# Objectification and Branding of Women in the Guitar World



## narad (May 17, 2018)

So, this is going to be a very open topic and I honestly don't know where it's going to lead. But I was involved over in another forum, of just making a quick comment about this new guitar amp / amp brand from George Metropolis and others:



I said basically, it's 2018, are we really going to go with the sexy librarian logo on an amp for adults ($4k+). This turned into me having to say more than I probably wanted to at the time, but here's what I see as the issue.

So for a long time I've worked in various computer science departments, and CS has really been at one of the forefronts of really trying to push gender equality in the department. The reason for this is pretty obvious -- CS departments are often almost entirely male, despite a very high rate of success amongst the female students who do stick it out through a few years. But because the students are primarily male, student groups will be mostly male, organizational decisions will reflect male values, and in aggregate we found that this often resulting in an unwelcoming environment for women students. 

This could be many things -- I used the example of "Striptease" being chosen by an all male group of CS club students when the event wound up containing some women. One of which, didn't complain, but said, that she's "used to it". I guess that resonated with me / really stirred a debate inside me over whether things did need to change. And we've had plenty of more overt problems, porn mags in student lounges and things of that sort, and things with faculty/student dynamics that can be really depressing.

But the point is that many departments have acknowledged this, and have put policies in place, to make women more included in organizational decisions, nad have groups where young female researchers can receive mentors, and just many small policy changes that really don't change anything, but have had a profound effect on enrollment (with I'm sure together with the larger cultural shift, #metoo and all that).

Now getting back to guitars, to me the guitar world feels very similar to the CS world. It's predominantly male, women that do play guitar are subject to being critiqued on their appearance to no end (leading to some of the cringiest youtube comments), and women are often judged with the "oh, well, we wouldn't even be talking about her if she wasn't a girl." sort of thing. I *imagine* that it would create an unwelcoming environment. If I was in the minority demographic here, and a bunch of products and advertisements were trying to push products with sexy versions of my gender or race, I think it'd probably make me a bit uncomfortable tbh, depending on how pervasive it is.

Shouldn't we be trying to behave similarly? I am not trying to protest an amp logo or ask that it be changed (they said they'd build one without the logo if I wanted, and that's good enough for me), but if I was making an amp I would never have a sexy woman logo, just the same as any race, nationality, or any other demographic of minority guitar players. 

At the very least, shouldn't we include the demographic in decisions that use them for branding purposes? I think that's where I'm maybe the most surprised to get this blowback of "stop being offended for people!" It's like I'm not offended, and I don't think they'd be "offended", but maybe how these choices effect minorities (and whether or not that is an issue) shouldn't be something that's decided by white guys who make up like 97% of the guitar playing population?

Do you guys feel this is an issue? Am I being too progressive even by SSO standards by bringing this up? Curious especially to any female pov on this. I could see it going either way to be honest!



* I do know many CS women who would probably be offended at the notion of "smart belle" as like a hot girl in a miniskirt...but with _glasses_! If it's "smart belle" and like a logo of Grace Hopper -- now that's progressive!


----------



## Sollipsist (May 17, 2018)

I feel very strongly that the BKP logo presents an unrealistic and objectifying image that could potentially traumatize sensitive young males.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 17, 2018)

From an artistic side I can totally see the validity of pinups, including the one on that amp. Pinups made a huge comeback in the last 5-10 years, with some female photographers specializing in them and a general push from a lot of women as seeing them as empowering/sexy without reinforcing twiggy/typical model proportions. To put this in a broader historical context, people have been sexualizing both genders since we were capable of drawing on cave walls. It's nothing new, and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing wrong with it. I think it says something when some of the most enduring and powerful art is that of the human figure. Pinups are just another avenue to celebrate the human form like sculpture or photography. Is it reinforcing a archetype? sure, but you have to understand that historically most pinups contained recognizable archetypes, like naughty librarian, cowgirl, etc. Alberto Vargas' work would be an obvious exception, or some aircraft nose art from that time period (ie 1939-1960s). Think about the typical demographic of buyers for products like that amp, they're generally 40-50+ yrs old with steady jobs and grew up in a different time where stuff like this wasn't considered demeaning or inappropriate. Also, think about how much car/hot rod culture overlaps with guitar culture (which is where we steal all of our good paint job ideas). Pinups are still everywhere in hot rod/car culture and are still being actively published in car mags. It's a specific type of art style that people love and still love (with female proponents as well).


The most prudent answer is, if you don't like it, don't buy it and vote with your wallet. I'm sure the niche for a pinup covered amp is relatively small, especially at a 4k price point.


----------



## narad (May 17, 2018)

Sollipsist said:


> I feel very strongly that the BKP logo presents an unrealistic and objectifying image that could potentially traumatize sensitive young males.



The BKP logo would be akin to Rosie the Riveter or other empowering images of women, so really just the complete opposite. The "problem" would never be about like "hey, there's a man on this" or "there's a woman on this" -- it would be with the _type_ of role the figure has.



KnightBrolaire said:


> The most prudent answer is, if you don't like it, don't buy it and vote with your wallet. I'm sure the niche for a pinup covered amp is relatively small, especially at a 4k price point.



That's not really what this is about. The market demographic of this amp is probably 45-55 year old white men. The people who might be affected by pervasive objective imagery are < 25 yr old women. This never going to be a vote with your wallet scenario, nor do I even want it to be an actionable "let's do something about this!". It's just, moving forward, as a community do we think this type of imagery is having a negative effect on the extremely skewed demographics we have (in the guitar community), and should people be aware of it going forward.

The most important aspect of promoting diversity in CS has been an _awareness_ that many of the existing policies, even ones we (the voters in your scenario) thought were minor things, were ultimately very harmful to that goal.


----------



## NateFalcon (May 17, 2018)

I think it’s corny...when I was a teenager/younger I bought into the “sex sells” mantra to some extent, Hot Rod and skate magazines used half naked chicks on every other page to sell fad products. Heading into my 40’s I see it as douchey imagery that probably reflects bad integrity on the company itself. To be hung up on “hot chicks” as an adult is pretty low IQ and reminds me of the dudes you see at Hooter’s with the lifted pavement princess truck and the backwards trucker hat having a side of midlife crisis with their wings and smells like a mix of Paco Rabane and pathetic. Just because some girls don’t mind that lifestyle doesn’t mean it has to trickle into company sales like it has everywhere else. Leave entertainment to the entertainment industry...yeesh


----------



## NateFalcon (May 17, 2018)

Those two wrinkly-balled old fuckers should be long past that kind of mentality...hell, their doctors are probably advising them NOT to have sex due to health issues. Knock it off...


----------



## odibrom (May 17, 2018)

I think that any brand using this kind of advertising is missing the point on branding and their seriousness or confidence on their own products. Appealing to the "reproduction instinct" is not an intelligent way of selling anything besides condoms... or related objects... so, where can one test these amps? at a sex shop? how do I play them, with a dildo?

I'd go even further not to buy said products (those who use sexual objectification of some kind which seems to be the case)... I'll teach myself that those amps sound bad to my ears... done... what brand is it? never heard of... never will...

PS - they sound just like any other amp of said sonic structure...


----------



## NateFalcon (May 17, 2018)

The Peavey XXX got a lot of scoffing over the trucker girls and dumb EQ labeling....this reminds me of a Billy Blades advertising campaign...


----------



## Slunk Dragon (May 17, 2018)

When Orianthi first started becoming prominent a few years back, a much younger me was amazed and thrilled to see a female guitar player with character and attitude, who was so skilled at her instrument that she got gigs playing with Santana and recording with Steve Vai. Yet I feel like she's tried to go for the "sexy female guitar player" so much that her guitar playing has kind of stagnated, at least for me.

I really wish female guitar players could be more properly musically educated without the whole 'sexified' aspect almost always taking precedence because it's what 'gets them noticed'. I despise the 'sex sells' aspect of music, I hate it in songwriting, and I wish the focus on the music was more important than the aspects of the art that business dictates 'must be the focus'.
To me it just feels so demeaning to women to worry about how much cleavage they show, or talk about their appearance, when rock stars have been slovenly, hot messes and are still wildly adored. Hell, look at Justin Bieber. The dude is a jackass, and without any effort, he still has millions of people who adore him and praise him. And yet it's like it's a prerequisite for women to look as hot as they can, before they're even considered deserving of attention.

Everyone deserves to explore music and art without the expectations of being sexy and using your image as part of the selling point.


----------



## NateFalcon (May 17, 2018)

The late 80’s were already crowning with over the top behavior and by the time hair metal was fizzling out in the early 90’s it had dissolved into tasteless indulgence and almost every song an video was centered around getting laid by (preferably) under age girls. Drugs (namely coke and heroin) perpetuated this out of control behavior...girls felt like they had to put out to band members and their audience in order to enjoy music and I’m sure looking back most of these girls weren’t exactly having a great time while these scrawny, drugged out weirdo’s were performing the “encore” segment of their artistic process on them...getting hosed by needle users doesn’t sound very appealing and hair metals’ “hot chicks” era came to an end as hard as shitbags like Aerosmith and Lita Ford were trying to keep it going...thank god for Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain, honestly...lol


----------



## Randy (May 17, 2018)

narad said:


> The BKP logo would be akin to Rosie the Riveter or other empowering images of women, so really just the complete opposite.



I'd pay extra for an amp with a guy wearing a banana hammock as the logo.


----------



## narad (May 17, 2018)

Randy said:


> I'd pay extra for an amp with a guy wearing a banana hammock as the logo.



Okay, so one Satchel Sig Amp, comin' right up!


----------



## NateFalcon (May 17, 2018)

Satchel in a thong?...my dinner would be comin’ right up lol


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 17, 2018)

Randy said:


> I'd pay extra for an amp with a guy wearing a banana hammock as the logo.


enjoy


----------



## USMarine75 (May 18, 2018)

So does this make women that use their sexuality, such as burlesque dancers, scabs and gender-traitors?


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

USMarine75 said:


> So does this make women that use their sexuality, such as burlesque dancers, scabs and gender-traitors?



No, I don't think so. We tend to make exceptions for people of a certain demographic to comment / utilize characteristics of that demographic. In the guitar world women are not executors, not creating or in control of these sorts of advertisements -- they're done by men, for men, with rarely any female involvement.

It's not like the crowds have a consensus -- I recall a story from a couple months ago about a couple of guys getting criticized by Jews for I think having some Jewish slang in the name of their bakery. But the proprietors were Jewish as well. There's uncle Toms in the black community. Aziz Ansari has an anecdote about Indian actors taking the stereotypical Indian acting roles in one of the Master of None episodes.

And scab and traitor are extreme words -- scabs almost completely undermine the efforts of strikers. Nothing is that clean cut here. Like I don't think some ultimate conclusion is that either young female guitarists who feel intimidated by all this male-focused marketing in the guitar world (are there any?) are wrong, just because there are Burlesque dancers, or that Burlesque dancers are wrong to do what they do because it has essentially given some precedent for bomber girls and smart belle. Like a nuanced discussion of this topic probaly isn't going to include a term like "gender traitor" like there was really a right or wrong in this case.


----------



## USMarine75 (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> No, I don't think so. We tend to make exceptions for people of a certain demographic to comment / utilize characteristics of that demographic. In the guitar world women are not executors, not creating or in control of these sorts of advertisements -- they're done by men, for men, with rarely any female involvement.
> 
> It's not like the crowds have a consensus -- I recall a story from a couple months ago about a couple of guys getting criticized by Jews for I think having some Jewish slang in the name of their bakery. But the proprietors were Jewish as well. There's uncle Toms in the black community. Aziz Ansari has an anecdote about Indian actors taking the stereotypical Indian acting roles in one of the Master of None episodes.
> 
> And scab and traitor are extreme words -- scabs almost completely undermine the efforts of strikers. Nothing is that clean cut here. Like I don't think some ultimate conclusion is that either young female guitarists who feel intimidated by all this male-focused marketing in the guitar world (are there any?) are wrong, just because there are Burlesque dancers, or that Burlesque dancers are wrong to do what they do because it has essentially given some precedent for bomber girls and smart belle. Like a nuanced discussion of this topic probaly isn't going to include a term like "gender traitor" like there was really a right or wrong in this case.



Wow. Jeez. Words really do have meaning. I'm sorry. I guess I never thought of it that way.


----------



## Lemonbaby (May 18, 2018)

Do we really need to introduce gender mainstreaming to Sex, Drugs & Rock'n Roll? 

Is it childish/immature/80s to use that kind of picture language for marketing? Yes. Is it idiotic/ridiculous to wear masks, paint your faces black and design a cover with blood, zombies and what not? Very much so. Is it an issue that needs our foremost attention? I don't think so, but I might not see the extreme danger to society and the world we live in.


----------



## Edika (May 18, 2018)

Well narad I agree with you on this and this is always the idiotic contradiction I've seen in Rock and Metal "Oh why aren't there more women in rock and metal" and then when a woman enters the scene you get all the lovely attitudes you end up seeing, like if she's hot or not, if she's too hot she gets propositioned by "potential suitors=fucking creeps" or the "she's hot that's why everyone is indulging her", if she's not good looking then more derogatory terms might ensue or they might just leave her be.

In the entertainment business looks do count and rock metal men are not impervious to that, as we've seen, but they're more forgiving. Not as much for women but it somewhat is starting to change. Just because something has been this way and it was founded like that and might be "good fun" and not serious it doesn't mean it makes it right. If it's childish and immature then I guess it's time to grow up. Being silly and excessive and provocative doesn't mean it has to be sexist too. That's actually the opposite of those things in my mind.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> To put this in a broader historical context, people have been sexualizing both genders since we were capable of drawing on cave walls. It's nothing new, and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing wrong with it.


^ This more or less sums up my opinion. I refuse to jump on the "any expression of strait male sexuality is offensive" or "any depiction of someone being sexy reduces them to an object" trains. Why do people not complain about something like depictions of sexy firemen? Why does depicting a man in a sexy way not count as objectifying them? We nitpick about which sexual expressions are considered offensive based on weird, screwed up, current social values, not because there's actually anything wrong with anyone's sexual expressions.

Realistically, the mistake being made here is not that they've used a sexy woman in a logo, it's that they've misjudged what the market wants to see right now in 2018.


----------



## Edika (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> ^ This more or less sums up my opinion. I refuse to jump on the "any expression of strait male sexuality is offensive" or "any depiction of someone being sexy reduces them to an object" trains. Why do people not complain about something like depictions of sexy firemen? Why does depicting a man in a sexy way not count as objectifying them? We nitpick about which sexual expressions are considered offensive based on weird, screwed up, current social values, not because there's actually anything wrong with anyone's sexual expressions.
> 
> Realistically, the mistake being made here is not that they've used a sexy woman in a logo, it's that they've misjudged what the market wants to see right now in 2018.



You have a valid point about the objectification of men and I do agree with you. In some sense it is a bit more subtle and less pronounced. It also has to do with the double standards most societies have about what is the acceptable sexual behavior of males and females and in some cases what is supposed to be an acceptable and healthy expression of male and female sexuality. The media and advertisement has done it's fair share of exploiting either sides of sexuality to sell and promote stuff but in a sense it's amplifying what is already deep routed in society. 

In a sense though none of us can truly say what is a true expression of true male sexuality and what is a true female sexuality through the conditioning we have received since childhood. Some people realize this conditioning and reject, others embrace it but most people are somewhere in between. As an average looking dude believe I have never felt like I have been objectified even once in my life. Most female friends I have can recall numerous instances, even with what be considered average looks. That I don't really consider as an expression of straight sexuality, at least not a healthy one.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

Edika said:


> In a sense though none of us can truly say what is a true expression of true male sexuality and what is a true female sexuality through the conditioning we have received since childhood. Some people realize this conditioning and reject, others embrace it but most people are somewhere in between. As an average looking dude believe I have never felt like I have been objectified even once in my life. Most female friends I have can recall numerous instances, even with what be considered average looks. That I don't really consider as an expression of straight sexuality, at least not a healthy one.


I'm not sure you understood what I meant as an expression of sexuality. I mean ANY expression. If you say "I think that woman is hot", you're expressing your sexuality. If you dress in a way that makes you feel attractive, you've expressed your sexuality. If you buy something with a dick on it because you think it's hilarious in that awkward-because-there's-a-dick-on-it kind of way, that's an expression of sexuality. If you similarly buy an amp because of a cartoonishly proportioned "hot woman" with glasses is drawn on it, that counts too. So does a woman buying a calendar with firemen on it (which is the only super obvious example I can think of, cause I feel like most women I know are more careful about overt expressions like that - although not all of them, I've known some women who were obnoxiously open about sex, to the point of making the men around them uncomfortable, in the way we claim is something only men would do).

But this whole notion of "men objectify women, not the other way around" is entirely untrue. I mean, have the people saying these things actually spent time with women? They just as often (sometimes more!) will take in media with that sense of "man, that person's hot" as men do. They just as often throw awkward unsolicited sexual comments at men, or depictions of men, as we claim that men do. Stuff marketed to them is just as heavily sexualized. They're people. We're all people. We're all stupid awkward sexual people. But for some reason, modern values have decided that it's not ok to express or acknowledge this if you're a strait dude, lest you offend someone.

