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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2083 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 30, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Interesting implication being that when men made up the whole orchestra, from flute to timpani, a wider range of masculine expression was allowed. Flute was a purely male instrument in the best Vienna orchestras until the early 21st century!

It's only the introduction of women into the orchestra that marks one instrument as masc and another as femme. Until then all orchestral performance was masculine, and the variety you chose could implicate the kind of man you were but not your masculinity itself.

I think this is what's missing from the modern gender debate with the supposedly traditionalist right wing view (that I am sympathetic to). Traditionally if there was a profession, men were almost exclusively doing it, and so we can realistically expect men to have a pretty broad palette of expressiveness.

I basically see it as male security -> women enter workforce -> male anxiety -> men undermining and sniping at each other, enforcing too restrictive gender roles. The result is broader male expression gets twisted into shame-coated "queer" outlets rather than being healthily expressed, and traditionalists are confused into not realizing the anxiety itself (part of) the problem.

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