Nine weeks for women to apply for baton boost

D says:

I know that I’ll never convince you, and I’m absolutely sure that you’ll never be convinced by any argument, since there is a nigh endless amount of literature which explains this multifaceted argument coming from people truly more brilliant than I in every aspect, from across all ranges of gender, socioeconomic classes, races, religious backgrounds, nationalities, etc., etc., etc.
But it always comes back to this: if you don’t like it, then don’t support it. No one is forcing you to give your donation dollars to support these things. You have a nearly 100% chance of finding a concert with a man on the podium, so there is no affront on anyone’s values, no one is being held hostage, no one is being forced to attend the masterclass as an audience member with your eyes held open by those machines from A Clockwork Orange. While I understand that there is no legal discrimination against women in our field, if you were to try to imagine a young woman (such as your daughter, if you have one) getting into the field of conducting, certainly you would try to convince her to do whatever she could to get into the field of her passion. Perhaps she would be one of the lucky ones who never participated in any program like this and still was able to become the music director of the Vienna State Opera, or the New York Philharmonic. But for the rest of the women out there who don’t have the opportunity, why not try to get some of them some help from some other people in that field who have been through the paces? Of course you can become a Nobel Prize wining physicist in your spare time from your job as a patent clerk, but for many other people, it’s not as simple. Instead of dividing our small corner of culture in this world, try inviting people who haven’t had the same fortunes that you’ve had into the field. When you become the president of the board of an orchestra, and it comes to having to hire your next music director, then you can take a look at the resume of one of the women who applied, and compare it to the hundreds of other resumes of men who have applied, then you can exclude her based on her participation in *one* program that accepts *nine* people a year. Until then, just move onto the next story.