In 1930, the harpist Edna Phillips became the first woman principal player of a major American orchestra.

ON SATURDAY, I listened to an interesting radio program about the first woman principal player of an American orchestra. The  program will be aired again this Friday and can be heard on the Internet at that time. Today, I sent this letter to Jill Pasternak, of WRTI-Radio.

Dear Ms. Pasternak,

I have often admired your radio voice, interviewing style and erudition. Thank you for all you do to educate, delight and inform.

I would like to take exception, however, to views you expressed in your fascinating interview of Mary Sue Welsh about her new book, One Woman in a Hundred, on the life of Edna Phillips, a harpist who joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1930 and was the first female principal player of a major orchestra.

At one point you said, “So it was definitely discrimination,” referring to the previous absence of women on orchestras. The disapproving tone in which you said “discrimination” and various other comments you made lead me to believe you meant an arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination caused by animosity of men toward women. I urge you to reconsider this familiar feminist piety. Women were indeed discriminated against in the past. But they were discriminated against not because they were devalued but precisely because they were valued.

As you well know, women played an active role in music long before they were admitted to orchestras. An entire culture existed that emphasized the cultivation of art and learning, most of which occurred not in conservatories or orchestra halls but in homes. Women enthusiastically contributed to and shaped this culture as mothers, wives, teachers and amateur musicians. Femininity, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, also deeply inspired some of the greatest composers and musicians.

A major reason why women were not on orchestras was because they had too much else to do (even single and unmarried women) and their culture valued that work. In contrast, men, who supported them, needed the paid positions in the musical world and were better suited to the competition and demands of professional orchestras, which required travel and focus for many years. Men are more suited than women in general to the sustained focus and intensity of lifetime professional work. There is no reason women should be ashamed of this fact, proven over and over again. Let’s face it, in order to climb to the top of the music world, a woman must be brutally and single-mindedly competitive. It goes with the nature of the work, and this has costs for a woman in her personal life.

Perhaps in the future you might explain how the music world has improved since women entered it as professionals. Is the sound of orchestras better? Are the compositions much improved? Has the esprit de corps vital to an orchestra and any music ensemble been enhanced? Are more people interested in classical music? The mere fact that women are present on orchestras does not in and of itself make music better. By suggesting that it does, you participate in an arbitrary and unreasonable form of discrimination.

Your celebration of the achievements of women as women contradicts your support for the disregarding of sex distinctions. It also is disrespectful of the men who left us with this immense inheritance.

I hope you will consider that your enthusiasm for the professional woman, as opposed to the many fine amateur women musicians who have worked behind the scenes and who have often also filled orchestra halls with people, suggests that it is not happiness or the joy of music you celebrate in your comments about women musicians but power.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Laura Wood

—- Comments —-

Regina Hess writes:

Dean Ericson writes:

Your letter to Pasternak has me up and cheering; Brava! Brava! Braaaaaava!

Thirty Words writes:

Your letter to Jill Pasternak had me thinking about my own value and realization of the same. Two years ago I had a baby boy and quit my job to stay home with him. Some months later my husband and I were out to dinner with our closest friends (a couple). They are seeking an adoption and the conversation turned to careers and what she would do after the baby came home. She announced that maybe if her husband got a promotion she wouldn’t feel so guilty about “staying home and being such a leech” on her family.

I was stunned. Luckily the dinner was coming to a close and we all said our good byes. In the car I began to cry, both because my feelings were hurt and I was afraid my relationship with a dear friend would never recover. My husband took my hand and said, “You have done more for our family since the baby’s birth than you ever did or could have done while working and I appreciate it.”

I had never heard such sentiment expressed — by him or anyone else. I had many clients at work to whom I thought I was very important. But I was immediately replaced without any problems. I now see that I could never be replaced in my home. My husband could have nannies and cooks and maids and lovers but I am the heart and soul of this home. Our home. This is a value that our society seeks to strip away from woman at every turn. Women sign up in droves to fill jobs in which they are replaceable cogs while leaving someone else to do the most fulfilling work in the world– raising their children!

Laura writes:

Beautifully said.

Linda N. writes:

Thirty Words wrote about going to dinner with another couple and the wife saying something about “staying home and being such a leech” (What a horrid thing to say!) and later being comforted by her husband during the ride home (What kind and moving words from her husband!). I can’t help wondering what the conversation was in the other car. I wonder if the other woman didn’t catch hell from her husband: “How in the world could you say such a thoughtless thing?!” Of course it’s much more likely that both were oblivious. Still . . .

Jill Pasternak responds:

I read your letter regarding my interview with Mary Sue Welsh and her book about Edna Phillips and her life as principal harp with the Philadelphia Orchestra with fascination. As a mother of two, a housewife for many years, a grandmother of four, and a graduate of the Juillard School of music, a Fulbright scholar and a working homemaker I was astounded at your interpretation of my remarks.

I don’t think Clara Schuman or Amy Beach would’ve agreed with you either. As an orchestral harpist in NewYork City at Radio City Music Hall, and a Broadway show harpist and free-lancer, things sounded very familiar even 30 years later, although female musicians have adapted gracefully and sternly to the situation as did Miss Phillips when she worked first at the Roxy Theater in New York. The four shows a day with two hours in between while the men played poker or slept left a woman little to do.

