Poll: Hot Ladies

[sqbr]

There's been much discussion about the absurd gender bias in the hottest 100, which I've been somewhat avoiding until I got around to listening to the recording I made (Though thanks to the east coast time difference I still have to listen to 100-80 and 50-30 ish, luckily the website has streaming for the next few days)

Anyway: 2 out of 100 with female vocalists, and (I think?) 4 with women in the band is pretty pathetic. I looked into my iTunes library and out of my 230 five star songs, 58 have female vocalists(*).

I was inspired to make a poll of other people's favourite songs with female vocalists(*). I've always wanted to try out Google forms :) It's a bit dodgy, but on the plus side the only effort I have to go to collate the results is pressing "Sort column" :D Is there any better (and equally low-effort) way to make this sort of poll?

I'm not really interested in discussing the whys and wherefores because I really don't know (or care, to be honest) that much about the music industry. Go check out Was the Hottest 100 Of All Time sexist? asks Triple J’s Hack or any of the other posts on the subject. Also purrdence has another aleternative poll.

(*)I don't know about you, but I don't pay enough attention to who's in a band to know which ones have women in them unless I can hear them singing.

Comments

[ex_peasant441]

I'm not looking at the poll because it's not my type of music, but just taking your numbers I am astonished by the scale of the contrast with classical music, where the soprano voice is head and shoulders celebrated above any other and always has been. This actually makes me wonder if there is at least some component of musical attributes involved. Possibly related to the different levels of contrast within the types of instrumental accompaniment and vocal techniques used?

But anyway, if you want some relief from male dominated singing, turn to classical where the sops get all the best tunes. (I speak as a bitter alto.)

Not that there isn't huge glaring sexism within classical music because there is - Vienna Philharmonic anyone?* - but it clearly wins on this count.


*If you don't already know what I am referring to, do not look it up unless you are calm, happy and feeling strong enough to cope with some gut wrenchingly sickening stuff.

[sqbr]

I think with classical music there's also much more of a split between the people who make and get credit for the music and the people who play/sing it, so you can believe that men are the only ones who can create Important Music while still listening to female voices. Though, yes, as the Vienna Philharmonic thing shows, that doesn't mean the musicians don't get discriminated against anyway.

I am also a bitter alto (married to a somewhat bitter base) so I share your pain :)