15 f Ranting & Reeling I


t’s good to talk about inequality. The more we talk about inequality the less of it there is. That was the opening to an article called Has Folk Forgotten


Feminism? that I wrote for The Guardian. Or at least it was the opening until the piece was rephrased by editorial staff.


This isn’t a whine about being misrep- resented. I know the pressure editors are under to attract enough readers to satisfy the advertisers that pay for a publication to exist. Neither will I criticise sub-editors, because there’s probably one reading this right now. (Hi, should there’ve been a semi-colon after the first sentence?)


But The Guardian thought my article would attract more attention if it began with an assertion that the folk scene was: “turning into a man’s world”.


I didn’t write that. It’s not something I remotely believe. But it worked. The readers came. As did the angry mob. I didn’t read the comments; that way insanity lies. But some of them found their way to me across the social net- works. Some were reasonable and will- ing to debate. Others called me irrespon- sible and wrong to write about isolated incidents of sexism on the festival circuit. I was less reasonable and willing to debate with them.


I don’t know how many examples were needed to merit an article. I didn’t think it needed more than two (several more women told me similar stories but I only had 800 words and wanted to give some of those to Sandra Kerr because she was in Bagpuss.)


Nevertheless, many readers were angered at what they saw as an implica- tion that these two occurrences of inequality meant the entire scene was a seething sexist snake pit. Even though the article stated several times that it isn’t.


To have a persecution complex about issues of inequality is to place yourself above those who’ve been directly affect- ed by that inequality. Get to the back of the queue with your hurt feelings; we’ll deal with those when we’ve mended the millennia of patriarchal oppression. And to insist that everything’s fine, as several objectors did, is to presume your experi- ence must be everyone’s experience. And that’ll never be true.


My experience is that the traditional folk scenes of the British Isles are the most gender-balanced of any area of music. And that musicians are judged pri- marily on their talents.


But when I spoke to female musicians I learned that isn’t always the case. That’s


what inspired the article. If, in a scene as pro- gressive as ours, there are pockets of chauvinism, how do we eradicate


them? If there’s still an imbal- ance (and there is) how do we fix it? None of


us would suggest ignoring inequality.


Actually there were those who did just that. And even those who responded by suggesting the women in question did themselves no favours by the way they appeared in promotional photographs.


As long as there are people on the scene who feel entitled to tell women how they should look, or that their experiences aren’t significant enough to be discussed, then articles like this still need to be written. For as long as any- one is excluded, no matter how infre- quently, the conversation continues. And the least of our problems is a sensa- tionalised subheading.


Tim Chipping


The Elusive Ethnomusicologist


look! Batman!” I looked around but failed to spot Christian Bale.


W “Where?”


“Over there, in the tree!” She was literally hopping with excitement.


“Why would Christian Bale be up a tree in Chiswick?”


“Not Christian Bale! Batman! Look!”


And there he was – Batman up a tree in Chiswick. Batman looming from the branches of a horse chestnut that we’ve passed every day for years. Sudden. Unex- pected. Batman, the caped crusader!


We scampered over, now a com- bined age of seven, despite all evidence to the contrary. (There may have been an impression of ‘special needs’).


“Hello Batman!”


“Hello good ladies of the city of Chiswick.” (Proper American accent – only Americans would call Chiswick a city – and proper rubberised kit. We weren’t going to let his dodgy trainers interfere with the thrill).


“What are you doing here Batman?”


e were out walking the dogs in the park when my friend suddenly squealed and clapped her hands, “Ooh


“I’m here to protect the good citi- zens of this fair Chiswick city.”


“Thank you Batman”


“Have you witnessed any crime or wrong doing in this fine park?”


“No Batman!” “That’s because I’m here to protect


you.”


A crowd was beginning to form. Some of it far less credulous than us. “You all right mate?”


“Yes Sir. I’m Batman.” “Let’s face it mate…”


We left. Reaching the gates we turned to see that Batman, like the moment, had disappeared. But for a brief minute we had been taken out of time, removed from the linear run of things. No longer invisible women with dogs in the park and teenage children at home, we were plucked out of the hum- drum to exist in a timeless spell of child- like wonder. I thought ‘I’d like this feel- ing far more often. I can’t rely on Batman turning up on the off-chance.’


And then I remembered that music gives us that feeling too. Listening as it becomes and fades in every moment, music pulls us into the here and now and then beyond it. It tugs at our emotions


and drops us in at any time that we happen to connect with it. The music we love keeps us forever young – in childlike thrall to the tireless wonder of it. And con- necting with new music we’re rejuve-


nated in the flowing stream of evolving culture. Time collapses in on itself, dis- solves in that act of listening. And also as it happens, in the act of playing, even though you might be keeping strict time, you’re eased beyond it, moved fluidly through to a timeless moment, slap bang in a place of shared humanity, reminded of what it is to be human.


Keeping time you’re released from it. Playing or listening in isolation you are connected to the whole of humanity: examples of life’s beautiful paradoxes. A bit like the Batman who wasn’t Batman in the park. He couldn’t really save the day. But he did.


Elizabeth Kinder


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