As for the difficulty woman encountered getting work that was considered meaningful, that paid well, and was important in the music scene, there were many details that for the sake of modesty, one would have to leave out. However, this never took away from my pride of being a homemaker and very devoted mother. I would say that you are a little too sensitive and really protected from reality. The world is what it is, and when you have children, especially girls, they learn as we did to accept certain situations and continue on with pride and diligence to complete the work they love along with raising and supporting a family.

Laura writes:

Thank you for your response.

My concern here is not the issue of freelance work, but the question of why the premier orchestras, as well as the more prominent instrumental ensembles of various kinds which offered professional careers to musicians, were once predominantly all male and whether this should be seen as an offense to women.  I am not even arguing that orchestras should be all male, but I would like to correct what I believe is a common misunderstanding of why these and other institutions were all male. You say that there was persistent discrimination against women 30 years after Edna Phillips joined the Philadelphia Orchestra. I don’t doubt it. Though I am certainly not defending what you suggest were sexual improprieties in granting women work, I am saying that this discrimination, though it did cause some real sacrifices for women, was overall a good thing.

I realize this point seems preposterous to you, as it does to many people today, but I challenge your view that I am divorced from reality. Though I don’t doubt what you say about the good of your own personal life and work, I believe you are a bit disconnected from our culture at large. The birthrate is at an historic low; many children are born to unmarried parents (the illegitimacy rate is above 40 percent); and many children spend long hours in institutions from an early age. Divorce is common, and everywhere we look there is a general decline in civility, manners, trust and the life of neighborhoods, all of which were once maintained by women in a more committed way. It is my opinion that the arts have gravely suffered too, but that is a large subject. My point in bringing up these facts is that I believe they stem in part from the weakening of the interdependence between men and women. It’s all well and good for educated women in our culture, those who can ameliorate the effects of their absence from home, to argue that motherhood and marriage are beautiful hobbies, but unless these things are seen as something more we cannot protect this delicate interdependence for those who are less fortunate.

It is important at the very least that we have an appreciation for why discrimination against women once existed.

Laura writes:

I would like to add that Ms. Pasternak’s phrase that I am “protected from reality” does, I believe, demonstrate a very common misconception about the life of women at home. The idea is that the home is not the real world. This can be true, the home can be an escape for women who are spoiled and negligent, but the same can be said of some jobs. For most women the home is a vital connection to reality. If anything, the work world is relatively disconnected from reality as there the most important things in life — birth, death, illness, encounters between those who are related by blood, love-making, childrearing, festivity, prayer, serious reading and contemplation — do not occur.

Ms. Pasternak responds to my response to her email:

I appreciate your explanation of your feelings, but the reality of women being left alone to fend for themselves and their children by men who don’t care or are abusive, who cannot earn and are ill, all of these things impact on families. In the long run women must take care of the family no matter what. And when they have to go out to literally earn for food and rent to protect their families it is very unfair to pay them at a lower rate, to deny them advancement in jobs, and to demand something in return for what they are entitled to as people…not just as women. The cruel reality of survival is a truth that cannot be denied, and it is the mother that takes the responsibility in many cases. Would that the ideal world of the strong male protecting the weak female were true, but in reality, the Lord made us all and survival is vital whether it be on your own or for your progeny. Remember, it is the lioness who hunts for the food to feed her pride.

 Laura writes:

The back-breaking work of a lioness is not our human ideal. A human being, unlike a lion cub, develops slowly over time and as he does he awakens to all the dimensions of reality. He may possess an instinctive knowledge of what it all means, but unless he is taught to understand, to speak and to strive for the best, he cannot participate in or maintain the sort of culture which produced Bach and Beethoven.

The most important women’s right of all is the right to be supported in the vital work of childrearing and home. A man was once obligated to support his wife and he was seen as shirking his duties if he didn’t. That didn’t mean that the wife didn’t often help with this task of earning money, that has been going on for hundreds of year, but the man’s work was primary. With feminism, that duty has been lost. Feminists deliberately destroyed it and imperiled the security of women. (Women alone can’t be blamed for this. Men eagerly renounced their duties and their authority. They embraced effeminacy.) What has been gained is the very economic insecurity for women you mention. As it is now, men cannot be expected to support their wives adequately when there is government-enforced discrimination against them. This is deeply unfair.

You mention that women are paid less. In general, the discrepancy between male and female earnings is due to the types of jobs men and women choose. Women voluntarily choose lesser paying jobs and they often take breaks from employment, which lowers their wages. Single, unmarried women over the course of long careers tend to earn the same as men in comparable jobs. In some cities today, single, unmarried women earn on average more than single, unmarried men. The wages of men are actively being suppressed by government-enforced feminism.

Laura adds to Ms. Pasternak:

While I have your attention, I want to say again that I absolutely adore your voice and your thoughtful way of interviewing. You are truly a local institution at its best. It’s because I admire you so much that I hate to see you embrace feminist nonsense.

Karen I. writes:

Feminists like to quote studies that have supposedly shown housewives are more depressed, sicker, poorer, and generally more oppressed than working mothers. Yet, they are also quick to say that women at home are “protected from reality”? Which is it? Are we depressed, sick, poor, and oppressed? Or, are we “protected from reality”? I guess it depends on which view feminists need to take of housewives in order to prove a particular point.

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