I just can't subscribe to the notion that strait males finding someone attractive strips them of any other values. Are there men who can't see past a womans looks? Sure. There are women who can't see past the aesthetic values of a men either though. If we reaaaaaaally want to treat men and women equally (and I think we do, right?) we need to drop the double standards and stop getting so uppity about sex.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

I'm neither offended by this image nor the OP's desire to discuss whether the image is offensive or not.

I do think that the use of sex appeal to get people's attention in an advertisement is still a thing. Personally, the cartoony girl in the tight skirt with the glasses does not make me want to purchase a boutique amplifier.  But, if I tried an amp and really liked how it sounded and it happened to have that logo on it, it wouldn't cause me to avoid buying it.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I do think that the use of sex appeal to get people's attention in an advertisement is still a thing.


I can't imagine it'll ever not be a thing.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I'm not sure you understood what I meant as an expression of sexuality. I mean ANY expression. If you say "I think that woman is hot", you're expressing your sexuality. If you dress in a way that makes you feel attractive, you've expressed your sexuality. If you buy something with a dick on it because you think it's hilarious in that awkward-because-there's-a-dick-on-it kind of way, that's an expression of sexuality. If you similarly buy an amp because of a cartoonishly proportioned "hot woman" with glasses is drawn on it, that counts too. So does a woman buying a calendar with firemen on it (which is the only super obvious example I can think of, cause I feel like most women I know are more careful about overt expressions like that - although not all of them, I've known some women who were obnoxiously open about sex, to the point of making the men around them uncomfortable, in the way we claim is something only men would do).
> 
> But this whole notion of "men objectify women, not the other way around" is entirely untrue. I mean, have the people saying these things actually spent time with women? They just as often (sometimes more!) will take in media with that sense of "man, that person's hot" as men do. They just as often throw awkward unsolicited sexual comments at men, or depictions of men, as we claim that men do. Stuff marketed to them is just as heavily sexualized. They're people. We're all people. We're all stupid awkward sexual people. But for some reason, modern values have decided that it's not ok to express or acknowledge this if you're a strait dude, lest you offend someone.
> 
> I just can't subscribe to the notion that strait males finding someone attractive strips them of any other values. Are there men who can't see past a womans looks? Sure. There are women who can't see past the aesthetic values of a men either though. If we reaaaaaaally want to treat men and women equally (and I think we do, right?) we need to drop the double standards and stop getting so uppity about sex.




I feel like this is borderline strawman’ing the argument though, and getting too far outside the scope of the topic. I’m not saying there aren’t women who use their sexuality for their own gain, and that’s bad. I’m not saying women don’t objectify bad, and that that’s bad. But I think it’s probably prudent _within a particular community with severe gender imbalances_ to be especially mindful and maybe ever err on the side of caution when making decisions that might marginalize women or any other minority. Maybe even consider asking some people in that demographic how they feel about said decision before doing it.

Or to flip it around, if we as a CS academic community had taken the same attitude of, ~”grow up! there’s no problem here! we’re expressing our sexuality!”, then no policies would have changed and quite possibly we’d be seeing the same stagnating female enrollment that had existed for decades. Typically these policies are presented with a certain, “Is this really necessary?” or “Well, I’m not sure if this will help but we can try this out”, and then ultimately the feedback we get back from CS students is overwhelmingly positive. This puts me very much on the side of, “Let’s just try to not have advertisements and logos and any other behavior* in the guitar community that objectifies or marginalizes minority groups of players” and just see where it gets us. It’s not like people aren’t going to buy the $4k+ amp because it _doesn’t_ have a picture of a sexy girl on it, so I’m not seeing the downside?


*creepo youtube comments, threads started to trash female guitar players, insinuating we only talk about female musicians because they are female, not have threads on major online guitar forums whose sole purpose is to post pictures of women in bikinis and “discuss” like you need a one-stop-shop for your gear info AND your wank material, commenting “I’ll have one of those. And the guitar too!” whenever someone posts a picture of a girl holding a guitar, etc...


----------



## xzacx (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> But this whole notion of "men objectify women, not the other way around" is entirely untrue. I mean, have the people saying these things actually spent time with women? They just as often (sometimes more!) will take in media with that sense of "man, that person's hot" as men do. They just as often throw awkward unsolicited sexual comments at men, or depictions of men, as we claim that men do. Stuff marketed to them is just as heavily sexualized. They're people. We're all people. We're all stupid awkward sexual people. But for some reason, modern values have decided that it's not ok to express or acknowledge this if you're a strait dude, lest you offend someone.



I don't disagree with the fact that men get objectified too, but I think there's a difference in a similar way that it's not the same to have "black pride" and "white pride." Based on the very real history and power structure amongst these different groups, it's just not the same.

Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not, but is it fair that some of these demographics have historically held power, whether socially, economically, or physically, over the others?


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> I’m not saying there aren’t women who use their sexuality for their own gain, and that’s bad. I’m not saying women don’t objectify bad, and that that’s bad.


Just for clarification, how is it bad? Like, morally bad?


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> But I think it’s probably prudent _within a particular community with severe gender imbalances_ to be especially mindful and maybe ever err on the side of caution when making decisions that might marginalize women or any other minority.


My last response was mostly to the comment I had quoted, not so much to the OP, if that makes a difference. This is what I meant by playing to a modern market though. While I wouldn't go as far as saying "we have no gender issues here, lets move along", I don't think I'd stray as far as "severe imbalances" either. I mean that in the sense that I'm with you for all the junk you put after the * in the last comment, but I don't think putting sexy people on amps marginalizes anyone. And that's what I mean by that last comment - we've demonized sex. People don't buy amps with girls drawn on them because they hate women or want to exercise some kind of power fantasy or something, they buy it cause amps are cool and women are attractive - and I have no problem with that.

And yes, I'm saying this as someone who works in tech, with few women, and is familiar with the whole not-very-many-women-around-in-school-and-work scenarios.



xzacx said:


> I think there's a difference in a similar way that it's not the same to have "black pride" and "white pride." Based on the very real history and power structure amongst these different groups, it's just not the same.


Again, I won't say "no, there's no history or nuance here!", but I think it's blown out of proportion. I don't subscribe to the whole "patriarchy" thing people like to hoist over situations. We don't live in the movies where women are powerless over men. There are certainly imbalances if you go looking for them, but I don't think this is one of them.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Just for clarification, how is it bad? Like, morally bad?



I could have typed that better: I’m not saying "there aren’t women who use their sexuality for their own gain, and that’s bad." -- quote inclusive, I'm just not making any value judgement there, because it's too far out there, we're in a bad spot to act like our opinions on that really take into account the experience of being women, etc, and I don't think it's so important to imagery and attitudes towards _women within the guitar community_. I'm not touching it!

It's like the burlesque thing -- yea, women in burlesque use their sexuality, but that that happens, or how women feel about that, is far removed from discussion about how it pertains to the guitar world. IMO.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

I think it could be argued that the imagery isn't going to do anything to attract (most) women to that particular product, or to guitar playing in general, but I just don't get onboard with the idea that every image of a an attractive women has to be torn down as some kind of example of being progressive, or sticking it to the man, or something like that. Much like the cases where pedals were taken off the shelf (as in stores refused to carry/sell them) for being "offensive" - I get it, the market says you probably shouldn't put these right up front in your shop for a number of reasons, but I'm not going to call the creator sexist in the process, or suggest they're a bad person for using that art.

I understand not wanting to drive women away from domains where there are few of them to begin with. But at the same time I think what we have is more an issue with how we as a people react and respond the the imagery, rather than an issue with the imagery having been used in the first place. I feel like a better approach is not to hide sexuality away and stop people from expressing it, but rather to ask ourselves why we're so uncomfortable with these displays in the first place.

Am I possibly way off the mark? Maybe. But that's the discussion I see as being more useful.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> I could have typed that better: I’m not saying "there aren’t women who use their sexuality for their own gain, and that’s bad." -- quote inclusive, I'm just not making any value judgement there, because it's too far out there, we're in a bad spot to act like our opinions on that really take into account the experience of being women, etc, and I don't think it's so important to imagery and attitudes towards _women within the guitar community_. I'm not touching it!
> 
> It's like the burlesque thing -- yea, women in burlesque use their sexuality, but that that happens, or how women feel about that, is far removed from discussion about how it pertains to the guitar world. IMO.


Maybe there's a lot going on here. I guess, when I first went through the thread, I was having a bit of a difficult time pinning down exactly what it was that was offensive. I'll just kind of riff out a guess, and then you can correct me where I'm wrong.

So, it seems that the general statement is that it's rather tacky of a group of middle-aged dudes to brand an amplifier with a depiction of a made-up cartoon character that is described as a "sexy librarian" and essentially appears as a typical pin-up model type of woman, just with glasses and a sort of playful take on business-professional clothing. Maybe there's a note along with that that the motivation for these guys to do that is that their target demographic is more middle-aged dudes, and there's a sort of tone-deafness here that might perpetuate the exclusion of women from the boutique guitar amplifier purchasing demographic.

I guess I can't bring myself to play devil's advocate and disagree with any of that, really, but there's another layer underneath all of that, too, and then there's the discussion of whether or not anything needs to be done about something "tacky" or something poltically tone-deaf, or whatever...


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> but rather to ask ourselves why we're so uncomfortable with these displays in the first place.



Are we? I think the fact that sexy women selling guitars is almost like my prototypical image of an 80s ad, and that we still see this today, means we (guys) are not uncomfortable with this.

And flipped around, what scenario have we ever been in when we'd be the odd one out, and every thing was branded with sexy guys? I think it's impossible to stand back and say there's no problem with the imagery when we've basically never been in the reverse scenario.

In general I just think some number of people currently drop out and give up guitar for whatever reason. Is that number going to be higher or lower if the communities people are apart of are encouraging / accepting / with a sense of belonging, vs. when a lot of the imagery implicitly defines an "us" and a "them". And that this sort of phenomena is cyclic -- more women drop out of guitar, then there are less female guitar heroes (and you have to read about how they don't deserve it every time you go follow them), and that creates less incentive for women to really pick up an interest in it in the first place.


----------



## xzacx (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I feel like a better approach is not to hide sexuality away and stop people from expressing it, but rather to ask ourselves why we're so uncomfortable with these displays in the first place.



Who says it's about hiding hiding anything or being uncomfortable with it? I can only speak for myself, but I haven't seen anyone arguing that. It's just a matter of being respectful. Do you really think George Metropolis was trying to express his sexuality here? This is just tone-deaf marketing by someone with a taste level that hasn't evolved with the rest of the world.


----------



## Edika (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I'm not sure you understood what I meant as an expression of sexuality. I mean ANY expression. If you say "I think that woman is hot", you're expressing your sexuality. If you dress in a way that makes you feel attractive, you've expressed your sexuality. If you buy something with a dick on it because you think it's hilarious in that awkward-because-there's-a-dick-on-it kind of way, that's an expression of sexuality. If you similarly buy an amp because of a cartoonishly proportioned "hot woman" with glasses is drawn on it, that counts too. So does a woman buying a calendar with firemen on it (which is the only super obvious example I can think of, cause I feel like most women I know are more careful about overt expressions like that - although not all of them, I've known some women who were obnoxiously open about sex, to the point of making the men around them uncomfortable, in the way we claim is something only men would do).
> 
> But this whole notion of "men objectify women, not the other way around" is entirely untrue. I mean, have the people saying these things actually spent time with women? They just as often (sometimes more!) will take in media with that sense of "man, that person's hot" as men do. They just as often throw awkward unsolicited sexual comments at men, or depictions of men, as we claim that men do. Stuff marketed to them is just as heavily sexualized. They're people. We're all people. We're all stupid awkward sexual people. But for some reason, modern values have decided that it's not ok to express or acknowledge this if you're a strait dude, lest you offend someone.
> 
> I just can't subscribe to the notion that strait males finding someone attractive strips them of any other values. Are there men who can't see past a womans looks? Sure. There are women who can't see past the aesthetic values of a men either though. If we reaaaaaaally want to treat men and women equally (and I think we do, right?) we need to drop the double standards and stop getting so uppity about sex.



I agree for sure with your last sentence and I might not have made myself as clear as I intented in my post. My personal objection is not with expressing sexuality. It's mostly how it's stuffed down our throat with what we see around us all the time and how it might be portrayed in society and what the expectations are in both sexes.
I also understand very well what you're saying and I'm not putting women on a pedestal by claiming they don't ever objectify men. But I've seen a big difference in the objectification of men and women and how it is expressed on the intensity and the frequency levels.
I'm not saying finding women attractive is bad or offensive. Neither approaching them and talking to them just with the sole intent of having sex. I don't consider it offensive to check out a woman you find cute. It all depends to me on how you do it and if you can do it in a respectful manner. I mean when I hear a female colleague commenting that last time she felt warm she took of her coat in a meeting and several pair of eyes zoomed in her cleavage. That didn't exactly fill her with joy. What I do admit is that I don't understand their position. I'm an average looking guy and never have I been approached in a way that would make me uncomfortable. There isn't a woman I have met that haven't had some sort of verbal abuse aimed towards her, from catcalling to being called a bitch for turning down someone.

EDIT: I missed a lot of the conversation since my last response so some of the points I was making might have been covered already. It is a discussion and not one I feel that strong about as it might seem in my responses. Writing on the interwebz always takes away that interpersonal interaction that would show that either party os not as invested and contradictory as they might seem online.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> means we (guys) are not uncomfortable with this.


I didn't mean to say "we" as guys, I meant "we" as people. Or more specifically, I think we're having this discussion because men assumed that women would be uncomfortable with the image because of what Bostjan described.



narad said:


> And flipped around, what scenario have we ever been in when we'd be the odd one out, and every thing was branded with sexy guys? I think it's impossible to stand back and say there's no problem with the imagery when we've basically never been in the reverse scenario.


Have you ever attended any of those weird pyramd-scheme-y "parties" where some random rep comes to your home and demos stuff? That's kind of like that. Ever been to a "boylesque" show? Ever been to a family christmas party where the women like to give eachother weird vaguely sexual gifts? Ever taken a home ec / cooking / etc class and been the only guy there? How about a showing of that Magic Mike movie? Ever stepped into pretty much any sex shop? Any one I've been in was 99% focused on women. Lets not pretend there aren't scenarios where women are the dominant sex and that equivalently awkward scenarios don't occur.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

Edika said:


> There isn't a woman I have met that haven't had some sort of verbal abuse aimed towards her, from catcalling to being called a bitch for turning down someone.


This is the part of the conversation that gets me every time. Yes, women put up with lots of crap. But putting attractive people in advertisement is not comparable to verbal abuse. If the advertisement was demeaning, I'd be with you on that one, but those points otherwise have nothing to do with eachother.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Have you ever attended any of those weird pyramd-scheme-y "parties" where some random rep comes to your home and demos stuff? That's kind of like that. Ever been to a "boylesque" show? Ever been to a family christmas party where the women like to give eachother weird vaguely sexual gifts? Ever taken a home ec / cooking / etc class and been the only guy there? How about a showing of that Magic Mike movie? Ever stepped into pretty much any sex shop? Any one I've been in was 99% focused on women. Lets not pretend there aren't scenarios where women are the dominant sex and that equivalently awkward scenarios don't occur.



The fact you have to get so oddly specific about each example highlights @narad's point.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

What's so oddly specific about those things? Is cooking oddly specific? We see all the male dominated things frequently because we're male. I assume there are a large number of women dominated domains that don't come to mind immediately because I don't interact with them frequently.

Is expensive, niche guitar amps not oddly specific? Or boutique effect pedals?


----------



## xzacx (May 18, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> The fact you have to get so oddly specific about each example highlights @narad's point.



I don't think I've ever personally found myself in one of those scenarios. I am intrigued by what's going on at @TedEH's family Xmas parties though.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

I was thinking of an ex's family rather than my own, for the record.  Although, the constant references to sexy firemen does come from an Aunt I have whose "thing" is to always bring up how sexy she thinks firemen are - leading to sexy-fireman-themed xmas gifts pretty frequently.


----------



## spudmunkey (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> And flipped around, what scenario have we ever been in when we'd be the odd one out, and every thing was branded with sexy guys? I think it's impossible to stand back and say there's no problem with the imagery when we've basically never been in the reverse scenario.



I don't mean this comment to take away anything from what does happen every day, all day, to women. 

But I always hated buying anything from Abercrombie & Fitch unless I brought my own bag.


----------



## Sollipsist (May 18, 2018)

Basically it boils down to whether you think this is discouraging women. And let's face it, this is such a niche product that it's far more likely that any outrage generated over it will be the only way that most female guitar players ever even know that it exists.

To me, it doesn't look like there's anything holding anyone back from playing guitar and making music. If anything, the 21st Century has more people of all kinds making more music than anybody could ever possibly keep up with. If you made a resolution to only ever listen to female artists or bands with female members, 5 minutes online would give you a playlist that would take years to get through.

As far as becoming famous by doing it, all the hard work and musical talent in the world won't make it happen. Luck is a major factor, but standing out in any way definitely helps, and you could easily argue that women actually have an edge. 100% of successful pop stars are where they are because they appeal to adolescent (or arrested adolescent) sexuality and identity. All else being equal, a 20 year old woman who knows 3 chords has about a zillion times better chance of "making it big" than a 40 year old dude with serious skills. That's the reality, and anyone who tells you otherwise is blinded by their agenda or their personal issues (or both, because the two usually go together). 

