget. But I never had a chance with my prospect anymore.   And I found out one day that my ex was actually still remotedly aware  of my presence (but not certain but by checking it out would've ruined it) and was actually also aware of my prospects on the other girl (but did not want it to happen for whatever female jealousy) and actually stirred the the situation to fit her needs. So this "gift" she was offering me actually killed any possible relationship with my prospect conquest. And when I found out through the third girl (keeping secrets is not a female quality) and when I confronted my ex about it, she readily admitted to it. But she reminded me that she did give me that unique memory of three superb women and myself (which she also knew was one of my fantasy). But she made me pay a price for it, that I think was actually unacceptable for me, just so it fitted her needs.   Just one of my many examples about women's strange inter-relations. How can we (men) possibly be friends with conniving conspiracy-building "bitches" (I know she is not an isolated case) and still think they can be treated like equals between males, when they often exclude males from their own circles? Thanks for not giving me the thrashing you could have, and I look forward to further discussion .

I think it has something to do with how nerdy you are.  Let's face it, if you like prog, you're probably a nerd, and there are more boy nerds than girl nerds.  Sort of like there are more boy gamers than girl gamers.  I think it's also becoming more acceptable for woment to be nerds now, hence an increase in girls into prog.

Seriously, are there women proggers?

Women tend to love dancing, so that leaves musical intelligence out of their horizon (at least when it comes to rock, for a lot of women like and play - some are the best - classical music)

I agree, we proggers are something like weirdos.... for, it's abnormal for the rest of the world to care so much about the quality of the music we are hearing, when most people see it just as an entertainment form (it is that, too, but first it's art)....

The T wrote: Seriously, are there women proggers? Women tend to love dancing, so that leaves musical intelligence out of their horizon (at least when it comes to rock, for a lot of women like and play - some are the best - classical music) I agree, we proggers are something like weirdos.... for, it's abnormal for the rest of the world to care so much about the quality of the music we are hearing, when most people see it just as an entertainment form (it is that, too, but first it's art).... So, it's in our hands to turn more women out of the musical dark side... And if you find one, man, you are lucky.

I just wonder what kind of... oh, nevermind. Anyway; prog is not that good. 95% of it is nothing but repetitions. If you dislike this statement, notice that is only as bad as say that women = dancing & no intelligence regarding esthetics. Same goes to person who likes prog = weirdo. Now, ¿why would I be a lucky man just because my girlfriend happens to buyu a certain kind of music?. My girlfriend likes that so called "world music", (including Peter Gabriel worldmusicesque efforts), but I don't feel lucky about it. I'm lucky because someone listen to me, laughs with/at me, etc. Most of all, I'm lucky I didn't ended up with a clone of myself at my side. I'm lucky I didn't ended up with a female dictator at my side. I suspect this is the kind of idea people tend to describe in the forums as prog = pretentious. Plus, I like a good dance once in a while. It's a funny thing to do. And that "Dark side", from my point of view, could easily fit the "Lone side", as seen on every female prog related thread.
     

Hey, calm down... I see your point... you are right in most aspects, but my regard for music is so high, I'm actually a weirdo who sometimes puts this art (not only prog, clasical too, even more) before my women, so it's natural for me to desire to meet one that could talk to me about music in the same level of education and aestethics appreciation... Hey, it's a forum, we write about what we think, maybe being pretentious is trying to act like some higher judge with the code of reason and fairness in his hands....