Women Conducting: A field for men...

 Conducting an orchestra is nothing short of a challenge; doing so as a female is even more significant because there is limited opportunity. As Dr. Yen put it in class, conducting in the orchestra is a very male-dominated field. There are many reasons, but the one that sticks out to me is that the position is characterized as a power, leader, and an authoritarian. It also involves physical gestures, which historically were seen as male roles. Over time, there has been a development in rules and norms, but back in the day, there were roles that excluded women because some instruments were seen as not feminine, which limited their ability to play. A good word to title this is gatekeeping because men do not want to share something that they enjoy and limit their chances of having a job, the same way someone wouldn’t want to share their food if it was really good. Another reason that has been seen is that male teachers at universities and colleges tend to want to form a male prodigy.  

Women also are held to a higher standard with fewer opportunities, especially in early-career positions, however, times are slowly beginning to change. This is a common theme throughout women's rights because as a bigger spotlight is shined on issues like these, more people feel obligated to make a change, such as the Hart Institute. Hart Institute in Dallas is only for women conductors for a few weeks to build a stronger resume and get some practice. In order to shift to more equal opportunities, some institutions added something know as bling auditioning. This concept about not knowing which gender was producing music or singing was interesting and resonated with me because in APES, we have done something similar for experiments as well as Psychology to rule out one factor, bias. Bias at Govs, whether it is in a small-scale experiment or the community, is very significant and can be shared with others, whether intentional or not. I feel like keeping your own personal bias to yourself helps grow a community and culture into something more inviting. I feel like the orchestra conducting industry should follow this belief and we would see a much more diverse and inviting community that would grow exponentially, I bet.