If there was any single issue that could potentially improve the playing field for everyone in a positive way, it would be to demand more musical quality and less shallow marketability. Skill and dedication has absolutely no respect for gender imbalance; you're either good or you suck. Maybe if we had less tolerance for giving people who suck money and attention, the real artists - female or male - would rise to the top without any gender conversation being necessary. 

That would be real fairness... and call me a pessimist, but I'm not holding my breath.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

spudmunkey said:


> I don't mean this comment to take away anything from what does happen every day, all day, to women.
> 
> But I always hated buying anything from Abercrombie & Fitch unless I brought my own bag.


Retail like this is a great example of what I was thinking. And it applies pretty directly because we're talking about similar kinds of marketing.

What I find weird about these examples though is that if you go into shops like that -> the women in ads are dressed the same as they are in ads directed at men. It's the context of the target demo that seems to make the difference between "this image of a sexy women is demeaning" and "this image of a sexy woman is empowering". Obviously that's a very shallow look at the situation, but it's something.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> The fact you have to get so oddly specific about each example highlights @narad's point.


Huh?
I didn't think those examples were oddly specific, at all. Anyway, what if they were? Each person's personal experiences are going to typically run specific, obviously, to that person's oddly specific life.

I've found myself in situations before where I was the only guy, or only one of two guys somewhere, and got some dirty looks because of it, and the circumstances were not in any obvious way gender-specific.

Overarching point, though, is "so what?" Does this make people uncomfortable for any good reason or are we just becoming overly comfortable whining about certain things publicly? I'm the kind of person who wouldn't give two shits about being seen in public playing an amp that had a dude version of the sexy librarian on it, if it sounded good. What would that be, a muscular dude wearing a sweater and glasses?

Ok, obviously, women feel more marginalized than men, so it's not a fair comparison, right? But then what would be a fair comparison?


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> What's so oddly specific about those things? Is cooking oddly specific? We see all the male dominated things frequently because we're male. I assume there are a large number of women dominated domains that don't come to mind immediately because I don't interact with them frequently.



But I never claimed that there aren't areas where the female to male ratio is overwhelming. This is obvious not the case -- cooking as you say, I think nursing, flight attendant, etc., are activities that are dominated by women. That's not an interesting thing.

But...these areas also have no overt sexualization, imagery of sexy men geared towards them (as far as I'm aware, not being a cook/nurse/flight attendant).

And that's the important part -- not the set of things non-sexual activities that are predominantly male or predominantly female, but the intersection of that activity with a bunch of imagery that excludes the minority. I can't really think of a single example of the female version of this, but I could rattle off male versions all day long.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> What's so oddly specific about those things?



Direct-sell/MLS schemes aren't just Tupperware and Avon. If you look at list of the largest they are farm from either women operated or catered to. 

Care to speculate the ratio of burlesque and "boylesque"? The target audience's gender?

The adults in my family give some pretty whacky white elephant gifts, but..... I'm just leaving that one alone. 

Can you think of any other classes where that's the case? Out of how many that go the other way?

How many movies cater to women like Magic Mike, versus those for men? 

I think the sex shop example speaks volumes about how men understand female sexuality.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

^ I'll give you that my argument was pretty weak. I've not got much to respond back with, outside of that I was trying to respond to the idea that we *never* (in the practical sense) encounter sexy portrayals of guys, or get into situations where we're the odd one out and feel oddly uncomfortable because of some kind of sexual tension. It's less common an occurrence for guys, sure, I'll give you that. And sometimes the circumstances are oddly specific. But it happens.



MaxOfMetal said:


> The target audience's gender?


I know it's not the point you were making, but just to latch onto this specific sentence, I think this is what it kind of comes down to, right? Putting a sexy woman on an amp clearly indicates that men were the target audience. And that's the bit that leads us around to the conversation of whether or not we're scaring women off of guitar playing by doing that kind of thing, right?

I think the valuable course of the discussion would be to ask whether or not this kind of imagery *actually* acts to keep women out of the domain of playing music. But how do we do that without, firstly, having women in the conversation to lend their perspective (since it's the one that directly relates to the question), and without just wading through a pool of mostly meaningless anecdotes?


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

Did you know that the pink disposable razors are the same as the blue ones, yet cost more? Did you also know that the colour of the razor you use to shave makes no difference whatsoever, yet because of powerful marketing of pink razors toward women, most women still buy the pink ones? Same applies to pink guns, pink laptops, etc. These are all unisex products, and the association of colour with gender is purely a social construct.

This is a deep subject with tons of nuances and lots of subtopics, but the fact that the guitar industry is patronized by a clear and vast majority male, it's somewhat unlikely that we'd be able to get a female's perspective in this thread.

...which comes full circle back to @TedEH 's point above.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

I'm sure someone will be quick to find a way to rip this particular comment apart, but how much of this is men making assumptions, rather than any women actually caring?

I mean, I know women who play music and never have I once been told by anyone that they were turned off of music or guitar because of the way it's marketed in shops, or through art on gear or things like that. YouTube guitarists, or people's responses to "chick guitar players" are a whole other story, and I think that's a long uphill battle. I tend to think that if we could manage the part about being respectful in the cases where we actually encounter women playing, the marketing part would either be a non issue, or would resolve itself by virtue of the target demographic changing.

Is the rising sales of acoustics, and dropping sales of electrics possible a sign of that starting to happen?


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

This is merely an anecdote, but, when I taught guitar lessons as the major source of my waking hours spent, females made up 20-25% of my students. Yet, when you look at notable female guitar players versus notable male guitar players on google or on wikipedia, it's about 1-2%. I do wonder if there is anything to that. Are women players discouraged 9 times out of ten, to quit playing before they "make it?"


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Did you know that the pink disposable razors are the same as the blue ones, yet cost more? Did you also know that the colour of the razor you use to shave makes no difference whatsoever, yet because of powerful marketing of pink razors toward women, most women still buy the pink ones? Same applies to pink guns, pink laptops, etc. These are all unisex products, and the association of colour with gender is purely a social construct.
> 
> This is a deep subject with tons of nuances and lots of subtopics, but the fact that the guitar industry is patronized by a clear and vast majority male, it's somewhat unlikely that we'd be able to get a female's perspective in this thread.
> 
> ...which comes full circle back to @TedEH 's point above.



Gonna need a citation that women actually buy more pink stuff when an identical, non-pink option exists. 

The only thing I can find is a Forbes article from 2015 that briefly mentions that pink items don't sell well to women. 

Also, where do you guys exist where you have never heard a women's opinion on any of this? Do you just talk about the weather? Have you never talked about stuff like this with women you're friends with? Wives? Girlfriends? Sisters? Mothers?


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

Not entirely sure if this is true or not, but wasn't the guitar's shape inspired by the body of a woman?


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Did you know that the pink disposable razors are the same as the blue ones, yet cost more? Did you also know that the colour of the razor you use to shave makes no difference whatsoever, yet because of powerful marketing of pink razors toward women, most women still buy the pink ones? Same applies to pink guns, pink laptops, etc. These are all unisex products, and the association of colour with gender is purely a social construct.
> 
> This is a deep subject with tons of nuances and lots of subtopics, but the fact that the guitar industry is patronized by a clear and vast majority male, it's somewhat unlikely that we'd be able to get a female's perspective in this thread.
> 
> ...which comes full circle back to @TedEH 's point above.


fun fact: pink used to be considered a masculine color (and was quite popular throughout the 1800s and early 1900s for boys/men). The preference started slowly shifting towards pink for women in the 1930s/40s, which is also when the nazis began marking homosexuals with pink triangles.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Have you never talked about stuff like this with women you're friends with? Wives? Girlfriends? Sisters? Mothers?


Most of the above in my life have zero interest in playing music and it's never come up in conversation as to why. An exception being my sister- who mostly doesn't play/sing much for time constraint reasons, being a mother of four - but she's never said anything about how it's marketed, or had any complaint about it being a "male thing". It was just never a factor, or was never brought up as one.

One of the bands I'm in has a female vocalist -> but she's someone who would be *attracted* to these depictions, rather than turned off by them, so.... probably not the answer anyone here is looking for.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Not entirely sure if this is true or not, but wasn't the guitar's shape inspired by the body of a woman?


Supposedly, but I haven't seen anything to back it up. the figure 8 shape and flat back first start appearing in the 1600s when the vihuela and some gitterns had those features long before the "modern"(ie mid 1800s in spain) classical guitar design started incorporating both. The spaniards like to claim that the shape is inspired by the female form, in part because it fits with the mythos of romanticism/the birth of flamenco guitar.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Supposedly, but I haven't seen anything to back it up. the figure 8 shape and flat back first start appearing in the 1600s when the vihuela and some gitterns had those features long before the "modern"(ie mid 1800s in spain) classical guitar design started incorporating both. The spaniards like to claim that the shape is inspired by the female form, in part because it fits with the mythos of romanticism/the birth of flamenco guitar.




Thank you for clearing that up. My music teacher tried to tell me that once, but I didn't know if it was bullshit or not. What I'm REALLY interested to hear, though, is the perspective of a female guitar player on this whole issue. Even more, I would be interested to hear the perspective of a woman that society deems physically unattractive, because let me tell you something... Skinny chicks on an amp? That doesn't do it for me. I like my women to have a bit of meat on their bones.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Gonna need a citation that women actually buy more pink stuff when an identical, non-pink option exists.
> 
> The only thing I can find is a Forbes article from 2015 that briefly mentions that pink items don't sell well to women.
> 
> Also, where do you guys exist where you have never heard a women's opinion on any of this? Do you just talk about the weather? Have you never talked about stuff like this with women you're friends with? Wives? Girlfriends? Sisters? Mothers?



If pink razors don't sell well to women, then why do stores still stock them? And why is it that 90% of the women I know closely enough to know which colour razor they use, use pink ones? Why are 31% of razors sold online pink ones when only approximately 20% of the people buying razors online are women (wikipedia)? This makes no sense.

Anecdotal, but I've heard women say that the pink ones cover more area or use a different formulation of lotion (they don't, and they don't). I think there might be enough misunderstanding pervading into our culture that a significant enough percentage of women think that they _have_ to use a pink razor.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> I would be interested to hear the perspective of a woman that society deems physically unattractive


That's.... a can of worms if I've ever seen one.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> That's.... a can of worms if I've ever seen one.



A justified one, IMO.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> A justified one, IMO.


Is it though? In the quest to get the perspective of women, why does it matter how attractive the person is?


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Is it though? In the quest to get the perspective of women, why does it matter how attractive the person is?




Because most of the time, you've got skinny chicks with all the right curves in all the right places being depicted for sexuality on the items in question, when in the real world, that's not what EVERYONE likes. Now I'm not saying you've gotta get Mama June on the cover of Playboy or something like that, but what I am saying is that skinny isn't the only desirable body type out there.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Gonna need a citation that women actually buy more pink stuff when an identical, non-pink option exists.
> 
> The only thing I can find is a Forbes article from 2015 that briefly mentions that pink items don't sell well to women.
> 
> Also, where do you guys exist where you have never heard a women's opinion on any of this? Do you just talk about the weather? Have you never talked about stuff like this with women you're friends with? Wives? Girlfriends? Sisters? Mothers?



I believe it's true -- I read it somewhere before in a place my memory considered trustworthy -- but I don't think it's the right idea. It's the same as me buying some sort of male face moisturizer, because it's blue and it says "men's". It's probably the same as some female version of lotion, but unless someone has told me explicitly these are the same, and if the male version was more expensive, and I continued to use it anyway, does that sort of become an interesting gendered issue. Otherwise it's just lack of information -- barring anyone telling me otherwise, I assume the male razor has more blades or is shaped slightly different, geared more toward faces than legs.

It's like Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I'm not 100% sure on the truth, but was told Coke Zero is basically the same thing but sells better to the male demographic who don't like being told they're dieting pussies.

But yea -- funny, I wear pink triple boost adidas that I got for 60% the price of black ones, which I presume was due to lack of sales because of assumptions of gender and color.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

^Off topic, but how comfortable are Adidas shoes for walking? I'm not being a smart ass, I'm genuinely curious.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

Being attractive as a female is kind of like being wealthy as a man, in terms of the difficulty level setting in the game of life.

I think if you are going to be an entertainer, attractiveness is definitely a huge advantage. Would people like the Backstreet Boys if they were a rag-tag group of fat bald dudes? Two fold point, if the Spice Girls had all been what society deems ugly, I doubt they would have had as much a career - not because of the music, but because of getting noticed and finding that first opportunity.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

I'd like to offer two entirely unrelated points -
I don't think that people know how attractive they are, so you'd never be able to pin down "the opinion of the unattractive". It's been my experience that most people think they are less attractive than they really are, men or women.

Also, I would wonder if my own previous point of our singer being someone who would *like* potentially objectionable marketing is evidence of exactly the opposite of the point I was making. If all the women in music are the ones who dive into that imagery, is that evidence that the marketing is having the negative effect we're claiming?


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> ^Off topic, but how comfortable are Adidas shoes for walking? I'm not being a smart ass, I'm genuinely curious.



They're the best  Boosts, that is.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Being attractive as a female is kind of like being wealthy as a man, in terms of the difficulty level setting in the game of life.


If you tie this to my theory that people think they're less attractive than they are, I think this would be a good basis to understand why people have trouble understanding or acknowledging when they have certain advantages in life.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> They're the best  Boosts, that is.



Good, because I've been needing something like that for awhile.

Anywho, the reason I bring up the whole attractiveness point, is because it feels like there is a divide there, one that's only beginning to be recognized. There is a market for BBW, believe me. I just think that when it comes down it, are we just going to talk about one particular set of women, or ALL women? That's the question I'm asking.


----------



## StevenC (May 18, 2018)

If the rivets weren't this wouldn't look like something off a a bomber. It's not good pin up style art. It's just tacky and tasteless. I wouldn't want to own this amp because the logo is bad. It's low quality sexism.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I think the valuable course of the discussion would be to ask whether or not this kind of imagery *actually* acts to keep women out of the domain of playing music. But how do we do that without, firstly, having women in the conversation to lend their perspective



Well exactly. I mean, I don't know the SSO demographics... I sort of hope it's not as one-sided as I assume in my conversations, which is that there's like one girl on the forum, but I had hoped/still hope to get some female perspective in the thread. Unfortunately, that would be a small and biased sample for this issue. In the CS analogy, if we waiting until senior year to poll the remaining female CS students about their experience, we'd be missing the large pool of women that switched majors and miss out on understanding why they made that decision.

But yea, I think above all (and as mentioned in the OP post) it's important to not just try to figure this issue out as a bunch of guys. I'd like to know what the women perspective is both in how they feel about the state of objectification in marketing in the guitar world, and I think it's smart to include some women in the discussion or go poll some women guitar players, before you put the sexy woman on there, so that you're not making assumptions about what is offensive or exclusionary to a different demographic of people.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

StevenC said:


> If the rivets weren't this wouldn't look like something off a a bomber. It's not good pin up style art. It's just tacky and tasteless.




Um, what?


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Um, what?



I mean, it's more of a stripper theme than I think what anyone can pass off as a tasteful study of female form / art. But like pinups are like wank material evolved into art so I don't think they're really the greatest domain to be splitting hairs like that anyway.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> Well exactly. I mean, I don't know the SSO demographics... I sort of hope it's not as one-sided as I assume in my conversations, which is that there's like one girl on the forum, but I had hoped/still hope to get some female perspective in the thread. Unfortunately, that would be a small and biased sample for this issue. In the CS analogy, if we waiting until senior year to poll the remaining female CS students about their experience, we'd be missing the large pool of women that switched majors and miss out on understanding why they made that decision.
> 
> But yea, I think above all (and as mentioned in the OP post) it's important to not just try to figure this issue out as a bunch of guys. I'd like to know what the women perspective is both in how they feel about the state of objectification in marketing in the guitar world, and I think it's smart to include some women in the discussion or go poll some women guitar players, before you put the sexy woman on there, so that you're not making assumptions about what is offensive or exclusionary to a different demographic of people.




I would actually be interested to hear what other women think about this. I do think that it would take some effort beyond this forum of course; say if someone makes a poll on different social media sites and such.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> go poll some women guitar players


My gut reaction is why guitar players? I feel like the question really should be posed to non-guitar-players.

As in, find a group of women, ask if they have any interest in guitar, and then ask what influenced that opinion. *Why* does guitar not appeal to you, is what I'd want to know.


----------



## StevenC (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Um, what?


The art style of the logo of the amp we're discussing doesn't resemble that of the bombers it supposedly immitates. Without the rivets in the back of the logo, there is no sense that is what it's supposed to be. That was the given justification.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> I mean, it's more of a stripper theme than I think what anyone can pass off as a tasteful study of female form / art. But like pinups are like wank material evolved into art so I don't think they're really the greatest domain to be splitting hairs like that anyway.




