Laura F. writes:

I wanted to send you this ridiculous little opening from a Wikipedia article: 

The curse of the ninth is the superstition that a composer will die after writing his or her ninth symphony. The most prominent examples are Ludwig van Beethoven, Louis Spohr, Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler.

Hey Wikipedia, thanks so much for finally recognizing all those great women composers. But wait, you didn’t name any in your examples…

Laura Wood writes:

Hah! The point is to create women composers. Some woman will read this and suddenly recognize her latent genius. She may even write a tenth.

                            — Comments —

An Orthodox Roman Catholic Feminist writes:

I am coming to the conclusion that you are very young and while rebelling legitimately against the excesses and stupidities of the feminist movement, are doing so unaware of the true discriminations that existed for those of us older. God has wrought much good out of the feminist movement. 

I do not know too much about women composers. You may be correct that they will have to be manufactured. However, I believed the same about women artists until I found a book years ago with the art works of women artists over centuries.

 Those women were as good as men artists. They used the same mediums (I think that the right way to use the term for oil, water color etc.) and I was forced to admit that some prejudice had kept those works and those women artists in obscurity. 

I had a woman music teacher who composed beautiful music. I even played it a little. She was recognized as a talent, but one would never hear of her.  She was lost in the suppression of the forties and fifties. She is an example of only one, so can’t make much of it, but that book on women artists puts to rest the lie that there were no great women artists.

Laura Wood writes:

I wish I was very young but I am not. I think you are entirely unaware of the discriminations that exist today and I emphatically object to your use of the term “Catholic feminist.” While women are freer to follow their selfish pursuits, the lives of many men, women and children are ruined as a result. That is discrimination too. Is it not discrimination against children to deny their innate need for adequate care, for stable family and home? Is it not discrimination against the generations of the future to deny them the adequate population to sustain a functioning society? You are utopian, and that is un-Christian.

I cannot address the women artists you mention because you do not give me any examples. 

You must remember that while many women artists have created a few good works, they have generally not created the solid body of work that is typical of the famous male artists. People are not drawn to an artist who has a small number of works, however great those few paintings may be. Besides, who cares about a few neglected women artists? They probably gave their family delightful paintings and taught their children to paint. You seem to be saying their lives were wasted. That is entirely presumptuous on your part. 

Finally, I never said that women who had talent were not sometimes discouraged from pursuing it. If women were encouraged to engage in male pursuits there probably would have been a few more famous artists. But it never would have occurred on the level of male achievement. That’s because being a successful artist takes more than talent. It requires competitiveness and aggression, as well as high intelligence, to rise above the others. 

The ORC feminist writes:

I did not buy that book and have regretted it many times. I have looked for it and can’t find another. 

“You must remember that while many women artists have created a few good works, they have generally not created the solid body of work that is typical of the famous male artists.”

I do not know that it is true if the works were never promulgated to the public as were the men’s work we cannot know the extent of their works..

“People are not drawn to an artist who has a small number of works, however great those are few paintings may be. Who cares about a few neglected women artists. They probably gave their family delightful paintings and taught their children to paint. You seem to be saying that somehow their lives were wasted.”

I did not say that their lives were wasted. Your accusation is unwarranted. 

“Finally, I never said that women who had talent were not sometimes discouraged from pursuing it. If women were encouraged to engage in male pursuits there probably would have been a few more famous artists.”

Are you saying art is a male pursuit? Of course that is not true. God gives artistic talent where and to whom He wills and the beautiful extant works by women evidence that.

“But it never would have occurred on the level of male achievement. That’s because being a successful artist is about more than talent. It requires competitiveness and aggression to rise above the others.”

Perhaps you are correct, but I think it is more a result of talent, hard work and a culture which recognizes both in a non-chauvinistic manner.

Laura Wood writes:

Please give me examples of women composers or artists who possessed solid bodies of work that were suppressed. The fact that you had a good music teacher does not in any way prove there were great women composers who were denied an audience. 

While you did not say their lives were wasted, you obviously implied it. Any great artist with substantial works has devoted immense time and effort to his art. To say there were many women who worked in this way and were not recognized is to imply that this time and effort were wasted. 

There were not only no great women composers in the forties and fifties; there have never been any truly great women composers. The idea that this is the result of chauvinism suggests that the fathers and husbands of women geniuses actively suppressed their talents and that, unlike male geniuses, these women could not overcome the discouragement they encountered. Franz Schubert was virtually ignored in his lifetime and only composed for a small number of friends. Yet he persevered and created a lasting body of works. These works were not later discovered because he was a man, but because they were masterpieces that possessed a singular style and that together made a musical statement. If he had just composed one or two works, as have many talented women musicians, he would have been ignored. 

