Why don't girls like techno?

[chava]

IMO a true appreciation of Techno comes from knowing how difficult it can be to make and recognizing great producers.

Maybe if you are a producer yourself, but otherwise (hopefully) not.

[rmac]

While it's definitely not true that girls don't like techno, I think they're generally speaking less interested in things that have to do with technology. That's why you see way less female producers than male producers. IMO a true appreciation of Techno comes from knowing how difficult it can be to make and recognizing great producers.

Yeh after reading my title, I am just asking for knee jerk reactions as there definitely are girls that like techno. I think I should have titled it "Why do less girls seem to be into heavy techno"

Good point about less female producers, I guess it is likely linked that less overall female techno fans = less overall female techno producers?

[Lost to the Void]

While it's definitely not true that girls don't like techno, I think they're generally speaking less interested in things that have to do with technology. That's why you see way less female producers than male producers. IMO a true appreciation of Techno comes from knowing how difficult it can be to make and recognizing great producers.

There is fucking loads of female producers these days. Fair enough there wasn't back in the early 90's but that is simply not the case anymore. I can link you up with a whole list if you are remotely bothered. Trust me when I say this is something I take a lot of notice of for a very particular reason.

With heavier styles of music you just tend to get less women.
Tech-house and more commercial stuff, more even split.
The more industrial or hard stuff, more of a cock fest.

Same with heavy metal. Go to a mainstream metal gig, you get more women.
Go to some dank death-doom gig and it`s wall to wall cocks.

It`s all that rampant testosterone.

I was at a Viper/ Pet Duo gig and the crowd as around 50/50 male to female. I am pretty sure most people would be comfortable calling both of those artists heavy, if not very heavy.
I can't speak on behalf of any other music, metal, doom etc but techno is very even these days.

Nah Pet Duo are cheesy as shit, I`d expect a more even split there, it`s jumpy pumpy music, it may be schranzy and distorted but it`s not really hard and nasty. I liken what they do to hard house (does that still exist?).
Techno as a whole has become the mainstream, so the audience has become more split in general, relative to this. Techno is one of the big draws in dance music (outside of the US). Albeit the more commercial side of things.

I know blah feminism, but I`m affraid that men and women ARE different.
We have cocks and you have twats, and we like different things.

Saw Gorgoroth a few years back, very few women there at all.
Same when I went to see Godflesh (and JK Flesh) last time they toured.
Foo Fighters, more even split.
When I go to the more underground techno shows, they are still majority cock, not like it was 10-15 years ago, but still cock heavy. Cock heavy.... or cock biased, if you will.

That`s just how it is. Who knows the real reason why?
Why aren`t there more women making the harsh fucked up stuff in general?
I mean how many women black metal bands are there compared to men, for example?
Why aren`t there more men at Lady Ga Ga gigs?

I`m not saying this is a good thing, but it is how it is.
Would it be nicer for more girls to be at the real underground stuff? for sure.

I think testosterone does play a part. There is a rage that comes with having that shit in your body, and there are certain things that appeal as a catharsis to that.
It`s also why you`ll find more men in to super violent action movies or comics or whatever. It`s machismo.
Testosterone is pretty messed up, anyone who has had the red mist come down on them can testify to that, it`s why 90.5% of homicides are committed by men.

And again, that`s not to say women don`t murder, and I`m not saying it wouldn`t be nice if more women murdered so there was more equality, but that`s how it is.

I for one don`t really care for the numbers in underground techno, I am campaigning for more murder by women, as the numbers are shocking.

MAKE A CHANGE NOW
MORE MURDER BY WOMEN
MAKE A CHANGE NOW
MORE MURDER BY WOMEN

[Stace]

Steve, we have been EXACTLY here before - the whole thing about men and women being different - I don't really want to get into the same thing with you again as we literally went in circles for pages and pages.

I still don't agree, the time since we last spoke about it hasn't changed my mind. There is all kind of people that identify as all kinds of genders making the music you speak of. There are plenty of women I know of who harsh fucked up stuff.
I don't know anything about black metal bands or Lady Gaga gig (I am surprised you are so familiar with Lady Gaga gigs)

One size doesn't fucking fit all. You can't generalise half of the worlds population based simply on their gender. I don't know any men into super violent action movies or comics but I accept they are out there just as there are women out there who make fucked up, messed up savage music. Unless you are specifically looking for them you won't see it and I have been specifically looking for them for reasons I don't want to yet get in to.