Ah okay! Gotcha! Yeah I see your point there. I just still can't help that when it comes to depictions of females that there's still a divide there, you know? But for that point, I see what you're saying.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> But like pinups are like wank material evolved into art


I was under the impression that they never diverged from the original purpose of sexualizing the subject. I still don't think that makes it tasteless. See my previous thoughts on sexual expressions being perfectly fine.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> My gut reaction is why guitar players? I feel like the question really should be posed to non-guitar-players.
> 
> As in, find a group of women, ask if they have any interest in guitar, and then ask what influenced that opinion. *Why* does guitar not appeal to you, is what I'd want to know.




I think separate polls for both would be beneficial.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

This same comment was made in another thread but this discussion basically went exactly where I thought it would go. A bunch of arguing about details, nitpicks, semantics, anecdotes, then going "wait, this is useless cause we're not discussing it with anyone it actually impacts".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think we have some female members here though? There was at least one trans member I think too, but I haven't seen them post recently.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> This same comment was made in another thread but this discussion basically went exactly where I thought it would go. A bunch of arguing about details, nitpicks, semantics, anecdotes, then going "wait, this is useless cause we're not discussing it with anyone it actually impacts".
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think we have some female members here though? There was at least one trans member I think too, but I haven't seen them post recently.




We do have a few, but not nearly enough.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> not nearly enough.


Okay, here's a question that will probably bring some hate my way, but doesn't require a female perspective to answer.

Why does there need to be more women? I don't mean that in an "I don't want them here" kind of way, I'm all for everyone being welcome. But what makes it some kind of requirement? Everyone should be welcome? Absolutely. But why are we dictating what women should be doing (or should want to do) with their time?

Edit: I mean that in the sense that "don't drive people away who want to be here" is a great goal. But I also have no interest in trying to tell people what they should be interested in.


----------



## PunkBillCarson (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Okay, here's a question that will probably bring some hate my way, but doesn't require a female perspective to answer.
> 
> Why does there need to be more women? I don't mean that in an "I don't want them here" kind of way, I'm all for everyone being welcome. But what makes it some kind of requirement? Everyone should be welcome? Absolutely. But why are we dictating what women should be doing (or should want to do) with their time?




Not saying what they should be doing with their time, I'm just primarily interested in having more perspectives to draw from. Also, it's not that it's a requirement, it's not some kind of quota that anyone's trying to meet, at least not here.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I was under the impression that they never diverged from the original purpose of sexualizing the subject. I still don't think that makes it tasteless. See my previous thoughts on sexual expressions being perfectly fine.



I don't think pinup art is tasteless, but the particular one for the amp, for whatever my taste is, does seem that way. I mean, this is why I'm of two minds about it -- for whatever reason, I like the thought that these girls were painted on these planes. So I can even sort of see what they were going for and ::gasp:: could even see it as sort of a cool idea, but then the execution, and then thinking about how that might affect others... that's why we have this thread 

I'm reminded a bit by that "The Problem with Apu" thing. Lots of Indian people are not happy with that depiction of their race/nationality. I like Apu, and I feel like he shouldn't change, partially because he's often a hero character on the Simpsons. But that opinion sort of makes me feel like one of those guys in the south standing outside some General Lee statue being like, "I like it! It's history, and it looks nahss!", unable to really sympathize with how ludicrous it is to have rebel statue leaders in the US, and have black people having to walk by this monument to this guy that fought to maybe keep some of their ancestors in chains.

But you know, what class of things could you render completely tasteless. Is softcore porn tasteless? Is it tasteless to put a naked woman on an amp? Two people having sex on an amp tasteless? At some point, somebody's going to cave and say it is, and someone else can say, well that's a sexual expression, etc.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> If you tie this to my theory that people think they're less attractive than they are, I think this would be a good basis to understand why people have trouble understanding or acknowledging when they have certain advantages in life.



I don't think people are universally more attractive than they think that they are. I think *most* people think that way, but I would strongly wager a guess that the personality type that lends itself to being a "rockstar" would think itself _more_ attractive than those people really are.

It's been speculated (I don't remember where I read it) that Susannah Hoffs was encouraged by the record industry to leave the Bangles partly because she was attractive and her bandmated were viewed as less-than-attractive by executives. The ladies in the band had been getting along with each other quite well up to that time, and there was no report of disagreement in musical direction, and also no reports of any of them wanting to stop touring at that point, so, I mean, I guess, why else would the band have broken up?



narad said:


> I don't know the SSO demographics... I sort of hope it's not as one-sided as I assume in my conversations, which is that there's like one girl on the forum, but I had hoped/still hope to get some female perspective in the thread.



This site is sort of a discussion point in the topic itself, as far as I'm concerned. Why is it that our most prominent female ss.o users tend to stick around (as far as regular postings) for a year or two at most? Either we are boring or intimidating or both. 

In real life, I know a few dozen serious female guitarists, and, as far as I'm aware, exactly zero of them play seven strings or ERGs.



narad said:


> In the CS analogy, if we waiting until senior year to poll the remaining female CS students about their experience, we'd be missing the large pool of women that switched majors and miss out on understanding why they made that decision.



I took all of two computer science classes at the university. Mind you, this was in the 1990's, and things have changed since then, but I'd estimate that my intro to programming class was almost half female, and my assembly class was 100% male. IIRC both classes were 100% white students, despite the campus being maybe 60-70% white. (as a side note)

I'm more interested, personally, in the bigger reasons why women, strongly statistically, stay away from guitar and away from metal. Is there some implied machismo inherent in the instrument/genre, or is it socially discouraged, or is there just no interest.

Despite whatever fringe social movements are trying to do, the average male human and the average female human are different - as in different chemicals coming from different glands and also different done structure, height, fat content, etc. I truly believe that men and women have genetic reasons for having different aptitude levels, statistically speaking. I really don't think any of this implies >/< mentality. But, for example, because women have more x chromosomes than men, as a population, they are better at perceiving different colours, and men, genetically, are predisposed to being taller and more muscular, which is why women were traditionally gatherers whilst men were traditionally hunters. Women could tell the poisonous fruits apart from the edible ones, and men had an easier time chasing down wild boar or whatever - _on average_. I'm sure there were some men who were just as good at identifying berries and some women who were just as good at killing animals with a spear, but I think the facts agree that those were not typical cases.

So, I guess what I'm getting at, is, without any social stimulus telling any person to behave a certain way according to gender, would a man still be more likely to pick up guitar than a woman? Would this man be more likely to listen to metal music than this woman? I honestly don't know.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

narad said:


> But you know, what class of things could you render completely tasteless. Is softcore porn tasteless? Is it tasteless to put a naked woman on an amp? Two people having sex on an amp tasteless? At some point, somebody's going to cave and say it is, and someone else can say, well that's a sexual expression, etc.


This is probably the best argument against what I've said so far, and I've got nothing.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think we have some female members here though? There was at least one trans member I think too, but I haven't seen them post recently.



I can't think of any who have posted anything I've seen in the past 30 days, but there is one user here who used to contribute to discussions here about gender.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I'd estimate that my intro to programming class was almost half female


I find that surprising. I went through one of those "game dev" programs, and out of 150 students from our year we had.... three women. And we're an industry that is trying about as hard as it can to encourage women to join in. Our office has only one woman in a technical role, and even that's a pretty recent development.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> This is probably the best argument against what I've said so far, and I've got nothing.



I don't think I disagree with that argument you were pitching earlier, just that there's a time and place where it's going to be more or less acceptable. And that the needle is probably currently miscalibrated a bit too much towards sexualizating very non-sexual things in domains where gender is heavily skewed and may be dissuading some amount of women from moving into it. Or maybe I should say, the needle within the guitar community, and the needle in the western world at large, are in two very different places, and that's going to create a little bit of a barrier to entry.


----------



## bostjan (May 18, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I find that surprising. I went through one of those "game dev" programs, and out of 150 students from our year we had.... three women. And we're an industry that is trying about as hard as it can to encourage women to join in. Our office has only one woman in a technical role, and even that's a pretty recent development.


At the time, not to discount anyone personally, but it was a fact that there was an abundance of very nice scholarships available for female programmers, meaning that pretty much any female with above a 2.0 GPA enrolling in computer programming could get a free ride for as long as she could keep her grades up in core classes. I really don't know if those women switched majors or dropped out. My major was physics. Once I got to actual core classes, we had almost the same thing, 6 women and 8 men in the graduation year. Out of those, I was the only one who graduated with a physics degree. 2 of the men and one of the women dropped out, one of each transferred to a different university, and the rest changed majors. One of the women changed into engineering, which, if I'm not mistaken, is even more male-demographic oriented than physics, one into chemistry, one into business, and two into biology. Two of the men changed to mathematics, one to English, and one to engineering. At some point, we picked up a chemistry major who changed to physics, but then he fell behind me in classes, so he would have graduated the following year.


----------



## narad (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> One of the women changed into engineering, which, if I'm not mistaken



A common expression amongst female engineering students is apparently, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."


----------



## Lemonbaby (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I'm more interested, personally, in the bigger reasons why women, strongly statistically, stay away from guitar and away from metal. Is there some implied machismo inherent in the instrument/genre, or is it socially discouraged, or is there just no interest.


Let's be honest: Metal bands and musicians are often being unitentionally comic persons with their faux toughness and ridiculous (stage) appearances. I sometimes can't help but laugh at some metal artists/bands myself or find myself liking a songs's riff until some caveman starts grunting into the microphone. I'm probably just getting old...

Alternative theory: girls like to dance when they go out. Metal fans like to “hang out“ and drink beer.


----------



## TedEH (May 18, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Is there some implied machismo inherent in the instrument/genre, or is it socially discouraged, or is there just no interest.


I think in metal there is definitely an element of that machismo. I don't know that it applies to guitar as a whole though.


----------



## lurè (May 19, 2018)

A couple of thoughts about the concept of_ attractiveness.
_
It's a very old argument, was different in the past, it will be different in the future and is different nowadays depending on the culture.

The oldest "pinup" is probably the Venus of Willendorf, which is a figurine of a fat woman with emphasized parts of the body associated with fertility. Around 30 000 BC she was the stereotype of the sexiest and most attractive woman at the time.

Renaissance, mid 1480s, Botticelli's_ The Birth of Venus:_ a woman with very long hair, wide hips, small breasts and a clearly elongated neck. The perfect woman for the average man of 15th century; still a bit far from today's standards but closer compared to the Venus of Willendorf.

2018. The concept of "attractiveness" is different from the past and varies around the world.
We have social networks filled with heavely tattooed girls that are considered attractive and even Playboy had a tattooed model on its front page in 2017. Not long time ago this could have been considered gross and you couldn't imagine a Suicide Girl like a Botticelli's Venus.
(I have nothing against tattoos, it was just an example).

I've recently saw an interview of an anthropologist who spent the last 10 years among a tribe of natives in Brasil.
He reported that the most _attractive_ men and women of the tribe were the ones that could remember and sing properly all the chants and the stories passed down by the elders.
Imagine how much attractive could be someone able to sing The Lord of the Rings in its entirely.


----------



## TedEH (May 19, 2018)

What a weird place this thread has gone to.

And maybe telling that a discussion of women in any field has turned into a discussion about what constitutes beauty, instead of something like what values the female perspective could bring to the domain.


----------



## lurè (May 19, 2018)

I may have missed the link between a pin-up on an amp and the current state of women's emancipation.


----------



## narad (May 19, 2018)

After some time to really let thoughts settle, while I originally focused my thoughts on the broader picture, the most damning examples in my mind tend to be focused more on people's explicit behavior rather than images. You know the youtube comments female guitar players get. If I had to guess, that'd be way more off-putting than product branding -- though that's also because that's extremely off-putting. I don't make vids, but the thought of people sizing me up in that way is enough to not even consider it if I was a lady. I'm not saying branding is a non-issue and it'd be great to actually poll some women when making that sort of branding decision, but I have to admit that if I was a girl it's primarily all the other shit female guitar players go through that would be the most disheartening.

Once I really mulled it over though, the thing that really feels like bad taste is this case is the "smart" belle + hot finger-in-mouth in like a halloween costume version of an office worker pinup. I don't think if you ran this by any of my super smart female colleagues they would appreciate that depiction.

I'm reminded of this comedy special where the comedian was like, ~"I'm so sick of girls with their 'I heart nerds' shirts. Oh you love nerds? Let me get this overweight acne-covered DnD fan over here so you can love him! You don't heart nerds! You heart hot guys in glasses!"

Like just be honest with yourselves and call it "Hot Woman in Glasses Amplification"


----------



## Demiurge (May 19, 2018)

I am a terrible liberal and exhausted by the search for thing being "problematic", and here, I have to offer that rock & roll has always had that sex element to it and its associated products are always going to reproduce it in kind. It was sweaty, hip-swinging dance music. The name rock & roll was a slang for the no-pants-dance. It's hormones through an amplifier. As its avatars, there will be scantily clad ladies and there will be guys in tight jeans and sleeveless shirts. 

And in general, sex sells and cheesecake & beefcake will be employed. Is the discomfort really over branding & advertising being problematic as much as it is the self-awareness of this cynical era and the realization of how the advertisements are being used on us? We like to think that we know when we're being played, so having the next piece of gear we'd want in an ad or with a logo featuring a girl in a short skirt and push-up bra makes us feel cheesy- is that it?


----------



## narad (May 19, 2018)

Demiurge said:


> I am a terrible liberal and exhausted by the search for thing being "problematic", and here, I have to offer that rock & roll has always had that sex element to it and its associated products are always going to reproduce it in kind. It was sweaty, hip-swinging dance music. The name rock & roll was a slang for the no-pants-dance. It's hormones through an amplifier. As its avatars, there will be scantily clad ladies and there will be guys in tight jeans and sleeveless shirts.
> 
> And in general, sex sells and cheesecake & beefcake will be employed. Is the discomfort really over branding & advertising being problematic as much as it is the self-awareness of this cynical era and the realization of how the advertisements are being used on us? We like to think that we know when we're being played, so having the next piece of gear we'd want in an ad or with a logo featuring a girl in a short skirt and push-up bra makes us feel cheesy- is that it?



Rock & roll is dead. Like, for real. It exists only in parody. So I'm reluctant to reference old societal values as somehow being immutable. 

But anyway, there's also absolutely nothing rock & roll about a few old white guys marketing a $4.5k amplifier for Dumble tones on youtube. This discussion wasn't even intended to be about rock & roll -- it could be comping jazz chord stuff, playing ...Simon & Garfunkel, etc. -- it's about the guitar community in general, not some specific genre of guitar music.


----------



## Demiurge (May 19, 2018)

narad said:


> Rock & roll is dead. Like, for real. It exists only in parody. So I'm reluctant to reference old societal values as somehow being immutable.



I think that's why it feels so cheesy- see a dolled-up model holding a shredder guitar or something at a NAMM booth, catalog from the 80s or 90s, or apparently a logo- it's almost ironic.

At the same time, though, the same cheese/beef-caking is observable in other less-dead types of music so it's hard what to make of it. I think it's a continuation of the idea- rock & roll is dead but its trope are alive and well- it doesn't make it right but it's there.


----------



## lurè (May 19, 2018)

Jackson came out in 2004 with that Jenna Jameson guitar.

A male can be attracted by the eroticism of a sexy woman on a guitar/amp.
A female can mirror her emancipation in the figure of a woman posing for a guitar/amp brand or in a pinup.

They both pay the same price if they want the product.

Brands don't make ethical choices by putting a a girl or a boy on a product, it's just a matter of what could potentially increase sales.


----------



## narad (May 19, 2018)

lurè said:


> Jackson came out in 2004 with that Jenna Jameson guitar.
> 
> A male can be attracted by the eroticism of a sexy woman on a guitar/amp.
> A female can mirror her emancipation in the figure of a woman posing for a guitar/amp brand or in a pinup.
> ...



You think a hot woman etched in black-and-white on a $4500 amp faceplate potentially increases sales?


----------



## Mathemagician (May 19, 2018)

narad said:


> You think a hot woman etched in black-and-white on an amp faceplate potentially increases sales?



Unfortunately with the 50 & up crowd it just might. All that lame sexist bullshit is what a portion from that crowd grew up thinking was “cool”. 

But in general its 2018 and no one with any sense of taste is going “oh hot chicks on a product, fuck yeah that cool!”

On top of how fucking tired it is to put girls on a product in the hopes n increasing views, it also serves to make whatever it’s attached to look juvenile. 

And then you torch whatever sales you may have made from women because duh. Man, it has gotta suck to be a woman trying to do any hobby, who don’t fit into the looks “stereotype”.


----------



## narad (May 19, 2018)

Mathemagician said:


> Unfortunately with the 50 & up crowd it just might. All that lame sexist bullshit is what a portion from that crowd grew up thinking was “cool”.
> 
> But in general its 2018 and no one with any sense of taste is going “oh hot chicks on a product, fuck yeah that cool!”
> 
> On top of how fucking tired it is to put girls on a product in the hopes n increasing views, it also serves to make whatever it’s attached to look juvenile.



Yea, I've been polling some women about the issue. No one's really been offended, but it's been pretty much universally panned for being trashy (or "not good design from a marketing point of view", says Google marketing person).


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 20, 2018)

narad said:


> Yea, I've been polling some women about the issue. No one's really been offended, but it's been pretty much universally panned for being trashy (or "not good design from a marketing point of view", says Google marketing person).



