Salient

Why Do Chicks Play Bass?

By Stephanie Cairns | 8 Sep, 2008

Female participation in music is an issue that gets my goat, again and again. There’s not nearly enough of it for a start. Then there are the pathetic stereotypes that rock music particularly is plagued by: the girlfriend-of-the-singer bass player, the whispery, coquettish front woman, the mock punk ‘girl power’ schtick of bands like The Donnas. Then there’s the perennial mystery of why the only successful female artists we see and hear are almost all vocalists. And bass players.

(Seriously, what the? That chick in The Smashing Pumpkins, that other chick in Elemeno P, that other chick in The Subways, Kim Deal of the Pixies… Someone in the office just suggested that girls play bass because the low frequency vibrations mean that they need only sit on their amps and play to become sexually aroused. I’ll have to ask the (female) bass player in my band about this…)

A look at the Top 40 charts reveals very few women artists that actually have artistic control over their work, almost all of whom are vocalists, almost all of whom also exploit their sexuality to some degree to achieve success. This problem isn’t restricted just to the land of pop music either: my jazz student flatmate tells me that out of around 30 students in his year, only two are female (vocal students not included). Classical music is probably the genre with the most female artists, but even then they’re underrepresented. And despite a few notable exceptions, there are very few female DJs, MCs, rap artists, and producers and producers in the land of dance and hip hop music.

What’s happening here? Why aren’t girls making music? There doesn’t seem to be any simple answer.

Is it biological disposition? I’ve seen my fair share of shitty ‘chick bands’ and musicians, who have almost led me to think this is the case. But the amount of stunningly creative female vocalists that history offers us suggests that women have the same capacity for musical genius that men do. The work of artists like Nina Simone, Anita O’Day, Patti Smith, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin and modern day Peaches, M.I.A. and Bjork exhibits incredible creativity and artistry.

Let me offer you some hastily thought up alternative explanations as to what’s going wrong:

We associate being a successful musician with a certain lifestyle of misogynistic debauchery, a ‘rock star’ lifestyle if you will, that females find it hard to cast themselves in to. They are discouraged from pursuing their musical careers further because there is no pre-existing mould to follow.

Being successful – on a commercial level at least – involves a certain level of egoism, a brash confidence that few women possess. In my experience, even highly talented and skilled female musos have a staggering lack of self belief.

Female artists are less willing to compromise their sound for the sake of appealing to a wider audience. If the idea of becoming a pop music puppet doesn’t appeal to a woman, then she’s forced to find an alternative to the mainstream options – an alternative which there is invariably no space for on the Top 40 charts.

Maybe women lack the competitive drive to practice hard and exceed their contemporaries’ abilities. My jazz student flatmate suggested this one, to which I replied “Competitive gymnastics”. We decided that maybe women are only driven to compete against each other.

Perhaps women are too sensible to attempt a musical career, which is always a risky path. Maybe without the rock star dream to delude us, we’re forced to be more realistic about our careers, thus perhaps taking music less seriously and missing opportunities.

Perhaps instruments, and guitars especially, are really psychological extensions or substitutes for the penis. Wait, wouldn’t following this archaic viewpoint entail that women should all play guitars to satisfy their penis envy?

Perhaps this is getting silly.

I have to admit to more than a trace of frustration at my own sex for giving up so easily. Having not found any significant obstacle to playing music in my own life, I struggle to find any such thing that could affect anyone else. I’m not sure if any of the above offer us any more than a partial explanation, and to be honest I find them all dissatisfying. But what other reason can there be?

In any case it’s about time we got over whatever is keeping us women from succeeding in this field. There is no logical, substantial reason why there shouldn’t be as many women playing instruments as men, to the same level that men do. I do, several of my friends do, and frankly I don’t see what’s so hard about it.

Thankfully, the times seem to be changing. When I look around at the world of Wellington music I see plenty of musical femmes happily jamming out. People such as Bachelorette, Charmaine Ford and MC Kyla all exhibit some choice talent across many different genres. As always, mainstream pop culture will probably be the last to catch on and keeping pushing its bland doll-like singers at us – long after female jazz guitar virtuosos and metal drummers are commonplace. I can’t wait. In the meantime, check out Punchbowl, Cherry Gemstone, The Dissentors, Hoopla!, Palace This!, The Windups, Kitten Et Me and Dyke? Dyke? Dyke?, to name but a few: all up and coming musical ladies with more to offer than eye candy.