MS 190: Authorship is the course website for the Fall 2006 Media Studies senior seminar at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
Class Gender Stats
Submitted by gwen on 20 September 2006 - 12:32am.
For those who wanted to see, here's the percentages I calculated (sorry it took forever, I can do the rest if people show interest but for now I'm stopping with these)
Our class has created an estimated:
4 songs per woman
142 songs per man
1035 stories per woman (one 10,000 estimate skewed it a little)
141 stories/man
843 poems per woman
29 poems per man
11 dances/woman
.8 dance/man
8 videos/woman
17.5 videos/man
One of my main motivations for doing this survey came from something written a leaflet in my first Propagandhi album:
"Go look at your record collection. Your television. Your bookshelf. If you're like me, chances are that between 75 and 100 percent of the artistic expression you consume is made by white, heterosexual, middle to upper-class males. Maybe we should be asking ourselves: AREN'T WE BEING CHEATED?? White heterosexual middle-class males make up a miniscule portion of the people on this planet! Think of all the emotions and thoughts we're missing! The incredible variety of voices that are lost due to our society's sexism! Feminism's primary concern is social justice, and wrapped up in that concern is the potential of every individual to be more complete, more informed and, well... happy."
The fear to create, in different genders for different mediums, is the most interesting part of this issue for me. Personally, I wrote hundreds of stories as a kid, never stopping to think whether I was good enough to deem myself an author. These days, I ponder ideas for years before I get up the guts to get them down on paper, and often criticize anything I do write (and often I only write for class). I find in my film classes that guys make mostly funny pieces - they might find it as hard to overtly disclose serious emotions as I find creating a satirical movie.
I never really felt like we actually discussed the implications of the gender divide in creative mediums in class. If anyone cares to comment, I'd like to hear what people think: is it possible that equality in creative mediums is lagging behind closing gaps between groups in academic areas because of institutions like affirmative action, and school programs to encourage girls in math and science? If Shakespeare had a sister, would she have even written one play?
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what if shakespeare had a
what if shakespeare had a brother? would he have even written one play?
Perhaps not. But would
Perhaps not. But would there have been structural obstacles to his ability to write that play, or would there only have been internal, individual obstacles? That's the key point, I think...