Yeah, there's a pretty big range of responses to stuff outside of simply being offended. I too spoke to some women in my circle about this. 

I don't think 99% of folks who would be put-off by that would describe themselves as "offended" or "hurt" or "upset", I think those are extreme terms used by the folks who see absolutely nothing wrong to cast a poor light on those who do. The whole "look at those crazies offended by a logo" crowd.


----------



## Mathemagician (May 20, 2018)

Yeah it’s not about being “offended” as much as it is eyeroll-inducing. 

Guy at work says “I wanna tap that” about a female coworker would be “offensive”. Like dude chill act like the professional you’re supposed to be. 

Guy at work says “man I love hot chicks” is just....lame? Like yeah no one doubted that. You’re straight, I would assume you do. Thanks for sharing? 

The mud flap-girl vibe from the OP post falls into the second example. It’s just “why even bother?”


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

Mathemagician said:


> Yeah it’s not about being “offended” as much as it is eyeroll-inducing.
> 
> Guy at work says “I wanna tap that” about a female coworker would be “offensive”. Like dude chill act like the professional you’re supposed to be.
> 
> ...



Yea, mud flap-girl is a good way of putting it. "Hey, look at this pen, when you turn it over her clothes disappear!"-level of sophistication.

But yea, I barely skimmed this topic on TGP where the brand was announced, basically just saying in CS we try and do away with this sort of imagery, maybe we should here as well, and got this response:



Great dad from TGP said:


> People with the “right to be offended” are forgetting that the right to free speech is what’s letting them be offended to begin with.
> 
> It’s a sticker on a guitar amp. The world has worse problems to think about. I hope I raise my daughter to be strong enough that she doesn’t feel victimized by something so trivial



It's weird that you can't assess the good/bad/potential ramifications of something without thinking everyone's offended.


----------



## Mathemagician (May 20, 2018)

Well that is what has happened greatly in the US over the last 20 years or so. Every opinion has been “politicized”. So thinking ANYTHING gets one slapped with a label. 

Honestly, if it was offensive it’d be an easy fix: make the thing not offensive. 

In this case it’s just lame. But they purposefully stretch the meaning until they’ve painted their “enemy” as “weak and offended and my daughter will have a bigger backbone than you”. 

It’s like two full standard deviations from what anyone was actually originally saying. 

But only NOW they get to be a hero in their own mind. And the “enemy” is just a “weak little bitch”. 

Every opinion of conversation gets turned into an “us versus them”. If they want to sell mud flap girl gear let them. But manufacturing/overhead costs are only going up and they’re limiting their market. 


To;dr doing lame stuff is bad for business. Regardless of if the owner thinks it’s cool.


----------



## Sollipsist (May 20, 2018)

These guys with their pinup logo are probably LESS creepy to me than a company that says "hey, women also have money, let's come up with psychologically compelling marketing strategies to make them want to give it to us" and then spouts a bunch of PR rhetoric about fairness and equality.

I'll take crass honesty over profit-minded virtue signaling any day. You can't trust anybody who could change their stated ideals at any time because they're afraid of losing money. If tomorrow they decided there was more money to be made exploiting bigotry and prejudice, you can absolutely bet they'd invest in it. 

But of course they'd first create a full spectrum propaganda campaign to normalize those values. So far it's worked like a charm to keep us from getting too upset about record military spending and the amazingly profitable prison industry. We certainly let the market decide which kinds of people can be locked up or bombed.


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

Sollipsist said:


> These guys with their pinup logo are probably LESS creepy to me than a company that says "hey, women also have money, let's come up with psychologically compelling marketing strategies to make them want to give it to us" and then spouts a bunch of PR rhetoric about fairness and equality.



What companies are these? Gibson? Fender? EBMM?


----------



## Vyn (May 20, 2018)

narad said:


> What companies are these? Gibson? Fender? EBMM?



Was just about to chime in myself to say that no music companies are marketing like this. I'm yet to see a piece of gear specifically targeted at girls.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 20, 2018)

Vyn said:


> Was just about to chime in myself to say that no music companies are marketing like this. I'm yet to see a piece of gear specifically targeted at girls.


daisy rock, luna guitars, hello kitty guitars. most of the blatantly obvious stuff aiming at a female audience is in the beginner price range. Once you start moving from that price range you don't really see it (probably because any woman who stuck with guitar long enough to buy a decent guitar knows they're not gender specific).


----------



## Vyn (May 20, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> daisy rock, luna guitars, hello kitty guitars. most of the blatantly obvious stuff aiming at a female audience is in the beginner price range. Once you start moving from that price range you don't really see it (probably because any woman who stuck with guitar long enough to buy a decent guitar knows they're not gender specific).



Fair point. Ironically a lot of that stuff has higher sales with dudes. I know more guys with a Hello Kitty strat than girls xD


----------



## Mathemagician (May 20, 2018)

Sollipsist said:


> These guys with their pinup logo are probably LESS creepy to me than a company that says "hey, women also have money, let's come up with psychologically compelling marketing strategies to make them want to give it to us" and then spouts a bunch of PR rhetoric about fairness and equality.
> 
> I'll take crass honesty over profit-minded virtue signaling any day. You can't trust anybody who could change their stated ideals at any time because they're afraid of losing money. If tomorrow they decided there was more money to be made exploiting bigotry and prejudice, you can absolutely bet they'd invest in it.
> 
> But of course they'd first create a full spectrum propaganda campaign to normalize those values. So far it's worked like a charm to keep us from getting too upset about record military spending and the amazingly profitable prison industry. We certainly let the market decide which kinds of people can be locked up or bombed.



Wtf? All companies marketing is based on market research and profitability metrics.


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

So the take away here is that it's better to have sexy objectifying logos on old people amps than it is to make a range of cheap guitars designed for young girls (and often made in short scale/body sizes to better suit them). Greaaaaaat.

Sarcasm aside, there's nothing Daisy Rock or others in the guitar space are pushing for "equality". I think that's mostly a made-up criticism.


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> daisy rock, luna guitars, hello kitty guitars. most of the blatantly obvious stuff aiming at a female audience is in the beginner price range. Once you start moving from that price range you don't really see it (probably because any woman who stuck with guitar long enough to buy a decent guitar knows they're not gender specific).



Not gender specific, but can still be made a bit more tailored to most women's bodies. EBMM St. Vincent sig. and Rick Toone Dove bass spring to mind.

But I think this is really off bass. Pink sparkly guitars are marketed towards young girls, in the same way black guitars are marketed to metal guys, in the same way scuffed up guitars are marketed to old guys, in the same way Kiesels are marketed to blind people, in the same way outrageous shapes are marketed to visual kei guys. There's nothing wrong with tailoring a product to a market, in fact, it pretty much helps everyone to do so.


----------



## Sollipsist (May 20, 2018)

Just went to Fender.com... very first thing I saw were two ads featuring female guitar players (well, OK one was a ukelele player) , and an interview with a female guitarist about "the struggle and power of the female voice." I'm sure that's just a total coincidence though, and they're not intentionally tailoring their main website to target a specific demographic to sell products 

Edit: and yeah, the ukelele was pink.


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

Disgusting. Have they no shame?


----------



## Sollipsist (May 20, 2018)

Right? You'd think that they were in business to make money or something.


----------



## narad (May 20, 2018)

Sollipsist said:


> Right? You'd think that they were in business to make money or something.



Yea, all feminists should ban together until there's not a single woman on that Fender page! Equality via obscurity!

Oh yea, how does this relate to scantily clad women on amps / the effect of woman as sex objects in branding on guitar products?


----------



## mongey (May 20, 2018)

the logo in the vid is stupid . if they want to put some childish shit on their amps then that's their call . will their product tank partly cause of terrible marketing ? probably . those old white dudes probably think that what the public wants in 2018 . 

put a naked chick on a amp or put a giant cock . its rock and roll . make your statement.


----------



## Sollipsist (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> Yea, all feminists should ban together until there's not a single woman on that Fender page! Equality via obscurity!
> 
> Oh yea, how does this relate to scantily clad women on amps / the effect of woman as sex objects in branding on guitar products?


Not sure. Thought the OP was interested in a conversation at least partly about the use of the marketplace as a tool to influence public morality by reducing the incidence of stereotypical representations of marginalized persons. 

My point was simply that the marketplace is s treacherous tool and public morality is essentially the domain of Puritanism. A couple of dudes with a hot chick logo on their amp aren't offending anyone who hasn't made their mind up to be offended, and the marketplace as a whole is so utterly conducive to including and attracting female players that this conversation probably hasn't been relevant or necessary for a decade or two. Yet here we are.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

Sollipsist said:


> Not sure. Thought the OP was interested in a conversation at least partly about the use of the marketplace as a tool to influence public morality by reducing the incidence of stereotypical representations of marginalized persons.
> 
> My point was simply that the marketplace is s treacherous tool and public morality is essentially the domain of Puritanism. A couple of dudes with a hot chick logo on their amp aren't offending anyone who hasn't made their mind up to be offended, and the marketplace as a whole is so utterly conducive to including and attracting female players that this conversation probably hasn't been relevant or necessary for a decade or two. Yet here we are.



I don't agree at all.

In short, just because some companies offer beginner girl-targeted guitars or ukuleles, doesn't by any means indicate that the larger guitar community that exists in advertisements, branding, and online communities, is a welcoming or encouraging place for female guitar players. To spin this back around to the CS example, there have for decades been a lot of scholarships specifically targeting women, encouraging them to get into CS. Yet you take that scholarship, and bam, now you're in sausage town where your day-to-day environment is a boy's club at best and antagonistic at worst (or maybe not _worst_). It wasn't until people started actually trying to change the environment and get women included in decision making that the community made more significant strides towards more equal gender representation.

And there you go with "offended". It's not about offending. It's just the obvious attitude that women in this domain are often treated as eye candy.


----------



## rx (May 21, 2018)

I don't care about the issue of gender, but I think using sex to sell is cheesy.


----------



## rx (May 21, 2018)

And childish. 

It shows me of their insecurity with their masculinity. It's like when a teenager gets laid for the first time and wants to let people know of it.


----------



## lurè (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> It's just the obvious attitude that women in this domain are often treated as eye candy.



I can't blame a man for being attracted by a logo like that or a woman for being attracted by a six pack on a parfum commercial.
For every man that feels "offended" by that, there's a woman who feels the same.
For every man that just doesn't care about how it's presented and looks if the produc is good, there's a woman who thinks the same.

I honestly think that's just marketing, a cheesy attempt, but it doesn't prevent a woman from buying a guitar/amp or me from buying a parfum.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

So thirsty you need your sexual eye candy and your amps mixed together? What about a tie with sexy women upside down -- that way, at any point during the day when you're craving, you're just a quick glance away. 

And naturally you can fit not just one woman, but many on a tie, which makes it better bang for your buck. Why pay $4500 for an amp with just one sexy woman on it when you can pay $8 for a tie with many? That's just economics 101 right there.

How far-fetched the six-pack perfume example is is kinda a testament to how much the logic breaks down on this stuff.


----------



## bostjan (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> So thirsty you need your sexual eye candy and your amps mixed together? What about a tie with sexy women upside down -- that way, at any point during the day when you're craving, you're just a quick glance away.
> 
> And naturally you can fit not just one woman, but many on a tie, which makes it better bang for your buck. Why pay $4500 for an amp with just one sexy woman on it when you can pay $8 for a tie with many? That's just economics 101 right there.
> 
> How far-fetched the six-pack perfume example is is kinda a testament to how much the logic breaks down on this stuff.


Or just get a $20 tattoo of a lady on your forearm, so you can view it when dressed casually, as well.





Classy.
x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x-z-x
You know, I can see the marketing strategy of using an image like this to gain attention, but, when you are talking about a boutique amp without any sort of real advertising campaign...what's the idea there. I think it just came down to the guy in the video telling the artist he hired that he wanted a logo with a sexy librarian - that's probably what that all boils down to - something he thought he would like. I doubt there was much more conscious-level thought put into it than that; however, there is the discussion behind what sort of cultural habits led to the moment where that subconscious level thought made sense, but I think that's fairly apparent.


----------



## TedEH (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> just because some companies offer beginner girl-targeted guitars or ukuleles, doesn't by any means indicate that the larger guitar community that exists in advertisements, branding, and online communities, is a welcoming or encouraging place for female guitar players.


I find there's a weird disconnect when it comes to these obviously-for-girls instruments. I've got nothing against marketing to women - makes sense to me that if we're going to say "we need more women here" then we should be targeting them with marketing as a means to that goal - but the way some markets have done that, traditionally, is just condescending rather than effective. Like when I say the word "boys guitar" I might picture a pointy black thing of various potential quality/price points. When I say "girls guitar" I picture exactly the examples already cited -> daisy rock, $20 pink ukuleles, etc. It's all entry/cheap/garbage level instruments with condescending paint jobs.

If you had two 12 year old kids walk into a store, the boy sees walls upon walls of cool guitars marketed towards his interests (because, lets not kid ourselves, when we walk into a store ourselves, we're just big 12 year olds, amirite?), but the girl walks into the store and sees a small butterfly guitar next to all the cool ones with a paint job that says "this one's for you. All the other cool ones are for serious players, you get this one." I get than an adult can see through this, but a kid? At the ages where interests in these kinds of things start to really develop? At the point where kids are deciding the things that they'll start to get into at a later age? How about taking all the regular guitars and put women on the box? How about more stuff like that Nita signature S?

That's a question I don't see come up very often in "there aren't enough women here" discussions - how does age factor into it? I get that an adult can see through the politics, and the ads, and can make up their mind to do whatever they want, but kids are pretty malleable. When we talk about getting people into music we talk about kids. When we talk about getting females into any domain, we talk about adults. Why? Seems like we should still be talking about kids.


----------



## lurè (May 21, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I doubt there was much more conscious-level thought put into it than that; however, there is the discussion behind what sort of cultural habits led to the moment where that subconscious level thought made sense, but I think that's fairly apparent.



I don't know. Phallocentrism? Sexual objectification? Or, as you stated, simply the guy thought it was cool to put a sexy librarian as a logo. I doubt the guy had sleepless nights thinking about the ethical consequences of his choice.



TedEH said:


> get than an adult can see through this, but a kid? At the ages where interests in these kinds of things start to really develop? At the point where kids are deciding the things that they'll start to get into at a later age?



I admitt that if I was a 12 years old girl, I'd be very charmed by a Nita's giant poster and by her guitars, as much as a 12yo boy looking at a Zakk Wylde's poster and his guitars.

However, during early childhood guitars are seen more as "toys" then instruments, so they're provided with all the features that a child would like.


----------



## TedEH (May 21, 2018)

I remember at 12, being of a mindset where I wanted to be older, and wanted to be treated a bit more as an adult - so I'm sure I would have made the distinction between a "kids guitar" and a "real guitar". A small scale, but still good instrument could still be cool, but handing a 12 year old something that is very clearly a toy tells them that you don't take their interest very seriously. In my opinion.


----------



## lurè (May 21, 2018)

I wouldn't buy one of those toy guitars either.
I think that a cheap starter pack would be more beneficial. 
Adding to the fact that a child is treated more as an adult, you're teaching him/her that maybe music is a bit more than a game and he/she is going to need lessons in order to play it.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

lurè said:


> I don't know. Phallocentrism? Sexual objectification? Or, as you stated, simply the guy thought it was cool to put a sexy librarian as a logo. I doubt the guy had sleepless nights thinking about the ethical consequences of his choice.



That is entirely the point. I don't think the amp guys are terrible people like, "Yaa! Men Rule! Go make me a sandwich hahah!" -- they're just guys making a decision of what they think is cool, with no consideration of whether there is an ethical consequence or if it's particularly distasteful to think the archetypical depiction of a smart woman is a model dressed in some sexified business attire in a seductive pose.

What's changing in the rest of the world is that when you're objectifying a gender/race/other minority, people realize it's smart to gather their opinions on it first, so they're not making a decision that in retrospect reads about as timeless as, "One day, computers may even be small enough to fit in your living room, and could process megabytes of data!"


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I thought I'd still give my opinion. Personally I have no problem with them using the logo, but that doesn't mean I don't think it looks just pain stupid and cringy. Too many people get offended over literally everything and it's just fucking annoying. Modern day absolutely sucks with the amount of idiots scared or offended over anything you do. I won't get into it too much as it would turn into political reasons but who cares if these dudes want to use the logo. It's a logo... yes it's very cheesy, but who cares.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I thought I'd still give my opinion. Personally I have no problem with them using the logo, but that doesn't mean I don't think it looks just pain stupid and cringy. Too many people get offended over literally everything and it's just fucking annoying. Modern day absolutely sucks with the amount of idiots scared or offended over anything you do. I won't get into it too much as it would turn into political reasons but who cares if these dudes want to use the logo. It's a logo... yes it's very cheesy, but who cares.



I think there's more people talking about others being “offended” than anyone actually being offended. 

I don’t actually see anyone who’s offended in this thread. 

Anyone who thinks there is is missing @narad ’s points of discussion entirely.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

I feel like... no one reads?

I feel like this needs a disclaimer like:

_By clicking reply you AGREE that you are not:

1. a guy posting about how you have no problem with them using the logo.

2. going to talk about how everyone's offended and trying to find things to be offended about.

