Sexism in Classical Music

[jeweltoned]

I'm studying to be a professional classical musician at a conservatory in the USA and sexism has been a very real concern of every female classical musician here for as long as anyone can remember.  Up until the eighties, orchestras in Europe and the USA were completely dominated by white males.  Although women made up half the student body in the major conservatories, they were not winning any jobs (for those of you unfamiliar with the process, in order to win a job with a symphony, a player has to audition in front of a panel of judges).  Then something happened... someone somewhere decided to put up screens, so that the committees could not see the person who was auditioning for them until the very end of the hiring process.  I could be wrong about this, but I think this was originally supposed to stop the panels from being racist, as racism was a voiced issue in the 70s, but sexism was not.  No one really thought much about women, because even in the 70s it was just assumed that women did not have the lung capacity (or emotional capacity, perhaps, in the case of string instruments) to play music at the highest possible level.  Anyway, point is, once those screens went up orchestras started becoming 50/50 in terms of women/men ratio.  In some ways its a huge victory for women, in that classical music is now, to a large extent (and with some very notable and scandalous exceptions: www.classicalmusicjournal.com.au/vienna-philharmonic-sexism-and-racism-scandals/) open to everyone.  However, it is still sad that the need for these screens exist.  As a student here, we are told by our teachers to never wear anything to an audition that could give away the fact that we are female.  High-heels are a no.  Dont cough.  Dont wear perfume.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this interests very many of you, but hiding the fact that I'm a female will be important for me when it's time for me to earn a living through playing my instrument.  I mean, how far have we really come?