Objectification and Branding of Women in the Guitar World

[PunkBillCarson]

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]

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]

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

 

[bostjan]

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]

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]

^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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.