I have a different perspective from most of you on here based on the fact I AM female, I am not saying that makes me right or correct I am saying that it means I see things in a different perspective that you don't.
I take note of things like how many females are in clubs as when I first started going clubbing there was nowhere like a 50/50 split. I go out of my way to hunt out female DJ's and producers and support them. If you all still think there is fuck all women out there producing in general then you need to open your eyes or prepare for a massive list of them I'll post.

[PixelKind]

MAKE A CHANGE NOW
MORE MURDER BY WOMEN
MAKE A CHANGE NOW
MORE MURDER BY WOMEN

That would make a great chorus for a industrial/doom metal track

[Lost to the Void]

Not saying there are no women making blah, but there are definitely more men making aggressive nasty music.
Even the world of underground metal has more women now, is it 50/50 fuck no.
The world of power electronics and noise has changed, in what was a scene of pretty much 98% cock, there is definitely more twat now, again, is it even? not by a fucking long way, but it is better.

The reason you don`t know men that love violent movies does not mean that much. It just means you don`t know any or actively don`t hang out with those kinds of people.
Go to a cinema and see the audience, it`s going to be massively cock dominant.

Go take a walk through some statistics, women and men are different.
The great marxist ideal that we are all the same is just that, an ideal, and thank fuck for that, if we were all the same life would be as boring as fuck.

And yes, sliding scale of sexuality sure, still doesn`t sway the figures much. In hipster la la land everyone lives in a gender non-existent utopia, but go to your average town in the uk and observe reality.

It`s not like I`m anti equality, I couldn`t give a fuck what you are, dick, twat, half way between or nowhere at all, as long as you don`t harm me, do your thing, I just take a realist stance on all this.
When I was putting on club nights, we actively sought out women DJ`s and Live Acts (mainly live acts) and did everything we could to find them as we wanted to get a more feminine perspective (but hey, we aren`t different, so why bother, wish I knew that then), and it was really hard, we did find some really cool people in the end (one of the coolest was active in the Brighton Lesbian scene, and even she said she had difficulty trying to bring more interesting music to the gay clubs there, she did bring some of the Lesbian crowd to our events, which was awesome, sadly she died of cancer and as she became a part of our crew, we decided to stop putting on those parties without her, actually someone else in the crew also died, so losing both of them it just took the wind out of us, that was another fucked up year). Same with my label, I never waited for Demo`s I was an active seeker of interesting music, and again I wanted to get female producers as I wanted a feminine perspective on music (why did I bother, we are all the same), again, that was really difficult. I expect if I went back on it, it would be marginally easier, but I still don`t know that many women making techno despite my huge span of contacts in the scene. Why is that?
You are pretty much the only woman on subsekt, why is that?
The spanish underground techno scene (one of the reasons I like it) is much more balanced than the underground here. Shit load more women, again, very few of them DJ in comparison to the amount of men. Those that do are embraced and accepted. One of the more interesting DJ`s I saw my last time out there was a Gal spinning some really cool techno very different to everyone else I heard that weekend.
Few women DJ`s in that scene, even fewer producers though. I went to a production school in Gijon in northern spain, it`s a private place much like SAE or something, their techno classes not 1 single female student.....

The other thing it is harder to see is that techno is so massive now, it`s huge, I was in the scene when it was battling for an audience, before it became the huge commercially accepted thing it is now, and when it was more underground it was more male centric. So having a larger audience might account for more women, or just being more commercially or socially accepted might mean there is more women. Who really knows, maybe there should be a study.
Now I`m more into other underground music and less in to techno these days, pretty much all the places I go, the audience is still pretty much the same levels as it was when techno was underground, more men, less women.
Why is this? No idea.
Maybe when that music becomes more popular there will be more women, who knows, but it is the way it is at the moment.

This weird modern meme of denying reality is just strange
Yes, more equality is a good thing, but let's not deny our differences, let`s embrace them surely?

[dubdub]

The great marxist ideal that we are all the same is just that, an ideal, and thank fuck for that, if we were all the same life would be as boring as fuck.

If anything, the 'great marxist ideal' is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - which is an ideal that makes the fact that everyone is different the core of it's doctrine

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah, maybe I should have said the great liberal ideal.
Freudian slip?

[TimBuys]

knowing how difficult it can be to make and recognizing great producers.

Techno is one of the easiest styles of electronic music to make.
You can get away with far more finger mashing and general gunk than you can with other music.

Maybe the entry level is the lowest, but I think the true masters of the genre like Phil Kieran, Heiko Laux or Trentemoller (when he was still producing techno) are unrivaled in other electronic music genres. And that's coming from someone that listens to a lot of different styles.