3. going to mention a right to free speech.

If the above restrictions do not apply to your comment, click REPLY now._


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> I feel like... no one reads?



Calm down, you’re getting offended too easily.


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

Seriously? Looks like I offended people by just typing a comment about offended people. Love it. I wasn't talking about others offended on here. I was just saying the world in general.

Why can't I reply if I don't have a problem with it?


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> Seriously? Looks like I offended people by just typing a comment about offended people. Love it. I wasn't talking about others offended on here. I was just saying the world in general.
> 
> Why can't I reply if I don't have a problem with it?



Is this satire or for real?


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Calm down, you’re getting offended too easily.


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Is this satire or for real?


Am I missing something here? Seriously... I don't get the problem here.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> Am I missing something here? Seriously... I don't get the problem here.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> Am I missing something here? Seriously... I don't get the problem here.



The simplest analogy I can come up with is imagine I started a thread with the paragraph:

"I'm drinking a lot of diet coke but I'm worried about the aspartame ingredient. In another domain, the clinical studies of mice, increased aspartame has been correlated with increased cancer risks. How likely is it that this translates to humans, how much would be too much, and how do we know the long-term effect of consuming it?"

And you replied:

"I like diet coke!"


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> The simplest analogy I can come up with is imagine I started a thread with the paragraph:
> 
> "I'm drinking a lot of diet coke but I'm worried about the aspartame ingredient. In another domain, the clinical studies of mice, increased aspartame has been correlated with increased cancer risks. How likely is it that this translates to humans, how much would be too much, and how do we know the long-term effect of consuming it?"
> 
> ...


Even so, my point still stands. No matter which way you look at it. I'm not talking about you or any single person on this forum, I'm generally talking about the world. My point goes back to what you said though in your original post. You say that we need to be more equal with genders... this is exactly what my post was getting at. The fact that a logo doesn't matter and I don't think it has any impact if they put a "sexy" girl on there is a fucking dick and balls.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> Even so, my point still stands. No matter which way you look at it. I'm not talking about you or any single person on this forum, I'm generally talking about the world. My point goes back to what you said though in your original post. You say that we need to be more equal with genders... this is exactly what my post was getting at. The fact that a logo doesn't matter and I don't think it has any impact if they put a "sexy" girl on there is a fucking dick and balls.



Are dick and balls a minority in the guitar community?

Look, I don't want to argue *if* the logo is offensive/strongly distasteful/generally-negative to women if it's just going to be a group of guys debating it. That's stupid.

And does that logo matter significantly? No, I'll totally concede that in the range of fancy Dumble amplifiers, there's probably not a single girl who was ever going to buy that amp in the first place, probably the only women who will ever see it are grandkids when they're over visiting. I'm not saying, "hey! let's boycott that amplifier that no one here (besides me I think) would ever buy!" just that in 2018 I'm surprised to see _anyone_ go that way. Like I thought we were moving in a different direction.

The larger point is is that things that have a small negative effect, when accumulated in huge amounts, maybe have a significant effect. So does all this imagery, (and as the discussion branched out -- online behavior, and attitudes) contribute to the huge disparity between male/female guitar players? I don't know, but I don't think it's obvious that it does not, or to exactly what extend it does not. But I think a group of guys are in a terribly poor position to assess that.

And I feel like I've repeated this too much, but I've seen this all go down in computer science and the effect of changes to things that I did not think would matter. It's funny to point this at out this part of the conversation, but I'm actually on the conservative side of this in CS. I've been pleasantly proven wrong on the effect of these policy changes, because I do value striving for a more equitable environment, but I'm still rolling my eyes hard on the recent proposal to change the name of a major 20+ yr old conference, NIPS, because it's too easy to make jokes about. But honestly maybe that too will have some positive effect, because I know I almost always have been leaning on the wrong side of these policy decisions, and so I have come to grips with the fact that just because I don't see the reason / or feel it's over-reacting, does not mean it is.

So if I see a guy type out his gut reaction to this, and make a comparison to dick and balls on an amp, then forgive me but I fail to see how this is really a well-informed opinion on the issue.


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

narad said:


> Are dick and balls a minority in the guitar community?
> 
> Look, I don't want to argue *if* the logo is offensive/strongly distasteful/generally-negative to women if it's just going to be a group of guys debating it. That's stupid.
> 
> ...


I guess my point is, why do we always have to be progressive? If anything, people should just looks at things for what they are. Even if there are women out there that would be interested in it, it shouldn't matter. If I found an amp that I thought was awesome, but let's say it had a big muscular shirtless dude on it, would it change my mind? Of course not, and it shouldn't matter to anyone else. Of course unless you just don't like the look of it, which of course is fine and opinionated.

At the end of the day, every thing you are saying still comes down to offended people and more importantly offended women. Now I'm not saying women should just "get over it" as I absolutely think guys are to blame here too. You get these loser thirsty guys who care about looks and sex and it just gets messy from there. My point out of all of this is towards both men and women of the music community. Get over yourselves and let's enjoy music. Who cares if it's a man or a women? Who cares if a logo is a dick or tits? We are all human here.


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> I guess my point is, why do we always have to be progressive?



This is easy to say from the majority pov.


----------



## lurè (May 21, 2018)

We have examples of great female guitarists: Jennifer Bannett, Orianthi, Nita S, Yvette Young, Sarah Longfield…
You can argue that they're numerically inferior to male guitarists, and that's probably true.
Why?
That's a tough question. Less attractive? Ugly? Linked to a male-dominated culture?
Peraphs a woman could give us a more objective reason.

I dunno, but I think that music in general is not a locked door for women (we've women all around the pop and hip-pop genres) and I doubt some cheesy logos or stereotypes can hold a woman back from playing the guitar.


----------



## StevenC (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> I guess my point is, why do we always have to be progressive?


Why do we play 7 string guitars?


----------



## Albake21 (May 21, 2018)

StevenC said:


> Why do we play 7 string guitars?


I'm not so sure that analogy has anything to do with this discussion. 

Also I'd like to point out at the end of the day, we have many female guitar gods. Even more so than ever before. If women wanted someone to look up to or get them into playing guitar, they easily can. The reality is, they choose not to. I'm kinda going off of what @lurè said.


----------



## StevenC (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> I'm not so sure that analogy has anything to do with this discussion.
> 
> Also I'd like to point out at the end of the day, we have many female guitar gods. Even more so than ever before. If women wanted someone to look up to or get them into playing guitar, they easily can. The reality is, they choose not to. I'm kinda going off of what @lurè said.


What do you think that analogy has anything to do with?


----------



## narad (May 21, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> Also I'd like to point out at the end of the day, we have many female guitar gods. Even more so than ever before. If women wanted someone to look up to or get them into playing guitar, they easily can. The reality is, they choose not to. I'm kinda going off of what @lurè said.



If you guys are trying to make the point that there's no problem because you can list more female guitar idols than you have fingers on one hand (not that you're there just yet), that's a pretty poor argument. That's a "I'm not racist, I have a black friend" level of argument.


----------



## mongey (May 21, 2018)

Is it a sausage fest in rock and metal guitar ? yeah . But I can honestly say from my 15 or so years kicking aorund venues playing music I would say well over 50% of acoustic singer songwriters I've known and seen out are female. Is that cause as a genre its more inviting to females or is that just something wired into us ? rock and metal guitar is a really ego driven medium .the gunslinger mentality . I would say that cock measuring competition is more off putting to female players then anything else. I don't think its the fact people are being sexist and judging , I think its the fact we are all kinda stupid


----------



## Necris (May 21, 2018)

lurè said:


> You can argue that they're numerically inferior to male guitarists, and that's probably true.
> Why?
> That's a tough question. *Less attractive? Ugly?* Linked to a male-dominated culture?
> Peraphs a woman could give us a more objective reason.


Uhhhh...


----------



## lurè (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> f you guys are trying to make the point that there's no problem because you can list more female guitar idols than you have fingers on one hand (not that you're there just yet), that's a pretty poor argument. That's a "I'm not racist, I have a black friend" level of argument.



You're trying to make the point that there's a problem because of a logo and a couple of other stereotypes. That's pretty much the same level of argument.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 22, 2018)

Is there any real reason to not be more inclusive? What’s there to lose? It doesn’t seem to be very difficult, it’s not going to cost anyone time or money really.


----------



## lurè (May 22, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Is there any real reason to not be more inclusive? What’s there to lose? It doesn’t seem to be very difficult, it’s not going to cost anyone time or money really.



I just don't see this non-inclusive attitude. 
A child could start being interested in learning how to play the guitar after seeing Steve Vai or Taylor Swift indifferently.
If then he/she is not going to play rock/metal ,who's to blame? Maybe they don't like the music or lose the interest overtime, but there are examples on both sides of people that have been into guitar and have had success.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 22, 2018)

lurè said:


> I just don't see this non-inclusive attitude.
> A child could start being interested in learning how to play the guitar after seeing Steve Vai or Taylor Swift indifferently.
> If then he/she is not going to play rock/metal ,who's to blame? Maybe they don't like the music or lose the interest overtime, but there are examples on both sides of people that have been into guitar and have had success.



Maybe it’s a regional thing. 

Over here, if you’re a woman or girl who shows interest in predominantly male hobbies you’re treated like shit. I have no idea how that is in Italy.


----------



## rx (May 22, 2018)

Albake21 said:


> I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I thought I'd still give my opinion. Personally I have no problem with them using the logo, but that doesn't mean I don't think it looks just pain stupid and cringy. Too many people get offended over literally everything and it's just fucking annoying. Modern day absolutely sucks with the amount of idiots scared or offended over anything you do. I won't get into it too much as it would turn into political reasons but who cares if these dudes want to use the logo. It's a logo... yes it's very cheesy, but who cares.


I agree. People have the right to be cringy. I don't think that people should have an issue with that, however.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

I think this whole discussion just reverberates my point these last two or three years now: These social expectations need to be codified in some way.

I honestly think that some of these guys don't think that what they are doing is wrong. The culture around gender issues has actually really changed in the past 15-20 years, so anyone who was programmed to behave according to the old social norms might have trouble adjusting, and without any codified norms, and certain types screaming bloody murder over the most minor things, those folks probably don't have any clue about what is inappropriate.

Now, I know how someone out there will likely say "You ought to just use common sense" or similar arguments, but the fact that these behaviours are so rampant is convincing evidence that common sense is an unreliable source of wisdom in this case.

We are all animals, like it or not, so we ultimately have the following biological goals:

 Breathe oxygen
 Drink water
 Eat food
 Shit
 Piss
 Screw
Unless you have figured out a way around your own biology through surgery, or are an alien being, you can never convince me that you never have any of those urges. The fact that we are human beings means that we have the ability to control those urges, so the urge itself is never an excuse for harming another person.
But, from a sociological perspective, we cannot expect every person in an arbitrarily large social group to behave in a civil manner. The best shot at curtailing the behaviour is to educate people, and that's where the breakdown occurs, I think. Sure, you have a few HR trainings here and there in corporate offices, but, how often does such training cover instances such as this case, and how often is the CEO of the company involved? And how often are small businesses the size of this amp company doing these trainings? I'd guess very little.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> what they are doing is wrong


IMO I think this is part of what cause the gut reactions / defensive stances a lot of people take. I try to be careful about saying that what someone is doing is wrong. What's being done isn't wrong, per-se. There's nothing wrong with putting a sexy woman on your amp. BUT - and I think this is the part people miss - is that regardless of right or wrong, it's sort of intellectually dishonest (maybe the wrong word here) to deny that the choice has an impact on people. It's not "wrong" to use the imagery, but it's also not a stretch to say that the image could be a turn off to certain audiences. That's what the conversations is about - impact. The potential for far reaching effects of subtle choices. It's not about what's offensive, it's about what our choices say to the people around us who didn't get a say in that choice.



narad said:


> that amplifier that no one here (besides me I think) would ever buy!


To be fair, I find the demos sound pretty great. I wouldn't buy it because I can't justify $4k for one amp, but if I was going to buy a $4k amp, I imagine I'd be turned off by the imagery too. Not because I think it's wrong, or is tacky or "offensive" or lacks class or whatever words you want to use to describe it, but just cause if I'm given the choice, that's not the image I'd want to put forward- the pinup vibe just isn't my thing. If anything, I can think of lots of things I'd rather have on the amp that are probably much more objectionable.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

lurè said:


> You're trying to make the point that there's a problem because of a logo and a couple of other stereotypes. That's pretty much the same level of argument.



No, I'm trying to make the point that there *could be* a problem, because in the end the community has this extremely skewed gender ratio. So it already has the outcome you would expect IF there is a problem. So when trying to think of why this outcome exists, it is worth considering if a particularly high concentration of dark-age men making decisions and behaving in ways that would be unacceptable if we were all trying to make this a cohabitable workspace. It is funny that I have to qualify this statement so much, that the purpose of this thread is to be exploratory. 

Your example is like, "Global warming doesn't exist...Alaska, Sweden, Antarctica, Quebec -- see, all of these places are actually quite cold in winter. What's the deal?" and my example is like, "It's really fucking hot in here -- is this normal? Are we to blame for this?"

"Feeling left out? Well, shut up and get over it, 'cause Orianthi exists."

Funny you should even mention Sarah Longfield, because I remember some threads on this very forum ) where she was the main topic, and it were a bunch of guys in there saying she's only famous because she's a girl. And this is on SSO, which is presumably more progressive than TGP and enough to look like an LGBT parade in comparison to rig-talk, where you can hear the n-word in a discussion about troubleshooting your preamp tubes.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> The best shot at curtailing the behaviour is to educate people, and that's where the breakdown occurs, I think. Sure, you have a few HR trainings here and there in corporate offices, but, how often does such training cover instances such as this case, and how often is the CEO of the company involved? And how often are small businesses the size of this amp company doing these trainings? I'd guess very little.



Yea, that's a good point. I have trouble really finding clear thoughts and rationale for my gut instincts in this sort of topic, but the HR thing is sort of what I feel. I bet if any of these guys went through a decade of HR training, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Sometimes that stuff is a bit overbearing, but it exists in the workplace for a reason...I feel like we can't act like there's not even a single lesson to take from it.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> IMO I think this is part of what cause the gut reactions / defensive stances a lot of people take. I try to be careful about saying that what someone is doing is wrong. What's being done isn't wrong, per-se. There's nothing wrong with putting a sexy woman on your amp. BUT - and I think this is the part people miss - is that regardless of right or wrong, it's sort of intellectually dishonest (maybe the wrong word here) to deny that the choice has an impact on people. It's not "wrong" to use the imagery, but it's also not a stretch to say that the image could be a turn off to certain audiences. That's what the conversations is about - impact. The potential for far reaching effects of subtle choices. It's not about what's offensive, it's about what our choices say to the people around us who didn't get a say in that choice.



Well, that's the flip side of the coin of codifying whatever we deem unacceptable. Some things will be deemed "Wrong" and other things not, and perhaps some people would be upset by certain things not being deemed "wrong," but then the entire community/society having officially decided might be strong evidence to those people that their reactions to some things may be disproportionate to the nature of the offending action itself.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

I don't know that I'd be in support of such a strong system to try to decide what's "acceptable" or not. Realistically, I don't think it would stick anyway. You would need something resembling consensus, which won't happen, or something to serve as an authority on the matter, which also won't happen. And people would ignore it regardless.

Realistically, I have doubts about the need for such an action, since people's values are shifting enough anyway. The fact that we're having this discussion I think is evidence of that. I mean, there's not a whole ton of examples anymore of women being used as marketing tools anymore (not like it used to be), and it's difficult to find the remaining examples all that objectionable. What's left over ends up falling into niches and "vote with your wallet" scenarios. IMO amps with women on them have their place, same as albums with ridiculous gore, and that horrible guitar shaped like a d*ck, and what have you. That place is no longer front and center, which I think is what we want, but I'd be very hesitant of sending any message of "you can't" or "you shouldn't" to someone who is filling that niche.


----------



## lurè (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> There's nothing wrong with putting a sexy woman on your amp. BUT - and I think this is the part people miss - is that regardless of right or wrong, it's sort of intellectually dishonest (maybe the wrong word here) to deny that the choice has an impact on people. It's not "wrong" to use the imagery, but it's also not a stretch to say that the image could be a turn off to certain audiences.



Absolutely. The impact can go from offensive to exciting and all the intermediate shades depending on the person and his/her common sense, but admitting that this case is "wrong" or a "potential problem" per se, is a bit of an exaggeration.



narad said:


> No, I'm trying to make the point that there *could be* a problem, because in the end the community has this extremely skewed gender ratio. So it already has the outcome you would expect IF there is a problem. So when trying to think of why this outcome exists, it is worth considering if a particularly high concentration of dark-age men making decisions and behaving in ways that would be unacceptable if we were all trying to make this a cohabitable workspace.



So if the guitar community isn't 50:50 male/female is because of years of machism of the guitar player figure? 
If you're referring to a larger point of view, well that's another story.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

lurè said:


> So if the guitar community isn't 50:50 male/female is because of years of machism of the guitar player figure?
> If you're referring to a larger point of view, well that's another story.



First, the guitar community isn't "not 50:50", like we're balancing a pole and it's just slightly off calibration. 