Of course, art is not the exclusive province of men. But genius, with a few exceptions, is. Men overwhelmingly outnumber women in the highest levels of intelligence and that is a proven fact. But as I said, it takes more than intelligence to succeed as a great artist. It takes drive and masculine ambition. Few women possess it. Your argument essentially amounts to an unproven conspiracy theory against men.

The ORC feminist writes:

“To say there were many women who worked in this way and were not recognized is to imply that this time and effort were wasted. “

 The reasons for non-recognition are probably the same reasons women have been denied recognition for their contributions to the society when they are stay-at-home moms.

 There were not only no great women composers in the forties and fifties; there have never been any truly great women composers.

You are only surmising that. Perhaps we do not know of them or perhaps they indeed were suppressed. The only way your premises can be proven is to remove the differences in opportunity and promulgation of women’s works compared to men’s.

Laura Wood writes:

Your argument remains unproven. The only way, as you say, it could be proven is to offer women the exact same opportunities as men. That has been done for at least the past half century. No women genuises yet.

We have cultural decline instead. All in the hope that a woman Mozart may emerge. 

 Lisa writes:

The composers themselves are generally the masterpieces of women. We have the irreplaceable opportunity to help nurture, mold, and encourage little people who will do great and lovely things.

Laura Wood writes:

Of course.

I don’t get the whole argument that women have somehow been cheated because they cannot be Rembrandts and Beethovens. It is not true that Western culture has deprived them of the opportunity. It’s not true at all, but even if it had, haven’t they been richly compensated?  

Sheila C. writes: 

My father was a music librarian and I grew up on a constant diet of classical music (plus lots of opera), along with a mixture of jazz, some pop, and then lots of rock as my siblings and I grew up. My father would listen to most things, and if there was anything out there by women that was truly “great” he would have been trumpeting it to the skies (it was through him I learned to love listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter). Most of the composers we now honor as “great” were not so very appreciated in their time; I remember asking as a child why all the composers were poor and died rather ignominiously. The opportunity to play and/or compose music was one of class far more than one of sex – upper-class women were encouraged to be accomplished in the arts, and there was no one preventing their social dabbling from becoming a great artistic passion if the ability (and drive and desire) was truly there. I greatly enjoy Jane Austen’s novels, but would not compare them to Shakespeare’s plays (I know I’m mixing genres). There is some nice poetry by Christina Rossetti, but she’s hardly the best of the pre-Raphaelites. There is plenty of enjoyable fiction by women on the market today, but most of it is fine on an entertainment level, not on speaking to the human condition with reason and deep understanding rather than sentimentality. With no such supposed constraints today, what passes for great literature by women presently consists of mainly racial grievance and no literary merit (I was subjected to the appalling Maya Angelou at my college commencement). Surely your commenter can find something better to spend her time on than resenting all those generations of nonexistent female artistic geniuses so horribly suppressed down the ages.

Mabel LeBeau writes:

There was only one Mozart. There will be only one Mozart, ever. There was one Luddy von Beethoven. There will be only one dear Beethoven, ever. The issue is not feminism, masculinity, anti-feminism, androgynism; it’s genius support and promotion. 

Are there any factors that promote development of prodigies, or conversely prevent prodigious achievement? Do we compare Fanny with her brother, or Claire’s output with Robert? What factors in medieval times promoted the musical output of Hildegard von Bingen as opposed to her male colleagues. Coulda, woulda, shoulda encompass a lot of subjectivity when it comes to the zenith of human productivity and talented output. (Here’s a related issue, why do most of the idiot-savants seem to be men?)

One thing that has struck me as rather odd for some time, is this bit about women wearing feminine garb and culturing dainty pinkness, yet I seem to recall that Gloria Steinem was an original advocate for the feminist movement in the 60’s and don’t remember her in a tea dress. Has the definition of feminism changed? 

As I recall, before finishing my pre-college education and embarking on a college-education requirement for advancement of career, the feminist movement was all about equal rights, and a woman’s right to say ‘no’ as freely as equally powerfully as a man. We knew biologically there were differences, yet consider them comparably and compensatorily reciprocal. Women may be physically smaller, yet have advantages of this or that and this, or that trait may be considered advantageous or disadvantageous in this or that situation. 

I made my career choice despite the calling of an artistic inclination because I wanted to be able to support my family and be assured in the world I could make a difference in how I raised my children. Because of the level of education, and advancement in career and family life, I have been privileged to help raise children that had the potential to be prodigies because my spouse and I were able to meld our respective upbringings, expectations, and access to educational opportunities. 

So, is the issue of whether a ‘genius is made not born’? Or, is it suppression of womanly expression? Or, something else altogether?

Laura writes:

I recommend Steve Moxon’s book The Woman Racket for a good explanation of the genetic aspects of male and female intelligence. Men outnumber women at both ends of the intelligence spectrum, and this makes sense in terms of genetic adaptation.

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