Re: kol isha

[Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel...>]

Billy Tipton's cross dressing was about a whole lot more than 'getting
gigs'- see www.radcliffe.edu/quarterly/199804/suits-me.html, for example...
                                        EK


----- Original Message -----
From: <Margotlev (at) aol(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: kol isha


> 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
>
>
>

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