[TimBuys]

While it's definitely not true that girls don't like techno, I think they're generally speaking less interested in things that have to do with technology. That's why you see way less female producers than male producers. IMO a true appreciation of Techno comes from knowing how difficult it can be to make and recognizing great producers.

There is fucking loads of female producers these days. Fair enough there wasn't back in the early 90's but that is simply not the case anymore. I can link you up with a whole list if you are remotely bothered. Trust me when I say this is something I take a lot of notice of for a very particular reason.

Be real though, if you would make a list of the number of male producers vs the number of female producers, that would be like 80% vs 20%? I keep my eyes open to any talented producer regardless of gender, so the "if you're remotely bothered" is a bit unfair.

[chava]

This weird modern meme of denying reality is just strange
Yes, more equality is a good thing, but let's not deny our differences, let`s embrace them surely?

This meme is called Gender Studies.

The more effort that is done to level the socioeconomic spectrum the more diverse (unequal?) men and women becomes in terms of personality. The scandinavian countries labour market are the most polarized in the world in terms of gender. I bet there are more women engineers in India than in Sweden.

I don't think it that hard to hypothesize why techno is a boys' club:

1) Aggression/Testosterone factor has already been mentioned. Mainly this is a issue in the hard techno genres; generally I wouldn't describe techno as aggressive.
2) An obsession over technology/gadgets/button-pushing. Men like that shit. How many producers across ALL genres are women?
3) The self-defined 'underground'/subcultural/subversive factor. A little bit more tricky this, but I'd suggest that women in general do not want to engage in very fringe subcultural or even dysfunctional cultures over a long span of time. This is also less important as techno has become semi-mainstream 'clubbing' music.
4) The music is, unfortunately, more than often emotional void or not very complex in terms of this. Lack of vocals also matter I would say.
5) Discrimination. This accounts for maybe 0.5%. More if you live in Saudi Arabia or similar countries.

[TimBuys]

This weird modern meme of denying reality is just strange
Yes, more equality is a good thing, but let's not deny our differences, let`s embrace them surely?

This meme is called Gender Studies.

The more effort that is done to level the socioeconomic spectrum the more diverse (unequal?) men and women becomes in terms of personality.

Can you link me to some of those researches?

[chava]

Can you link me to some of those researches?

youtu.be/E577jhf25t4

This doc is quite well-known and describes the phenomenon well. It is basically an Norwegian comedian debunking a large part of social studies using the latest (well, not even the latest) research in evolutionary and neuropsychology. It is very entertaining and created quite a stir in Norway some 10 years ago. It still does, in fact. All parts are worth viewing.

Here's an longer academic article on the subject (I haven't read it through, but it seems to be the same conclusion): http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf

some quotes from the article:
So far, two largescale cross-cultural data sets have shown that the gap between the personality traits of men and that of women widens as the society in which they live becomes more modern, economically affluent, and gender egalitarian

In traditional and less developed countries, therefore, an average man is more like an average woman, not in terms of his social roles or value preferences, but in his basic personality tendencies to feel, think, and act in a way more comparable with women

[winston]

Can you link me to some of those researches?

youtu.be/E577jhf25t4

This doc is quite well-known and describes the phenomenon well. It is basically an Norwegian comedian debunking a large part of social studies using the latest (well, not even the latest) research in evolutionary and neuropsychology. It is very entertaining and created quite a stir in Norway some 10 years ago. It still does, in fact. All parts are worth viewing.

Here's an longer academic article on the subject (I haven't read it through, but it seems to be the same conclusion): http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf

some quotes from the article:
So far, two largescale cross-cultural data sets have shown that the gap between the personality traits of men and that of women widens as the society in which they live becomes more modern, economically affluent, and gender egalitarian

In traditional and less developed countries, therefore, an average man is more like an average woman, not in terms of his social roles or value preferences, but in his basic personality tendencies to feel, think, and act in a way more comparable with women

they are good docs, i've watched them a while back.

[msl]

HAHAHAHAHA this is the funniest thread ever here...

maybe because a lot of techno tends too attract the 'chin stroking' connoisseur variety of punter... usually a bit social introvert etc.. but hey what do I know... I still like funky techno from the 90's before everyone wore black.

[The_G]

Basically gender differences emerge from two things: biological sex (organs and hormones) and social conditioning. Pretty much everyone in the relevant physical and social sciences agree on this, they just disagree on where to draw the line between them. However, nearly everyone agrees that gender roles are broadly shaped by social conditioning and not just testosterone/estrogen levels. A lot of the stuff that's generally assumed to be "natural" for men and women is anything but.

