A New York festival for ‘women-identifying’ composers
NewsWe have been arrpoached about a March festival that ‘will celebrate living, women-identifying composers’.
Backers are the New York Foundation for the Arts, American Composers Forum and the Sphinx Organization.
Participants include pianist Sarah Cahill, violinist Ariel Horowitz and over twenty composers including Tania León, Nathalie Joachim and Vivian Fung.
What is the criterion ths year for ‘identifying’?
image: founder Chelsea Randall
If a certain group insists it is women, and insists that it is accepted as such, why the qualifier? Why not just celebrate “living, women composers”?
But I gather a militant wing is trying to wipe out the classification of half the human race as “women.” A pox on anyone who accepts this bullying rubbish.
Why human “race”? Why discriminating agains other primates? Moreover, why “primates”? 🙂
Eventually all these sub-categories of special people and victims will end up contorted into ever-diminishing groups of fetishized minorities. It’s just DUMB.
According to the Oxford English Diary: DUMB = Desperate Unforgiving Minority Bogus. That’s uncalled for.
Indeed.
The Biological Department of the Texas Institute of Technology has already noticed a grumpy mood among gorillas both in Western zoos and in the wild in subsahara Africa, about the way they are being looked-down upon by humans, while the reality is that ethnic differences between the two species are eroding already for decennia.
“a militant wing is trying to wipe out the classification of half the human race as “women.” ” Nobody is saying women are not women. But some birth (i.e. cisgender) women are trying to prevent transwomen being classified as women – hence the need (at present) for ‘identifying as’. Tolerance and understanding take time.
I absolutely refuse to self-identify as “cis-gender.”
“Cis-gender” is a made-up meaningless word. The correct word is “normal.”
Why does their existence offend you so much?
I have no objection to trans people. I have some toward people who just pose as women in clothing and makeup. I have every objection to members of the trans community, whatever the stage of their development or transition, who reduce women to bodily functions. They are worse than the Taliban. When J.K. Rowling objected to being so defined, she lost a huge amount of support, including from nice woke actors whose fortunes, both professional and financial, she essentially made.
This festival is very clearly open to both cis women and trans women. If you have no objection to trans women then why is this bothering you?
Does that mean anybody can join?
Yes, but you will have to wear a skirt
Can do, especially if you’re a Scot.
Don’t be a fool.
Even if ye have bagpipes oonda yer kilt.
That’s discriminatory and patronizing, as if femininity can only be defined through outdated instructions by patriarchy.
Some of you have about three brain cells and clearly need to educate yourselves. You’re embarrassing yourself.
I first read Women -identifying- as composers.
Same outcome, I guess.
There are enough women identifying as conductors.
Since most of them are no longer used on the British transport network I guess they’ll have to find another means of being a ‘conductor’.
I think it means men composers who are trying to pass for women.
no Frank, it doesn’t. It’s not difficult to understand what it means. are you struggling?
. . . it’s easier to dig a hole than build a tower.
Can Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart be entered as long as the application says she ‘identifies’ as a living composer.
Isn’t she de-composing?
All this cryptic gender crap is a sign of the neglect of our society by prosperity. People occupy themselves with bullshit and create problems where there are none.
SAY IT WITH ME EVERYONE! TRANS-WOMEN ARE WOMEN!!
Camille Paglia disagrees.
According to some biological studies, the basic form of the human species is the female, and the male is a variation. Hence the many insecurities of males about manliness and the fear about the opposite gender, and the need to prove their being not-female through physical violence.
THANK YOU. I’m glad to see there’s at least one sane individual in this comment thread. <3
No. They. Are. Not. Name me a single instance in all history were some one has changed sex.
As to the question of criteria, there is an increasing effort to leave definitions of gender somewhat open. Ethnicity and gender are so varied, complex, and difficult to define that it is now common practice to let each individual decide for themselves how they want to be seen. (Sincerity is assumed.) Studies across several countries found a range of 1.2 to 6.8 percent of the adult population identifying as LGBT. About 0.6% of society is thought to be transgender. Terms like “women-identifying” is an effort to welcome people in these less binary categories. This approach presents some issues to be solved in sports, but what’s the harm in allowing people to self-identify for a new music festival?
Some of the “self-identifyers” — who are men in women’s clothes and make-up — are among those trying to erase the notion of “women” as a category (e.g. in sport, washrooms, etc.).
I’m sorry, but I am fed up with 0.6% of the population dictating to over 50%.
I don’t think ethnicity and gender are all that mixed up, though it is easy to comprehend how ethnicity might become so through the commingling of men and women from 2 different races, and on through generations.
Yes, people are born with different sexual orientations, and indeed some differing genetic makeups that lead to sexual confusion and trans as an option for solving some of them.
But too many people “self-identifying” are not taking the medical steps to sorting out their issues and as a result are just people posing in costume. These are the ones who refer to women as “people with vaginas” or “people who menstruate,” which is a massive reduction of women — who have fought long and hard for freedoms and rights that men took for granted for ages.
As a woman lucky enough to be born when most of those rights and freedoms were in place — though old enough to have seen some examples of men declining women a job because of various prejudices — I bitterly resent being characterised by a small part of my anatomy or a small part of my life process.
And on behalf of women who work hard at it, I resent men coming in and challenging for medals in sport because they “self-identify” as women. Or in sharing a public restroom with a man, whatever he is wearing. As long as a person is equipped to use a urinal, the men’s room is down the hall, thank you.
