Re: kol isha

[Margotlev <Margotlev...>]

Just for perspective -
  I'm reading Billy Tipton's biography about a woman who had to cross-dress 
and pass as a man to get any gigs at all as recently as the 50's.  Just to 
make the point that discrimination against female musicians is by no means 
limited to orthodox Jews - the issues and reasons given may differ in part 
for liberal Jews and non-Jews, but the effect of the discrimination is 
exactly the same..  It is only in this generation that female 
instrumentalists have begun to get any significant gigs in klezmer music. Kol 
Isha adds talmudic insult to injury but the injury is the same.

The reason we get angry about it, and the reason we can't just live and let 
live, is that discrimination limits working opportunities for female 
musicians.  If you are not a musician you might not realize that gigs pay 
bills, gigs give us opportunities to play with other musicians who can help 
us improve our skills, gigs put us in front of audiences that challenge us, 
gigs make musicians.  Without gigs we can't be musicians.  Every Hassidic or 
Orthodox gig that my male colleagues get that I don't get to play on is a day 
I have to figure out another way to make a living, it's a day away from my 
horn, it's a lost opportunity to sharpen my skills and get a step up in my 
career.  And I'm an instrumentalist - believe me, I sing only under duress.

I've attended workshops where the discussion is about discrimination against 
women in jazz - where the exclusion is equally blatant. What can we do? The 
ideas they came up with included playing in the schools, being a role model 
for little girls who want to play music - there are growing numbers of us, 
and we are getting better.  I am going to play and play and play, every place 
and every chance I get, so that by the time those little girl musicians grow 
up and are ready for their first gig, no one think there's anything unusual 
about women playing music.

And I realize this seems like a digression from Kol Isha, I've departed from 
the talmudic issue, but in many ways it still is the same issue.  A rose by 
any other name...

Margot Leverett

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+