As I was starting to write this I got an inspiration for another entry. I’m going to pull an audible and save the planned entry for another day. It’s not at all time dependent. Today’s WFUV question of the day was; “Yesterday we lost the great Aretha Franklin at the age of 76. Among the ways we’ll mark the passing of the Queen of Soul is a set of songs that mention queens.” Here is what was played:
Van Morrison “Queen of the Slipstream”
Big Head Todd & The Monsters “Beauty Queen”
Apache Relay “Katie Queen of Tennessee”
The Rolling Stones “Little Queenie”
Mountain “Mississippi Queen”
What do these all have in common? They are all men. That’s particularly notable as the set is to honor Aretha. This was pointed out on the Facebook Question of the Day group by another member, Priscilla, who has noted the lack of female representation before. I never did my study of the gender breakdown of the folk world, my procrastination/anxiety, got in the way but I’m going to do a small scale study now; of my own prejudices. I’ll count out who book at the Budgiedome. I’m not going to include the open mic or song circle that I have no control over. Just the parts that are all on me. Let’s see how much live up to my own ideals of fairness.
This year we presented.
Seth Morgan
Richard Ruane & Beth Duquette with special guest Phil Henry
Amy Kucharik+
Ryanhood++
Heather Aubrey Lloyd++
Andrea Asprelli
Oliver the Crow++
Martin Swinger
Miles and Mafale
Joshua Garcia
Emerald Rae+
Carolann Solebello+
Genevieve
Mark Allen Berube
The Gaslight Tinkers with Choc’late
Lara Herscovitch
Jeremy Aaron
Quarter Horse+
There’s always a question on how you count these things. My method is that each act counts as one unit, and I look at what of each group is male and female. So if the bill was the Vienna Boys Choir opening for Dar Williams; it would not be 50 male and one female. It would be 1 male and 1 female. If the Kennedys were on the bill they would count as 0.5 male and 0.5 female. I broke it down three ways; the number of males and females in the act, the number of voices of each gender, and the names listed in the billing. Band names count as neither male nor female. So Gladys Knight and the Pips would count as 0 male and 1 female. So how did the Budgiedome do?
By total performers:
Male 57% – female 43%
By voices:
Male 47% – Female 53%
By name:
Male 43% – Female 57%
That counts as unbiased but I’d have preferred to lean toward more women as they are underrepresented elsewhere. I believe in affirmative action. It’s tough to do that at the Budgiedome where we have one shot and a limited number of available performers. I could go back and do this for previous years and maybe I will in the future but now I have to get ready for therapy.
Wise Madness 