"What is it today, Bob? 
"Uhh, 47:53"
"Not bad, reduce testosterone by 1.2mms and let's check it tomorrow"

It's not subtle -- it's incredibly lop-sided. That should raise some eyebrows. As I said _in the immediately previous post_, I don't know why that is, but it might be worth trying to figure it out, and whether it's due to the behavior of men in the community (and I'll broaden that behavior to include the decision to market things in ways that objectify women).


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

lurè said:


> but admitting that this case is "wrong" or a "potential problem" per se, is a bit of an exaggeration.


Again, to reiterate and be clear, nobody was making that claim. This particular example was just a jumping off point for the conversation.



lurè said:


> So if the guitar community isn't 50:50 male/female is because of years of machism of the guitar player figure?


I don't think there was ever a question that it's at least a factor.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

This thread brings to mind the differences in attitudes and overall content of some TalkBass threads. They have a very active (100+ page) thread titled The "I Back a Hot Singer Babe" Club, much like we have "I own a Jackson!" club threads. I don't imagine a similar thread would fly here.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> This thread brings to mind the differences in attitudes and overall content of some TalkBass threads. They have a very active (100+ page) thread titled The "I Back a Hot Singer Babe" Club, much like we have "I own a Jackson!" club threads. I don't imagine a similar thread would fly here.



Age is a big driver of that.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Age is a big driver of that.


I don't doubt it. I guess that's part of what I mean by how values are sort of shifting on their own. An older crowd seemingly has no interest/concern in this kind of conversation, but at the same time, you can see in some of their posts that not everyone there is 100% onboard with it either.


----------



## MaxOfMetal (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I don't doubt it. I guess that's part of what I mean by how values are sort of shifting on their own. An older crowd seemingly has no interest/concern in this kind of conversation, but at the same time, you can see in some of their posts that not everyone there is 100% onboard with it either.



Having difficult conversations and holding people accountable speeds up progress exponentially. 

Very, very few people do socially questionable things just because they're assholes. They've just never considered what they're doing might be kind of shitty to others.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I don't know that I'd be in support of such a strong system to try to decide what's "acceptable" or not. Realistically, I don't think it would stick anyway. You would need something resembling consensus, which won't happen, or something to serve as an authority on the matter, which also won't happen. And people would ignore it regardless.
> 
> Realistically, I have doubts about the need for such an action, since people's values are shifting enough anyway. The fact that we're having this discussion I think is evidence of that. I mean, there's not a whole ton of examples anymore of women being used as marketing tools anymore (not like it used to be), and it's difficult to find the remaining examples all that objectionable. What's left over ends up falling into niches and "vote with your wallet" scenarios. IMO amps with women on them have their place, same as albums with ridiculous gore, and that horrible guitar shaped like a d*ck, and what have you. That place is no longer front and center, which I think is what we want, but I'd be very hesitant of sending any message of "you can't" or "you shouldn't" to someone who is filling that niche.



The current climate, with some men facing career ruin as a result of allegations, which, in some cases, can be very grey in morality, NEEDS to be defined. I understand the unwillingness to but hard brackets around behaviours like this, but if people want there to be dire consequences for people who offend this unwritten code, then the code needs to be written and standardized. Most sexual harassment laws are written in the form "sexual harassment will not be tolerated." There are no clear definitions of this, so people are using a wide variety of interpretations, and I find that inconsistency to be unacceptable. Even people who say something that many wouldn't even consider sexual nor harassment are being ruined because of sexual harassment. Codifying the system would not only offer protection to the victims, but of the accused as well, as there would be a standard to check against, so that the Harvey Weinsteins of the world could be stopped after one offense instead of after hundreds, and the Garrison Keillors of the world can maybe not have their legacies destroyed by a pat on the back.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> The current climate, with some men facing career ruin as a result of allegations, which, in some cases, can be very grey in morality, NEEDS to be defined.


I didn't think you were taking it quite that far, but I see what you're saying. Maybe I've illustrated your point, in that I hadn't considered anything in this thread to fall under the category of harassment, by any stretch of the word. In my mind those were entirely disconnected conversations (and mostly still are). It's still tricky though. How do you define what sort of depiction of a woman (or anyone) counts as harassment? You can't say "it's art, so it's not harassment". You can't say "it's sexualized so it IS harassment". Where can you draw the line in a place that works for the majority of cases? Would you call pinup art harassment? The problem is context, and you can't really codify context in this way. You can say "don't harass!" but that's so vague as to almost be meaningless.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> How do you define what sort of depiction of a woman (or anyone) counts as harassment? You can't say "it's art, so it's not harassment". You can't say "it's sexualized so it IS harassment". Where can you draw the line in a place that works for the majority of cases?



I find there's two important considerations salient in my thoughts:

(1) is the role/depiction of an attribute harmful, via either a historical or commonsense judgement.

(2) is the attribute a minority one.

For whatever reason I find it weird that the logic applies so clearly to race and not to gender. Do we know what kinds of images on an amp would be insulting to a racial minority and would not pass the "it's art" test? Sure, I think. Often, it's imagery that plays upon the struggles of what minorities go through. 

Now imagine to yourself, an intelligent woman. Someone who worked really hard and studied a ton, maybe went to grad school. Wound up in a successful position. What comes to mind? How far off is it from the "smart belle" logo woman, and does that make you feel any differently about whether that is art or an unfavorable portrayal?


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> What comes to mind?


Definitely not the image on that amp, but I don't think anyone would have thought otherwise. 



narad said:


> via either a historical or commonsense judgement


Historical, maybe. Common sense is again, too vague to draw the line anywhere useful IMO. What's common sense to one is not common sense to another.

Edit: And I realize that makes "common" in that context a bit of a misnomer. What we call common sense is sometimes not very common at all.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Historical, maybe. Common sense is again, too vague to draw the line anywhere useful IMO. What's common sense to one is not common sense to another.



Yea, it's not law, but telling someone they're "dressed slutty" is not really a grey area. That's what I mean by common sense. I'm sure there are depictions that are more Yanny/Laurel.


----------



## lurè (May 22, 2018)

Drawing those line is kinda risky: there's the chance that people will consider everything as a form of harassment or aggression, nullifying the role of common sense.

We could consider aggression, harassment and microaggression as conteiners to put things or behaviours potentially problematic for some people. Even so I think would be considered as a form of microaggression, since you're denigrating the intellectual ability of a certain person to overcome an insult with his common sense (dunno if it does make sense at all ).

I guess the education given plays the most important role.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

lurè said:


> microaggression


Yeh this, I guess. I suppose the problem is that if you draw a very defined line, people are going to very clearly land on either side of that line. You'll get polarization. You'll get people on one side clamoring about how everything is a microaggression and shouldn't be tolerated, and people on the other side feeling like their freedom of expression is under attack. Drawing the line vaguely (as in calling it "use common sense", or "just don't be a d*ck), maybe covers a lot of territory, keeps people from instantly polarizing, but also doesn't do as good a job serving as a guide.

So.... I have no real suggestion.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> So.... I have no real suggestion.



You can always ask some representative people before making a questionable decision.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> I find there's two important considerations salient in my thoughts:
> 
> (1) is the role/depiction of an attribute harmful, via either a historical or commonsense judgement.
> 
> ...



Interesting post.

I think the depiction of any arbitrary attribute could be considered harmful by someone under some circumstances, so I don't think that can really be a gauge used at all. Historical judgements are even more dangerous, as many things throughout history were accepted at the time and are not really what we want society to accept now. Common sense, as @TedEH pointed out, isn't really all too common.

Women are actually not a minority.

If the amp had a big sticker of Hottentot Venus on it, then it'd be notably more tonedeaf, but why? I think it comes down to perception. At least with the white girl in glasses wearing a tight skirt and posed seductively, these guys can say that they chose the image because they admire such women, or whatever. With other images, they might seem disingenuous.

If I was a woman, who knows what I'd look like?! I think that's a part of this discussion for me - who's really to say, among this group of 99% dudes, what's offensive or tasteless for women?

This little discussion about a logo on an amp ties in close to the big discussion going on all over the USA now, as well as other parts of the world, about how women are treated and how they should be treated in professional roles in society. The current system is messed up, and I think most people under the age of 60 agree with that sentiment. Whether you are an actress or a waitress or an IT helpline operator, you shouldn't have to put up with the level of crap that we are now all very publicly aware is usual. In some way, I feel that old men putting this image on their amplifiers in order to market them to other old men at a time like this is a symptom of the whole mindset whence all of this bigger discussion stems.

That's not to say that if you stopped putting pin-up girl posters up everywhere that sexual harassment would stop, nor vice-versa, but rather that both are effects of the same cause, at least in this context.

If the amp had Rosie the Rivetter on it instead, we'd be having a totally different discussion.



lurè said:


> Drawing those line is kinda risky: there's the chance that people will consider everything as a form of harassment or aggression, nullifying the role of common sense.
> 
> We could consider aggression, harassment and microaggression as conteiners to put things or behaviours potentially problematic for some people. Even so I think would be considered as a form of microaggression, since you're denigrating the intellectual ability of a certain person to overcome an insult with his common sense (dunno if it does make sense at all ).
> 
> I guess the education given plays the most important role.



I feel like we're already there. Last year, a guy was fired from public radio after a woman made allegations of sexual harassment. The only public example given at the time was that he patted her on the back. It was said that there were other instances of vague things happening as well, but no details were given publicly, to date (more than six months have passed). This guy, who had made his career and livelihood in public radio and in press was fired without any ado. It gave me a strong impression that anyone, at any time, could get anyone else fired, simply by accusing that other person of sexual harassment. Now, whether this radio personality actually did anything still is up in the air, but that's the entire point I'm making - that no specific thing was ever really alleged, and the guy was crucified anyway. If someone did something awful to me, maybe I wouldn't want to tell the whole world what happened, but it total weaksauce to just say that "something bad happened" and then expect the alleged offender to lose his job and be blacklisted from getting another job, like ever, if I were to make such allegations.

Also, if you want to make it a hard line of no touching people and make it so that patting a person on the back is totally deserving of crucifixion, then, well, ok, at least print that out on the memo and pass it around.

People who don't mean others any harm are typically pretty good at following the rules when they are made clear. People who don't give a shit about hurting other people don't give a shit about the rules, either, but if the rules are clearly communicated to everybody, you can usually get to telling which type of person someone is once they are caught breaking the rules. If we never define what the rules are, and instead say something like "sexual harassment is harassing someone with a sexual intent," then define "harassing" as "the act of harassment," we've just made the world's vaguest rule from which exactly 0% of people will benefit. Well, have you looked at how most workplaces define sexual harassment? Some are no less vague than what I just posted as an example.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> You can always ask some representative people before making a questionable decision.


That only works if you are aware that your decision is questionable. But also, I'll admit that if I was in the position of deciding what art to put on a boutique amp, I would not be polling people on whether or not they find it objectionable. I would assume that my own values fall under common sense. Which I probably shouldn't assume. But I still would.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Last year, a guy was fired from public radio after a woman made allegations of sexual harassment.


Given that I live in the Ottawa area (technically not in Ottawa, but close enough), I find that this kind of tension is all over the place. I stopped listening to local radio because it's basically all they ever talk about. Every morning, someone new is accused of harassment, or getting fired for what they thought was a harmless remark, or for having hit on someone he shouldn't have a decade ago, etc. I'm not against the idea of putting people in their place if they've done something deserving - but without having much detail on any of the cases it's hard to tell what is or isn't deserving (the radio tends to err towards it's always deserved), and given how they've ramped up reporting of this kind of stuff, it's very..... tense? Feels witch-hunt-y? I hate saying something like "it's tiring" cause wording it that way I'm sure opens me up to something like "oh, you're tired of us making social progress?" or something like that, but it's kind of true. 

It leaves you in a weird walking-on-eggshells frame of mind. I go into the office and worry that if I expressed the wrong opinion, or spoke about anything in my private life, or tell band stories or something, I'll get branded a sexist or something and put my job at risk. There's a sort of unspoken political leaning to the kind of business/office we are, and it's difficult to navigate when you don't agree 100% with the values certain parts of your company or industry puts forward.

I dunno, kinda going off on a weird tangent that isn't super relevant to the conversation/thread.

Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about the exaggerated frame of mind I'm left in after listening to the news. I don't really fear the loss of my job. While I don't always see eye to eye with everyone (I mean, that's not realistic), I do work with good people who understand the idea of nuanced discussion, or varying opinions, for the most part.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

Popular opinion is also extremely fickle. I'm sure if that exact image were on an amp from the 1980's, no one would have batted an eye.


----------



## xzacx (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> And this is on SSO, which is presumably more progressive than TGP and enough to look like an LGBT parade in comparison to rig-talk, where you can hear the n-word in a discussion about troubleshooting your preamp tubes.



I'm usually pretty impressed with how civil people around here are able to keep things, even in disagreement. Don't get me wrong, there are those who's opinions I think are moronic (and they probably think mine are too), but I appreciate the fact that I can still have a conversation with most of them. I feel like that's pretty rare for the internet in 2018. It sure makes this place a lot more appealing to actually visit than RT.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

Maybe it's just me, but I find it much easier to have difficult conversations without those reputation bar things we used to have. It's hard to keep things civil and on track when little mini arguments about reputation points are mixed in.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Given that I live in the Ottawa area (technically not in Ottawa, but close enough), I find that this kind of tension is all over the place. I stopped listening to local radio because it's basically all they ever talk about. Every morning, someone new is accused of harassment, or getting fired for what they thought was a harmless remark, or for having hit on someone he shouldn't have a decade ago, etc. I'm not against the idea of putting people in their place if they've done something deserving - but without having much detail on any of the cases it's hard to tell what is or isn't deserving (the radio tends to err towards it's always deserved), and given how they've ramped up reporting of this kind of stuff, it's very..... tense? Feels witch-hunt-y? I hate saying something like "it's tiring" cause wording it that way I'm sure opens me up to something like "oh, you're tired of us making social progress?" or something like that, but it's kind of true.
> 
> It leaves you in a weird walking-on-eggshells frame of mind. I go into the office and worry that if I expressed the wrong opinion, or spoke about anything in my private life, or tell band stories or something, I'll get branded a sexist or something and put my job at risk. There's a sort of unspoken political leaning to the kind of business/office we are, and it's difficult to navigate when you don't agree 100% with the values certain parts of your company or industry puts forward.
> 
> I dunno, kinda going off on a weird tangent that isn't super relevant to the conversation/thread.



I think it's absolutely relevant to the conversation.

I don't have to worry about it, I think, because I work in a department that's 100% male and ~90% conservative. But that's an onion ready to have the layers peeled back! The guys in this department seem perfectly fine with insulting each other daily, using slurs, etc. etc., so why would anyone want to work here? I don't think the bosses would ever consider placing a woman over here, merely out of fear of how much trouble a couple of the guys over here would get themselves into. In fact, there once was a colleague from Europe who came here to work with some of the guys here, and one of the big bosses came over to remind everyone not to be their typical asshole selves and get into trouble. The moment was very telling, I think.

I think there is a good way to approach this and that is to consider what is harmful to other people. Some people might simply be on a path of self-destruction and think that everything is generally harmful to them, but most people have enough of a thick skin for most problems to be resolved civilly. I think that all that needs to happen is for some body of people to be granted enough authority to come up with a sort of ten commandments or something like that, that people can easily read and understand and modify their behaviours. Maybe that's too much, but if the people get together and determine that something like that is too much, then it gives credence to the idea that some of these reactions are overblown. You know? Either way, by having someone be placed in some sort of authority position saying something is not okay, it makes an impression, and it's very easy to reference.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Women are actually not a minority.



Hey now, you know what I mean. Within a particular context.


----------



## tedtan (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> * I do know many CS women who would probably be offended at the notion of "smart belle" as like a hot girl in a miniskirt...but with _glasses_! If it's "smart belle" and like a logo of Grace Hopper -- now that's progressive!





narad said:


> Now imagine to yourself, an intelligent woman. Someone who worked really hard and studied a ton, maybe went to grad school. Wound up in a successful position. What comes to mind? How far off is it from the "smart belle" logo woman, and does that make you feel any differently about whether that is art or an unfavorable portrayal?





bostjan said:


> At least with the white girl in glasses wearing a tight skirt and posed seductively, these guys can say that they chose the image because they admire such women, or whatever.



The amp is supposedly going after the Dumble sound, so the name is derived from that: Dumble = Dumbbell, so the clone/inspired by amp is the opposite, a Smart Belle. This is a pretty common naming tactic in the boutique amp/FX pedal/amp modelling world.

So are we concerned with the name (I notice that narad uses quotation marks around it), the image, or both? (For what it's worth, I agree that the image could be better).


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> Hey now, you know what I mean. Within a particular context.


In the spirit of taking this conversation (and every other, for that matter) off topic, I'll bring up something I heard on the radio today, about how 9.9% of Americans decide local government policies that affect everyone. The story talked about how difficult it is to become a doctor, because you have to go to school, and in order to go to school, you have to be very smart, and in order to be very smart, you probably need to have been raised by people with money. So it's sooooo unfair, or something of that nature. Well, damn, if I need surgery to save my life, do I want Dr. Smarty McSmartypants, who went to Harvard Medical School to operate on me, or do I want some random schmuck pulled off the street? I dunno, that whole story made me unreasonably cross.

