French violinist and social media influencer Esther Abrami releases her new album, Women, featuring music by female composers in a bid to redress historic biases.
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There was no historic bias. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, were just fire and everyone put them on a pedestal. Women too. Her album is nothing compared to them.
Like modern feminist art, a literal statue on her period, compared to anything Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello did.
For the manospherians who sneer at the idea that women were discriminated against as composers compared to the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, et al, here is some history:
Women were largely barred from formal musical training. Conservatories didn’t admit women, or if they did, it was only for “feminine” instruments like the harp, not for composition or conducting (Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon, 1993)
Music publishers either refused to print women’s work or insisted it be released under a male pseudonym or anonymously (“by a lady”). Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn were both pressured this way (Pendle, Women and Music, 2001)
Public performance was considered “improper” for respectable women. No performances meant no audience, no reputation, no commissions — unlike Bach or Mozart, who both had court and church gigs by their teens (Neuls-Bates, Women in Music, 1996)
Women couldn’t easily own property, sign contracts, or manage money without male oversight in most of Europe until the 19th century. You want a patron? Tough luck — you’re legally someone’s dependent (Offen, European Feminisms, 2000)
The myth that “women are too emotional, not logical enough” for serious composition was weaponized nonstop. The same garbage Aristotle peddled about women’s “inferior” rationality got baked into Enlightenment and Romantic-era attitudes (McClary, Feminine Endings, 1991)
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Like modern feminist art, a literal statue on her period, compared to anything Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello did.
Learn to think how the past actually was instead of thinking women hated the cultural norms.
They knew they had their role and then men had their role.
They didn't care. The modern feminist today do because they have a different worldview/mindset.