That said, I'm very glad modern men and women aren't interchangeable. Agree with Lost that life would be pretty boring if we were all the same.

[disparate]

Most of the events I've been to in a couple of years have been getting more balanced than I remember before. I think a lot of this has been down to, in addition to things moving forward at least a bit in society in general, the hard work of a lot of women and forward-thinking men to make things much more inclusive.

The lack of women attending or being involved in the scene stems from similar reasons to things like IT, engineering, etc. in my view. As in, social conditioning from a young age (boys being more pushed towards technical endeavours than girls), the scene often being seen as a bit of a boys' club, lack of female role models, nightclubs not always being a safe environment for women, and so on. All leads to women feeling discouraged and/or it just not really crossing their minds as much that it's something they might want to be into or pursue.

The social conditioning bit in particular can't be overstated IMO - I've seen a few people raise points in this thread about things like lack of vocals, interest in gadgets/nerdy things etc. These are all down to social conditioning more than, say, biology. Those reducing it to saying that's just the way things are, that women are inherently less likely to be interested in technical pursuits, etc. are ignoring the fact that society is still generally quite sexist and that these things can be changed to the benefit of everyone...

[Lost to the Void]

Most of the events I've been to in a couple of years have been getting more balanced than I remember before. I think a lot of this has been down to, in addition to things moving forward at least a bit in society in general, the hard work of a lot of women and forward-thinking men to make things much more inclusive.

The lack of women attending or being involved in the scene stems from similar reasons to things like IT, engineering, etc. in my view. As in, social conditioning from a young age (boys being more pushed towards technical endeavours than girls), the scene often being seen as a bit of a boys' club, lack of female role models, nightclubs not always being a safe environment for women, and so on. All leads to women feeling discouraged and/or it just not really crossing their minds as much that it's something they might want to be into or pursue.

The social conditioning bit in particular can't be overstated IMO - I've seen a few people raise points in this thread about things like lack of vocals, interest in gadgets/nerdy things etc. These are all down to social conditioning more than, say, biology. Those reducing it to saying that's just the way things are, that women are inherently less likely to be interested in technical pursuits, etc. are ignoring the fact that society is still generally quite sexist and that these things can be changed to the benefit of everyone...

Well, sure in some part.

But traditionally, house clubs were full of women, same with prog, psytrance, even drum and bass had a more even split.
Dubstep right at the beginning was more of a cockfest, but only right at the beginning, it got popular/big quick and the audience became more even.
So sure on the production side some of that might apply, but on the audience side.
Techno events are much better now as techno is so accepted and established and popular now.
There have always been women in techno though, gayle san, monica cruise, Mara Bruiser, paula temple, giselle rebel yell , heather heart of course, and so on...., but there are definitely more getting the spotlight now, which is a good thing. Still not an even split by any measure.
I don`t think there are any obstacles in the way of women wanting to get in to techno, if anything the men will stand aside for them.
But look at house music, it has a shit load more women in the game.

[HowieRis]

Events here in Saigon Vietnam seem pretty balanced overall between male and female... I dare say however that the "housier" or lighter the tunes, the more likely it is to be balanced. I've witnessed plenty of female DJs playing here although of course as usual most are male.

I agree with what a few people have said that social conditioning must play some part in societal behaviour as well as biology... so whatever the degree either one is an influence, it's clear to me that despite some exceptions; low levels of female involvement in certain styles of music is a result of choices made by a majority of women rather than male intimidation or oppression.

In the big picture women seem to gravitate towards less harsh, abrasive sounding producers/bands. When I was playing in hardcore bands, a gig more on the "punk" end of the spectrum would be a 50/50 split... then going to see a two-piece instrumental grind band you'd be drowning in beards and dicks. Not sure why this is sometimes such a taboo observation to make.

[chava]

The social conditioning bit in particular can't be overstated IMO - I've seen a few people raise points in this thread about things like lack of vocals, interest in gadgets/nerdy things etc. These are all down to social conditioning more than, say, biology. Those reducing it to saying that's just the way things are, that women are inherently less likely to be interested in technical pursuits, etc. are ignoring the fact that society is still generally quite sexist and that these things can be changed to the benefit of everyone...

The why aren't there more women in engineering jobs in the least sexist places in the world (Western Europe)? It's not like these fields doesn't need extra hands as that's where the jobs are. And vice versa. Where are all the male nurses?

You bet the social conditioning bit is overstated.