If someone has fully transitioned to the female gender, then there is no need for the absurd qualifyer, ‘self-identifying.” I accept such people as women. But I do not accept that dressing up confers any rights whatsoever.
Thoughtful response appreciated (at least by me), but I would have advised you not to bother. This post isn’t meant to provoke an intelligent discussion.
What a word-salad of decadent self-justification!!!
The solution is, of course, to entirely leave ‘gender’ out of the equasion. Everybody is a person, that should be enough. And discrimination should be seen for what it is, a stupid prejudice. You cannot fight prejudice by organising compensating categories, because that is on the outside while prejudice happens on the inside. It is like trying to organise a neglected, wild garden by laying-out a neat one next to that garden; it leaves the problem untouched.
‘Ethnicity and gender are so varied, complex, and difficult to define’
Really? I find it all very straightforward (as do most people I know).
It’s only a problem in a degenerate world where science is being displaced by alchemy, people are too easily influenced, and synthetic emotion has replaced the real thing.
Gender is not difficult to define unless one is brain dead, unable to understand silence, or is suffering a mental defect.
That reads as one of my job rejections.
Sally
I think the criterion relates to a certain activity performed (ahem) standing up or sitting down.
Or, some might ask what is the criterion for “arrpoaching”?
That’s great. HOW’S THE MUSIC?
It is not about music. It is about genitals. The music is just a pretext.
That’s not relevant. What is relevant, is the public gesture, so that the music is judged according to that gesture. If you don’t like it, you are a mysoginist.
It’s all sadly not about the music anymore 🙁
It’s literally all about the music. It’s people like you, and other people in this comment section, that are making it about gender and sex. You guys are getting SO worked up about how someone identifies themselves. All these women want is to go about their daily lives and take part in these festivals and competitions. Yet people like you are whittling it down to what they identify as. Maybe just leave them alone?
Please read the blurb: “WOMEN NOW is a spotlight festival celebrating the work and achievements of living, women-identifying composers.”
Maybe one criterion is the ability to spell correctly.
not been funni lyke but my nan says i was allway’s good at spelling n’ stuff speshally with orl those long word’s
You can’t discriminate against the non-spellers. That’s a hideous abuse of their human rights to mangle the language.
According to my PA, only qwerty people can spell correctly. But I would disagree.
For anyone who wants to get past the click-bait, this New York festival is called “Women Now” and is organized by the Extensity Concert Series: “EXTENSITY is a musician-founded series presenting innovative programming by emerging and established artists working across a range of disciplines, with emphasis on underrepresented and new voices. EXTENSITY also aims to create frameworks for artists and audiences to interact, share ideas, and make new discoveries.” Chelsea Randall is the co-founder, with Francesca Khalifa, both pianists. The website is https://www.extensityconcertseries.com/
Sandra, nobody requires you to visit slippedisc.com. Maybe it’s time to stay away.
I find your site frequently interesting, informative, and provocative in a good way. But as instructed, I will now finally, definitely, cease visiting it.
If I put on a wig, a dress, and some strap-on boobs may I apply?
Only if you identify as a composer.
Norman you seem incredibly worked up about people identifying themselves in the way they want. Why is that? Why not let them identify how they want to identify?
I dont think many people have a problem with that-live how you want, identify how you want-fine. The difficulty starts when women only spaces become invaded by intact self identifying males-so we have the complete nonsense of rapists in female jails, women being denied sporting records to such men, toilets, swimming pools being appropriated. You are either ignorant of the above (which seems unlikely frankly) or you dont think it matters. I guess your a bloke for whom none of the above will make a blind bit of difference to.
I agree that that is where the difficulty starts. However, that is NOT the fault of the trans community. That’s actually the fault of the cis male community. Men that dress up as women with no intention to actually be women, with only the intention to cause harm, they are the problem. And what are they? Cis men. Actual trans people who are just trying to live their lives are not the problem. So why are we putting the blame on the trans community here?
These women who are entering this festival are literally just trying to exist, perform, and advance their career. Why are they being attacked?
FYI, I am a 25 year old lesbian woman who is very active in protecting the LGBTQ+ community, and protecting our desire to simply exist.
I’ll also add that the toilets/swimming pools situation should not bother us. Why should it? Are you suggesting all trans people are predators? A predator is a predator regardless of how they identify, aren’t they? Again, that would be the fault of predators, NOT the trans community. The trans community have been under attack for years and years. It’s been horrific for them. They literally just want to exist without people condemning them as these awful people in the way you are.
You dont get it, do you? Pretty well everyone accepts that trans people just want to live their lives in peace. However if you grant the legal fiction that to become a women is possible by simply saying so than you grant a free pass to perverts and weirdo’s to commit these crimes. As to the notion that this is down to straight men, what the hell is Stonewall then? (you remember, the “no debate” guys, straight out of the Dentons playbook)
So any person with XY chromosomes who says grz* identifies as someone with XX chromosomes can apply? If so, how would that be monitored?
*preferred pronoun
Some people are really not terribly busy, or they do not read the news and have nothing better to do but to suck the money out of sponsors for some crappy projects — NOTHING!
What bizarre mental and linguistic contortions some people are capable of. Seems we need a new group, to be called “people identifying as contorted and conflicted communicators trying to annoy humanity.” Another festival to miss?