Why are all the DJs male?

Message

Astral · #31 Post by **Astral** » Thu May 29, 2003 1:34 pm

I started djing initially for a college radio station back in 99..that lasted a year-yes a swing show. Even though I've been dancing since then, I never felt the urge to be a dj, simply because I knew I'd have to miss some awesome songs cuz I'd be well um djing.
So I finally accepted to do it last summer...A dancer friend who runs one our weekly nights kept on hinting about it until I finally accepted. Then on women's day, we chose to have an all gal dj night..so I can now say Montreal now has at least 4 lindyhoppers who like to dj

And yes control is part of it..that's why I lead..I like to take the decisions. Same thing for djing...I like the control..and bringing the musical energy to a dance floor is quite fun.
I'm now more confident about it even though I don't have an extended cd collection. I'll be making my out of town debut this summer in Vancouver.

Unfortunately some local politics have come into play..so I'm not quite sure how often I will dj locally.

smoothblues · #32 Post by **smoothblues** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 9:06 am

Karen Kross also used to DJ, as did Susan Snyder as Nathan mentioned. I believe there was at least one other female DJ in Austin a few years back. They all got burned out. There have been some male DJs that became similarly burned out, so that's not unique to the female DJs.

It's probably just a momentum cycle in Austin. The female DJs dropped off so the women don't have a role model to identify with. Another factor could be societal stereotyping of roles and confidence. Personally, it seems that a big part of it is that the girls would rather enjoy dancing than deal with all the headaches of DJ'ing.

Lawrence · #33 Post by **Lawrence** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:35 am

Astral wrote:Unfortunately some local politics have come into play..so I'm not quite sure how often I will dj locally.

See... that's just what I was afraid of. I'm afraid of Lindy DJing becomming so political that women need to be some sort of Hillary-Clinton-like sycophant in order to break through the glass ceiling.

yedancer · #34 Post by **yedancer** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:50 am

Lawrence wrote:
Astral wrote:Unfortunately some local politics have come into play..so I'm not quite sure how often I will dj locally.
See... that's just what I was afraid of. I'm afraid of Lindy DJing becomming so political that women need to be some sort of Hillary-Clinton-like sycophant in order to break through the glass ceiling.

That would be lame.

Shanabanana · #35 Post by **Shanabanana** » Tue Jun 17, 2003 11:39 am

Since most people get into DJing because they liked the music and happened to amass an enormous collection of music, that leaves out most of the women I know. For whatever reason, I know fewer women that are into jazz than men. So it's not all that surprising that there are fewer female DJs.

It also seems that the national DJ scene turns into a swordfight most of the time a discussion is happening. Most of the threads on this board are a great example. Instead of a respectful discussion of music, it turns into a juvenile namecalling session. Women would rather bitch about you behind your back...we don't need the schoolyard shuffle to fulfill our nastiness quotient.

smoothblues · #36 Post by **smoothblues** » Tue Jun 17, 2003 8:55 pm

Lawrence wrote:See... that's just what I was afraid of. I'm afraid of Lindy DJing becomming so political that women need to be some sort of Hillary-Clinton-like sycophant in order to break through the glass ceiling.

Don't be afraid. Get Raid.

Princess5342 · #37 Post by **Princess5342** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:15 pm

Deborah and I are trying to rock the DJ world in small ways by always having the sexiest flyers for our gigs! Heehee

I'd say man like to control things more - theirfore DJing is a way to control the floor?

Or it's a math thing. Music hits on the same parts of your brain as math and they always seam to sey men are better at math? I have no idea.

I know I could give a crap about who sang what when or BPMs and all the techie facts about the music, despite my 13 years of Trombone Jazz band playing.

I hear a song I like - I buy it - I play it.

We shold do a poll - how many Women DJ's are in mathmatical realated Jobs? I know Shana and I are, and we both have musical backrounds as well.

djstarr · #38 Post by **djstarr** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 1:55 pm

Princess5342 wrote:We shold do a poll - how many Women DJ's are in mathmatical realated Jobs? I know Shana and I are, and we both have musical backrounds as well.

Interesting - I am both a musician and a software engineer; having hung out with male engineers for a long time now the sword fighting on the forum is par for the course.

