Gender Roles

So I was just compiling music videos for an upcoming music for kids post and I was thinking about the message I hope they send to Dinobaby. Mom values music. Music is art, but it's also fun. It's gives expression to the divine and of the divine. And then I thought about the people inside of those videos--disabled musicians, children, women, Chinese, European, black, brown, etc.--and I was proud of the message they sent too. Music is for everyone.

I think its important that we expand the world that our children are born into. Culture likes to dictate roles and values, and usually that's not a good thing. Women can be smart and talented, but above all women should be sexy. Girls should play with pink or purple toys, and girls should love princesses. I'm sensitive to those because I'm a woman. But, now that I'm a mother of a son I feel all of the fences that are placed in his future too. And the fences are pretty blatant, they look like this: "I think he's gay" 

 Not that being labeled as homosexual is the worst thing in the world- it's not. But because of the principle implied.  Somehow your sexuality defines your interests and your profession. As a society we do it so casually and often but if we stopped for a second we'd realize how ludicrous it sounds. When was the last time you met a female CPA and assumed she was a lesbian? What if she's wearing a sports jersey? Yet, anytime a man notices something beautiful other than a woman we assume he's gay. So pretty early we teach boys to restrict their vocabulary to the basic 8 colors because if he mentions a specific shade he'll get picked on. We try to guide them towards interests that will make life easier for them because we love them. Nothing nefarious but soon all of the boys tried out for the football team and there's only five tenors in the choir (and all of the straight guys did both).  If a man sees an opera that he wasn't dragged to, it's assumed that the guy sitting next to him is probably his date. And that's a shame. Let's let boys be who they want to be without all of our messed up social pressures. 

So how does this relate to music videos? One of my favorites is of a 14 year old soprano from the Vienna Boys Choir singing the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. It's spectacular.

1.  I love it because it shows that children are capable and remarkable just as they are--"Dinobaby, you don't have to wait to do amazing things. You can and do amazing things right now."  
2. "This is the Vienna Boys Choir-- it's full of little boys just like you that love to sing. They make beautiful music and the whole world listens to them." 
3. It's Mozart. ---"Isn't it cool how the music lets you know that he's angry and out-of-control even when we can't understand the words?"
4. He worked really hard to sing that. Video games are cool, but making something is cooler-- "I bet he spent a lot of time practicing. But I bet that he feels really good about how hard he worked and how well he did." 

And, although I have no idea. I bet that kid had a rough time being teased. At least he would've if he went to the same schools I did. And no, there's no reason to assume that he didn't grow up to be a heterosexual man.  In the history of the world most musicians, artists, chefs, authors, and  dress-makers have been straight guys. Only recently do we limit "guys" to safely masculine arenas of athletics, math and science.  I mean... to quote the wikipedia page of Franz Liszt: "Women fought over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves, which they ripped to shreds as souvenirs." ...In terms of machismo, you can't get much better than that--and that's a guy who spent most of his time rigorously practicing piano.