But here's the thing about women. They are 51% or more of the population. If they banded together as one solid demographic, they could do pretty much anything. But that's simply not specific enough to be a demographic in any real situation. Just like "men" isn't a demographic.

I think there's a breakdown here. We're looking at a group of guitarists willing to spend $4k on a vintage-voiced amplifier. And that group is >95% white middle-aged men. The imagery used on the amp is just the tip of a very large iceberg.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Women are actually not a minority.


I feel like, as much as we understood what was meant in context, there's still an interesting point here. I think it's worthwhile exploring how, in so many different contexts, a group that makes up almost literally 50% of everyone still ends up becoming the minority. Most of the things I do (music, work, etc.) end up being mostly male dominated. There's a pattern for sure.

Edit: Ninja'd


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

But there are musical genres that are not male-dominated, and there are fields of work that are not male-dominated. I would say that most males end up in industries that are male-dominated, simply because, well, it's kind of a tautology. Is it okay to have some career fields be primarily filled with personnel of one sex or the other?

There was a tennis player, John McEnroe, who made a comment on air about women tennis players not being able to compete against men. I think his statement was pretty much an objective statement, but he took a lot of political flack for it, and I mean a lot. Some women were pissed as hell at the notion that a retired professional tennis player would put down an entire gender or whatever. Yes, Bobby Riggs had been beaten by a woman before, but there are a lot of asterisks. I think a much much stronger point is that Karsten Braasch, at the time ranked 203 best male tennis player, took on both Venus and Serena Williams (each who achieve number 1 in women's tennis over the 3 years following this match), in 1998, not only beat the sisters, but crushed them 6-1 or 6-2. The idea McEnroe stated that co-ed tennis would end up being pretty much all male in the top 200 or more, seems to be an accurate statement, based off of that evidence.


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Is it okay to have some career fields be primarily filled with personnel of one sex or the other?


I know some people who would answer this with a simple no, without really thinking about it first.

The question I'd find more interesting is whether or not this happens more often for men, or if there's a particular pattern of what kinds of roles or activities tend to be male dominated. If there are 10 male-dominated domains for every 1 female domain, maybe there's something worth looking into there. But more importantly, the question becomes whether or not there's a good reason for that imbalance, whether or not the imbalance is something that happened naturally vs. through some kind of social power in play, etc. Like if more men play certain contact sports- fine, who cares (other than women who want to get more into said sports), or more women care about things like needlecraft I don't think anyone's going to get up in arms about there not being enough men knitting. If more men are in positions of political authority... then there's a domain worth asking questions about.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I know some people who would answer this with a simple no, without really thinking about it first.
> 
> The question I'd find more interesting is whether or not this happens more often for men, or if there's a particular pattern of what kinds of roles or activities tend to be male dominated. If there are 10 male-dominated domains for every 1 female domain, maybe there's something worth looking into there. But more importantly, the question becomes whether or not there's a good reason for that imbalance, whether or not the imbalance is something that happened naturally vs. through some kind of social power in play, etc. Like if more men play certain contact sports- fine, who cares (other than women who want to get more into said sports), or more women care about things like needlecraft I don't think anyone's going to get up in arms about there not being enough men knitting. If more men are in positions of political authority... then there's a domain worth asking questions about.



Hmm. Is there, though? I know stereotypes are dangerous, but when you are talking about trends in the behaviour of a population of people, you have to look at statistics and treat those statistics as evidence.

Given any one particular man or woman, there is really nothing anyone can say about them, but given men and women in general, there are differences. In general, men are taller than women. So, if you put a man and a woman in a room together, I couldn't guess which one was taller, but, if you put a hundred women and a hundred men in a room together, randomly chosen, I would guess that the average height of the 100 men would be more than the average height of the 100 women.

If that sort of talk offends anyone, then, well, I don't know what to tell them, except maybe study some more mathematics and don't bother reading the rest of my post.

As a general population, men and women are wired to think differently. One approach is, by no means, more valuable, in general, than the other, but, for certain tasks, some approaches are more popular than others. Again, this doesn't count for extreme cases, and it means nothing about individual people's traits, only the general traits of a population as observed through the lens of statistics.

Generally speaking, women are more nurturing, patient, empathetic, and general-minded. Generally speaking, men are more stern, more apt to take shortcuts, and more focused on single tasks. It should be expected, then, by the logic I lay out here, that careers where a single task is to be focused upon more fervently, have a larger proportion of male workers, and careers that require juggling a larger number of tasks should have a larger proportion of female workers.

No doubt that society takes these roles and reinforces them. If Ug the caveman wanted to stay in the cave and prepare porridge and wash the boarskins whilst his wife Ugga went out to hunt sabre-tooth tiger, the couple would have likely been shunned by the others in the tribe. Nowadays, you have people like Danica Patrick, who can drive a car in an oval just as well as the guys, yet I imagine she might have heard a lot of "interesting" things when she made her career decision. Yet, still, due in part to genetic pre-dispositions, and probably due moreso to social behaviour reinforcements, you have NASCAR drivers being overwhelmingly male.

Then there's politics. To me, a stereotype woman politician sounds like a good idea, in that I would not mind having someone running the show who is nurturing, more able to balance a large number of tasks simultaneously, more patient, and more empathetic to constituents. For some reason, though, even when women are able to raise more money than men for an election, there's a 6% gap between male and female candidates in votes, all else being equal, and that trend, maybe not surprisingly, is just as distinct, if not more, for female voters than for male voters ( https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005198906982 ).


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> As a general population, men and women are wired to think differently. One approach is, by no means, more valuable, in general, than the other, but, for certain tasks, some approaches are more popular than others. Again, this doesn't count for extreme cases, and it means nothing about individual people's traits, only the general traits of a population as observed through the lens of statistics.
> 
> *Generally speaking, women are more nurturing, patient, empathetic, and general-minded. Generally speaking, men are more stern, more apt to take shortcuts, and more focused on single tasks. It should be expected, then, by the logic I lay out here, that careers where a single task is to be focused upon more fervently, have a larger proportion of male workers, and careers that require juggling a larger number of tasks should have a larger proportion of female workers.*
> 
> No doubt that society takes these roles and reinforces them. If Ug the caveman wanted to stay in the cave and prepare porridge and wash the boarskins whilst his wife Ugga went out to hunt sabre-tooth tiger, the couple would have likely been shunned by the others in the tribe. Nowadays, you have people like Danica Patrick, who can drive a car in an oval just as well as the guys, yet I imagine she might have heard a lot of "interesting" things when she made her career decision. Yet, still, due in part to genetic pre-dispositions, and probably due moreso to social behaviour reinforcements, you have NASCAR drivers being overwhelmingly male.



I think this is a dangerous direction to move in. I'm a sciencey person too so you're not going to scare me with the acknowledgement that male and female are different and our brains are going to be different too. I just think we're no where near understanding what a male brain (on average) is good at vs. what a female brain (on average) is good at. Or, barring talk of good or better/worse, simply different tendencies chosen.

I'm reminded of The Bell Curve, and the episode of Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris where he had Charles Murray on. One of my favorite episodes of that show. The super short summary is that Charles is a scientist fascinated by intelligence and in particular, how to assess and quantify it. So he did very broad IQ test studies (if you're ever told IQ doesn't matter, he's also an interesting person to listen to on that topic), and of course when you're doing a broad study you look at how particular groups do with respect to other groups. I've never looked at these studies but I guess the gist of it is that blacks and latinos scored lower than whites.

I remember in high school when this was brought up, and I don't think thoroughly discussed -- I just remember thinking like, yes! More proof that I'm smart! Then, off to college, had a little more context, talk about socioeconomic factors and how this book was terrible pseudoscience, published mostly to push a racial agenda. 

It wasn't until I heard the podcast that I felt I got the full story, which is that this guy doesn't seem to have an agenda -- besides understanding intelligence. Unfortunately some groups do better than others on this test. The most important takeaway is that the variance within a population is far larger than the one across populations, to the point where you can't make any real-world decision based on race or gender, even if you're so narrow-minded that you're trying to only select high-IQ people. And you're going to get scales along any group divide, yet we don't talk about blondes being smarter than redheads being smarter than brunettes. Somehow those don't merit as much discussion despite being strong associate with particular genetics, which naturally have some effect.

So this is what this discussion reminds me of. You've just put the female mind forward as being associated with all these stereotypically female behaviors, and the male one with the stereotypically male behaviors. But is the science behind that sound? Is the variance within a gender so much narrower than it is across gender that we should even speak in these terms? I really imagine that it's not the case, and that there is really no need to try to find a cause that goes as far back as a genetic predisposition to have a certain brain that pursues certain careers.

Like we used to have the hunterer/gatherer idea of primitive man, and then in that model women would stay home and men would go out hunting. And women would do stuff with babies, so any study that sort of supports that gets bonus points there, and men have to be cunning and be out there fighting to stay alive, and any study that supports brains good for that gets bonus points. But then, it seems for now, that model is being discarded. Hunting was often an endurance race, involving both genders (at least, this is a recent theory...subject to be totally wrong just as much as others)


----------



## TedEH (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Then there's politics.


I meant to say that those very broad differences, when speaking in general, might be able to explain some of those disparities, but I don't think it explains all of them.

Politics in specific is an area where I would accept the "we should probably have a diverse set a points of view" argument, and it's not hard to find examples where diversity is lacking in positions of authority. I don't think any of the above generalizations can either explain or justify those cases, given that this is an area that can benefit from those differences. If we ask the question "why has there been no female president?", there's no generalization that can be made to say that it's a role more suited to males. And to bring it back around to the original topic, you could say "why are there relatively few female guitar heros?" or "why are there no boutique amps that target women specifically?", and there are certainly answers to those questions, but those answers don't or can't boil down to any generalization about what each sex might be better suited to do.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

If you heard a podcast that said that whites, on average, score higher than latinos, on average, on IQ tests, and took that to mean that you were smarter, then I think you missed the whole "on average" part entirely.

Check out this article: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-10262-002 Like I have been saying, it investigates gender biases in hundreds of samples, and concludes that women should be better at political leadership than men, on average.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> But there are musical genres that are not male-dominated, and there are fields of work that are not male-dominated. I would say that most males end up in industries that are male-dominated, simply because, well, it's kind of a tautology. Is it okay to have some career fields be primarily filled with personnel of one sex or the other?
> 
> There was a tennis player, John McEnroe, who made a comment on air about women tennis players not being able to compete against men. I think his statement was pretty much an objective statement, but he took a lot of political flack for it, and I mean a lot. Some women were pissed as hell at the notion that a retired professional tennis player would put down an entire gender or whatever. Yes, Bobby Riggs had been beaten by a woman before, but there are a lot of asterisks. I think a much much stronger point is that Karsten Braasch, at the time ranked 203 best male tennis player, took on both Venus and Serena Williams (each who achieve number 1 in women's tennis over the 3 years following this match), in 1998, not only beat the sisters, but crushed them 6-1 or 6-2. The idea McEnroe stated that co-ed tennis would end up being pretty much all male in the top 200 or more, seems to be an accurate statement, based off of that evidence.


I'm so sick of people acting like men and women are completely equal in all aspects. We can treat each other equally, but we should respect each other's differences (both biological and cultural,etc). Men and women are not and will not ever really be equal physically. The anatomical differences alone give men advantages (we have bigger lungs, increased muscle mass and larger upper torsos/arms compared to women).

I've seen it happen time and time again in martial arts where (regardless of gender) the fighter who's better at controlling the pace and utilizing their strengths better wins. Size, reach and power all matter. Skill can only mitigate those traits to some extent. There are some really exceptionally tough and skilled females out there, but they still have a lot of trouble with men that are naturally bigger and stronger than them. There was a high level female kickboxer (Lucia Rijker) who got absolutely rinsed by a low level male fighter simply due to his size/reach/power advantage.

To give another example, I've worked with a lot of female medics in the army. A lot of them are not able to effectively drag a wounded soldier out of harm's way by themselves, especially if the soldier is wearing full combat gear (which adds at least a good 40 lbs to their body weight). Granted, I've seen some exceptionally strong females in the army, but there's only so much they can do on their own if the patient is significantly larger than them. It's hard for me to do it at times, and I'm a relatively big guy (6'0 230lbs) who's used to lifting/moving people my size or bigger. I once had to carry/drag a guy that weighed close to 300 lbs with all of his gear on, and that was basically a two man drag by the end, and a four man carry. If I'm having trouble doing that, then a 130lb woman is going to have a hell of a time trying to move him. One of my instructors loved to find the strongest female in each class, and then make them carry the biggest patients he could find during lane training, just so they'd understand how hard it is to move a patient in real life (especially if they're by themselves).


The same thing happens in the hospital all the time. A lot of the female nurses just aren't big/strong enough to really help with patient transfers or moving patients from their bed to the toilet (if they're somewhat ambulatory). Since they struggle with moving patients, most of the female nurses get good at delegating those kind of roles to the orderlies or some of the male nurses. They still help if possible, but there's only so much they can do some times. It's the same for the female medics, they're usually the first people to designate big burly guys to help them with grabbing patients. Most of the nurses/medics I work with make no attempt to try and prove that they're just as strong as a man or anything like that. They accept their own limitations and that some people are better suited to certain roles. It's part of making an effective team, which is critical in the hospital. The newer nurses tend to get frazzled and burn out quickly partly because they think they can do everything on their own. Nothing is funnier than watching a 130lb nurse try and move a 250lb diabetic patient by themselves, all because they don't want to ask for help.
the Lucia Rijker video:


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> If you heard a podcast that said that whites, on average, score higher than latinos, on average, on IQ tests, and took that to mean that you were smarter, then I think you missed the whole "on average" part entirely.



That wasn't on the podcast. That was me in like early high school age (~1996) hearing in passing about this study for the first time.



bostjan said:


> Check out this article: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-10262-002 Like I have been saying, it investigates gender biases in hundreds of samples, and concludes that women should be better at political leadership than men, on average.



I'm not going to pay $12 to assess the article, but again, on average doesn't mean anything. Blondes are better at political leadership than brunettes (or vice versa, not going to run that study), on average. Variance means something.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

Anyway, what is "dangerous" about looking at the data from aptitude and personality tests, looking at the demographics for a particular career and saying "gee that makes sense," or, "gee, that seems counter-intuitive?"

Honestly, what I think is more dangerous is what I see more people doing, which is more along the lines of looking at the demographics in a particular career field, ignoring the other data, and saying "we need fewer of this particular demographic in this career field, so we need to a) hand out more scholarships that exclude that particular majority demographic and b) apply hiring practices that penalize job candidates who fit that majority demographic."


----------



## spudmunkey (May 22, 2018)

All I know is that I missed the Guitar World annual Buyer's Guide the last couple of years.


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Anyway, what is "dangerous" about looking at the data from aptitude and personality tests, looking at the demographics for a particular career and saying "gee that makes sense," or, "gee, that seems counter-intuitive?"



First, I would say it’s dangerous to assign women a broad range of categories they are deemed to be better at, when our understanding of who’s better at what (across all sorts of criteria) are pretty bad and constantly being revised.

Second, a divide that cuts the entire population approximately in half is a very coarse category to be making any sweepnig generalizations over. It’s important to include metastatistics in this. Let’s say women are better than men at nursing, because we have determined that, inline with all our cultural stereotypes, they are more nuturing. They are 3% more nurturing. But let’s say, on the same test, the standard deviation among men participants was 10 pts by this same nuturing aptitude scale.

Then nothing you’ve said is wrong, we look at an industry dominated by women, and conclude that it’s probably because they are genetically predisposed to it — they are on average better at it. Yet, by the numbers, we’ve probably read it entirely incorrectly, and if aptitude correlated well to occupation, you’d have expected a much less skewed gender divide in nursing (the actual divide as mention earlier was something like 20% male IIRC).

Things like that.

But I'm really not going to even begin to touch trying to decide what non-physical occupations men/women are better/less suited to, as I think the science behind it is quite poor.


----------



## bostjan (May 22, 2018)

narad said:


> First, I would say it’s dangerous to assign women a broad range of categories they are deemed to be better at, when our understanding of who’s better at what (across all sorts of criteria) are pretty bad and constantly being revised.
> 
> Second, a divide that cuts the entire population approximately in half is a very coarse category to be making any sweepnig generalizations over. It’s important to include metastatistics in this. Let’s say women are better than men at nursing, because we have determined that, inline with all our cultural stereotypes, they are more nuturing. They are 3% more nurturing. But let’s say, on the same test, the standard deviation among men participants was 10 pts by this same nuturing aptitude scale.
> 
> ...


Well, I'm fine with simply disagreeing.

But if aptitude tests and actual career demographics match even with a small margin of agreement due to a wide standard deviation, I still think the science is good enough to say that there's no need for alarm, and if it's contrary to that it deserves a closer look.

It's not like there is a shortage of sociological studies that support my broad idea that women are at least just as good as men at politics, on average, yet there is a discrepancy in the career demographics, so...

Anyway, have we hit the quota for thread derailment yet?


----------



## narad (May 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Well, I'm fine with simply disagreeing.



Given this is all a bit of a tangent, let's end it there then 

Man, all my emails today have also required very careful language and I am _shot_.


----------