Kristin is also a software developer. Tonya is a musician - quite a good pianist, she supported herself through college as an accompaniest. Hep Jen is a musician; she and I were both clarinetists in the Husky Marching Band (UW).......the two other women starting to DJ more in Seattle both qualify - Bethany (software testing) and Marie (trumpet player and brilliant scientist)

Platypus · #39 Post by **Platypus** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:11 pm

Social worker (much to the surprise of my high school math teacher)

smoothblues · #40 Post by **smoothblues** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:42 pm

*Ahem* (soapbox)

djstarr wrote:Interesting - I am both a musician and a software engineer; having hung out with male engineers for a long time now the sword fighting on the forum is par for the course.

Hey now, speak for yourself(ves). Not all guys nor are all engineers petty bickerers. The obnoxious and loud ones always get the attention, but they are not necessarily the majority. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

That said, I do understand the culture that you speak of. There are dancer geeks just as there are computer geeks: people who live in a microcosm and don't see the bigger picture. What's even more hilarious is when one group makes fun of the other, not realizing that both are wearing blinders.
(end soapbox)

So, what's good to eat?

djstarr · #41 Post by **djstarr** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:54 pm

smoothblues wrote:*Ahem* (soapbox)
Not all guys nor are all engineers petty bickerers. The obnoxious and loud ones always get the attention, but they are not necessarily the majority. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
.........
(end soapbox)

just teasing; you won't be the first to accuse me of generalizing.

yep, it's those quiet types with admin rights that you have to watch out for - LOL. and the ones who don't talk right away tend to be the more critical thinkers - they will hit you out of left field after thinking about the subject for a couple of days......

I was just making an observation based on the posts in this forum, which isn't too bad actually - the signal to noise ratio is pretty high.

SirScratchAlot · #42 Post by **SirScratchAlot** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:37 am

Princess5342 wrote:

I know I could give a crap about who sang what when or BPMs and all the techie facts about the music, despite my 13 years of Trombone Jazz band playing.

I hear a song I like - I buy it - I play it.
.

Music to my ears....you can DJ around these parts anytime!!!!

Janice Wilson is a bad ass mo fo...when she spins!!!!

more girls--more girls--more girls--more girls--more girls--more girls--

dana · #43 Post by **dana** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 10:59 am

Well, as the female half of the 2 people who DJ in Calgary, I can say that I've had to put up with a lot of shit that my male counterpart doesn't get.

I've been yelled at, threatened, pushed out of the way so some random guy could browse through my cds to see what he was going to play next (Excuse me?!), and blamed for the lack of "newbies" (right).

But hey, I work in oil and gas and I'm one of the few women here too, so I've learned to deal. Of course, people now tell me that I'm "rude" when I kick them out of the DJ booth. I can deal with being rude if it keeps prying fingers from flipping through my cds to look for requests.

More generally, I think a DJ needs, above all, a drive to collect cds. I tend to see more guys than girls with that collection impulse - see how many guys v. girls who keep track of sports scores, have old cars that need lots of maintenance, research a new purchase to death, etc. It's that need to acquire, understand, catalogue. I see more women who're willing to grab that new top-10 cd, play it a bit, and then land it in the pile when the next new thing comes along. I know it sounds like I'm being disparaging, but that's only because we're all DJs in full possession of the "acquire" gene.

Without the drive to collect, we're just like all the regular dancers who know their favorite songs but not what album they're on, or even who plays 'em, and who have no drive to find out that info. It's not a value judgement - it's just a different lifestyle

d.

djstarr · #44 Post by **djstarr** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 11:05 am

dana wrote:I've been yelled at, threatened, pushed out of the way so some random guy could browse through my cds to see what he was going to play next (Excuse me?!), and blamed for the lack of "newbies" (right)

hey Dana - remind me to not move to Calgary!!!!!

Fortunately the men in Seattle are *very* polite.....

dana · #45 Post by **dana** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 11:10 am

djstarr wrote:hey Dana - remind me to not move to Calgary!!!!!
Fortunately the men in Seattle are *very* polite.....

You know.. they're all polite except for a couple of'em who think they know "how things should be" and felt the need to tell me exactly how I should be DJ'ing. Nevermind that at that point, without me, the "DJ" was the "random play" button on the 200 disc changer.

BryanC and I have our own night now, our very own little tyranny of music, and we can play whatever the heck we want. It's much better. We also invented a rule: "We're very sorry, but the bar won't let anyone but us two in the DJ booth. They're really worried about the equipment! So you won't be able to play your burned CD of 128kbit mp3s, very very sorry." It's fabulous.

d.