Being a musician, I have spent most of my time with men, for most of my life.
There are numerous reasons for that, but most of them are not relevant to the points I want to make. That may be fodder for another post. For most of my life, most of the people who happened into my life for me to gig seriously with were men. And let me just smash anybody’s assumptions right here – I didn’t sleep with any of ’em. Sure, there were one or two that I may have wanted to–at least for a while–but cooler heads always prevailed, and in hindsight, I’ll just say that I have dodged more bullets that I probably even know.
For the most part, I have been treated with incredible respect, fairness, generosity and kindness, and many of my musical colleagues have been downright protective toward me. As I grew into myself and found myself in the role of auntie/mother/wise woman, I was even more protected – revered even. It was always about the music first, but music builds strong families. When you get inside somebody’s head so deeply that you’re thinking each-other’s thoughts and creating something beautiful out of thin air together . . . Well, there’s nothing else like it, and too many people mistake that for something merely romantic. There’s nothing “mere” about it.
Acoustic guitar players tend to stick together like glue anyway. There’s a bond of, for want of a less gender-specific word, brotherhood; we speak a very unique language and only another acoustic guitar player understands. (I’m sure it’s the same with people who play sax or bone or keys, and I know it’s true for bass players.) We all just simply adore each other, and when we are appreciating a musical phrase or an Olympic-worthy lick, the last thing on our minds is what happens to be in anybody’s pants. Seriously. Doesn’t even register. Don’t even care. Just don’t stop playin’, my sibling of the strings.
Out in the “real” world, I know that I have experienced a certain amount of discrimination, and that there are a certain number of humans who don’t take me seriously as a guitarist because I don’t have a penis, and it really used to bother me. I guess it still does, to a point, and that may be a topic for another post, as well. But when you get to the point as a player where nobody else can do what you do, and guys you always worshiped as guitar gods show up in the front row to see you play so they can study what the hell you’re doing . . . Well, all the wannabes in the world aren’t gonna harsh that buzz.
Business, well, that’s been a whole different story.
I was in my 30s, I had a kid, I didn’t look like a supermodel (and didn’t want to). It was crystal clear that the very skills that earned me the respect and admiration of some of the people I respected and admired most were, to the men on the business side, liabilities. I’d have to work with a vocal coach to homogenize my voice. I’d have to work with a team of songwriters to make sure my songs were “in compliance” with their standards. They didn’t want me playing so much guitar, because according to their research, men didn’t like women who played guitar (huge eye roll on behalf of hundreds of incredible, groundbreaking women guitarists in every timeline and all dimensions . . . ) At the time I said, “I’d rather flip burgers,” and I meant it. And I was pretty well shut out by the music industry. Whatever. That just meant I was free to create what I wanted to, free to pursue music as my passion. I didn’t have to be tethered to a personal trainer and a stylist, and I didn’t have some business-derp with a tin ear telling me how to write my songs.
But it also meant that I had to spend a lot of years working jobs I didn’t like at all. I never did actually flip burgers, though that might have been preferable to being tethered to a phone in a call center taking calls about student financial aid. I worked one job where my direct supervisor walked around clutching her stomach all the time because her boss was a tyrant with absolutely no social skills whatsoever – but I can’t call it gender-based discrimination because he treated literally everybody like shit, and anybody under the VP level was fair game. I got out of there as quick as I could.
And so as a mid-level gigging musician with zero industry clout I had my share of run-ins with concert promoters who assumed I was some naive little chickie who wouldn’t put up much fight if she didn’t get paid . . . Or who wanted to put me on the stage next to the toilets because clearly I was just there so they could say they’d hired half-a-handful of women. I was married at the time, and my husband did his best to insulate me from some of the worst of it, and I’m sure there are stories I don’t even know about stuff that happened when I was on stage.
But even through all that, upon reflection, my relationships with men as colleagues have been amazing, and if they weren’t they didn’t last. I am the first to admit that I have been insulated, maybe even sheltered. My chops earned me a kind of respect that I don’t to this day see enough other women getting. But because it’s what I have lived, I believe it is normal, and when I see the opposite it shocks me and causes the pain centers in my brain to erupt in protest. I’m a unique kind of privileged, but I earned it by working my ass off to be the best guitar player I can possibly be. I put in my 10,000 hours by the time I was in my teens and then I got fuckin’ serious. I should be treated with this level of respect, as should anybody who puts in the work to be the best they can be at whatever they choose.
Ah, but notice – I’m not a wildly famous globe-trotting musician who lives in a Hollywood mansion. If you looked at my income you’d probably burst out laughing. It’s not impressive. I live on miracles, baby, no lie. I live a charmed and protected life, and the proof is in the bank statement. If I was male and played guitar the way I do I would have had so many other opportunities, and nobody would have expected a blow-job in order to sign me to a major label.
Maybe what I am saying is that it shouldn’t be about gender. Maybe it’s about systemic abuses of power that go back so many centuries that we didn’t even notice it was happening. When women are oppressed, men’s lives do not get better. When men keep women down and treat us like shit, they get a fraction of us, a fraction of what we are capable of. When men appreciate us for our smarts, our talents, our ideas, our creativity . . . then they get everything we can possibly be or do.
We are a threat to male superiority when we want actual equality. There are a few women who want to reverse the roles completely and replace patriarchy with matriarchy, but that is just a different flavor of stupid.
If men are no better or worse than women, what makes you think that women given ultimate power won’t be just as dickish as men have been?
We must have balance and equality. The reason certain “old white men” are so jealously guarding their superiority is because they believe they have everything to lose – but those men are utterly, totally, deeply wrong. They have already lost. They have lost the support and cooperation of every competent and awakened woman on Earth. They have lost the support of every enlightened government on Earth. They are becoming so pathetic that it seems downright mean to even make them a laughing stock. They are showing themselves to be weak, sick, and deeply in need of the kind of healing that women have the power to provide – and they have blown almost any chance at access to any of that.
Speaking candidly, I would be hard pressed to open my heart enough to provide healing to any of them. And it pains me to admit that. I’d like to think that I am stronger and better than that, but honestly, the thought of having one of those creeps on my table and having to establish a heart-connection, set a loving intention, and be the conduit for healing for their highest good makes me slightly nauseated. There isn’t enough hot water in the world to wash away that kind of ick. Some of them don’t even register as human anymore – and it’s not just men; there are a few women in the halls of power who have shown themselves to be just as aggressively disgusting as their male colleagues. Money, power and greed have made them into something . . . less than human. This condition has sapped their empathy, destroyed their compassion, and stripped them of their ability to experience grace and gratitude.
Animals have compassion, and feel grace and gratitude; cats and dogs can develop incredible empathy. These things do not make us human – they make us worthy.
But because of my experiences with the men who have played their way through my life, I believe with all my heart that equality is the easiest thing in the world, and the most necessary. Anything we do to weaken the Other, weakens the Self. We have to start living by that. I can see it, I can feel it, and it isn’t so terribly far away. The more we teach our sons, and our daughters, to love, respect and trust women — and help them cultivate a strong and empowered sense of self — the closer we will be.