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From: twiss@stolaf.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: New Topic - Please Read
Message-ID: <1341@stolaf.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jan-84 18:32:58 EST
Article-I.D.: stolaf.1341
Posted: Fri Jan 27 18:32:58 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 31-Jan-84 02:31:34 EST
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN
Lines: 53


	I think the present discussions about rape and the purpose of 
net.women are very important, but I would like to introduce a new topic of
discussion that should prove very interesting.

	The other night I attended a recital in which a particular woman
was playing who is not a great musician.  When she was finished, a friend
of mine (who is an excellent musician) turned to me and said, "Why are
women such lousy musicians?"  Needless to say, I got really mad.  His
argument was that women (most of them) don't play agressively and are too
feminine.  I got really mad and we've been discussing this for several
days now.
	
	The way the discussion went is that my friend said that agressiveness
is an important factor and that it is a male characteristic.  Therefore,
for a woman to be good, she must exhibit this trait.  This really bothered
me that women (according to him) could not be agressive and retain their
femininity.  I asked him if he had any feminine traits and he said he did
and that he was proud opf them.  For example, he said he could never play
a Brahms intermezzo (very quiet, soft, and controlled) without a certain
tenderness that he labeled "feminine".

	My question to the readers of the net is: are certain traits
restricted to one sex or the other and are any of them "better" than
any other (obviously I don't want to restrict this to the topic of music)?

	I feel that a woman can be just as good a musician as a man and that
they can exhibit the necesary "agressiveness" required of any musician
without losing any femininity.  The thing that really bothered me was how
my friend compared everything in terms of male traits.  This implied a
certain pecking order in which men came out on top which I thought was
ridiculous.

	Now of course there are differences between men and women that
cannot and should not be ignored.  By recognizing and appreciating these
differences I think we can all be more aware of ourselves.  But just
how far do these differences go?  Do men almost always make better 
musicians, presidents, astronauts, atheletes, etc.?  I hope not!!
I told my friend that several years ago no one would have even thought
about a woman president or astronaut.  But now changes are being made.
If he continues his views, that will simply impede the same kind of
changes in the field of music and other areas.

	Well, netters?  What do you think?  Are certain traits best left
to specific sexes and does or should these traits restrict people to
certain roles (aside from the obvious example of parents where the
differences of the sexes is almost essential and does dictate certain
roles)?  Let's see what people think (and hope that women don't get
delegated to only some roles).  For clarity's sake, let's refer to this
topic as Male/Female Roles in further discussion.

					Tom Twiss
				...!ihnp4!stolaf!twiss