# I still don’t see as many women teaching jazz, and I feel it’s important for young men to learn from women: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/03/08/i-still-dont-see-as-many-women-teaching-jazz-and-i-feel-its-important-for-young-men-to-learn-from-women-video/
- Published: 2018-03-08T10:28:26+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**“They make a beeline to. When I’m introduced, they blurt out, ‘Oh!’ and I can 
see the mental adjustment being made and their approach to the conversation being
instantly re-evaluated,” Sarah Bell said.**

In Bell’s previous role in the organization, introductions often went south too,
with men scanning her physique from head to toe, then openly talking about their
impression of her body instead of sticking to the meeting’s agenda. “In those moments
you play it off, because the goal was to make them feel comfortable enough to engage
the organization at a high level,” Bell said. “But internally you know that your
work now includes getting the conversation, and their minds, back on track.”

Neither Bell’s experience nor her initial hesitation in sharing it is uncommon, 
particularly in the male-dominated jazz industry. Vibraphonist Sasha Berliner, whose
blog post “An Open Letter to Ethan Iverson (and the Rest of Jazz Patriarchy)” has
made her one of the most talked-about jazz musicians associated with the #MeToo 
movement, said she waited six months to publish her piece because she was nervous
about the response.

Jazz is a world where, to quote the _Boston Globe_, Berklee College of Music allowed
teachers to “quietly leave after alleged sex abuse, and pushed students for silence.”
It’s a genre in which just five of this year’s 25 Grammy nominations were filled
by women, and a culture where being a young female instrumentalist almost guarantees
being asked at some point in your career whether you’re carrying your boyfriend’s
instrument.

None of this is new. What _is _new is that suddenly, after Harvey Weinstein’s sexual
misconduct scandal reignited activist Tarana Burke’s “Me Too” hashtag, women feel
empowered to speak out about gender-based discrimination, harassment and assault.
They’re being heard, too. Across multiple industries and countries, workplace policies
are being revised and accused harassers are being held accountable for their behavior.

The jazz industry, meanwhile, has been slow to capitalize on the #MeToo-inspired
momentum, a point writer Lara Pellegrinelli made in December, of the non-profit 
arts venue National Sawdust. The lag may be due, in part, to the chicken-and-egg
cycle of systemic gender bias that’s helped shape the culture of the music. But 
complacency shouldn’t be an option at a time when tangible progress is being made
in other fields, and new research into sexism and sexual harassment is constantly
becoming available.

Certainly the conversation around these issues has remained an impetus for change.
Last fall, the dialogue inspired Hollywood studios to send out staff memos reiterating
and breaking down their policies on sexual harassment. And it bolstered the entertainment
industry-driven Time’s Up campaign, which raised millions of dollars for a legal
defense fund to support victims of sexual harassment or workplace assault.

It’s also inspired men to speak out on social media about their own experiences 
being sexually victimized at work. (And as Lara Stemple and Ilan H. Meyer pointed
out in a 2017 Scientific American report, neglecting to consider the experience 
of men who are harassed or assaulted helps reinforce gender-role stereotypes in 
which women are seen as weak or more easily victimized; more reason to keep the 
conversation as open as possible.)

Jazz can learn from these instances in which open conversation led to tangible change.
Labels, festivals, institutions and, in some cases, bandleaders can include explicit
zero-tolerance policies for sexual harassment and assault in all contractual paperwork.
They can revise their hiring practices to include the blind auditions that Jazz 
at Lincoln Center finally adopted after years of lobbying. They can, as Berliner
suggests, sign the We Have Voice Collective’s commitment to “[eliminating] a systemic
structure that normalizes harassment and discrimination.” The loose contract created
by more than a dozen female musicians including Tia Fuller and Jen Shyu asserts 
specific ways its signatories will fight such behavior. As of mid-January, it had
nearly 800 signatures.

Ultimately, though, the systemic gender bias described by the We Have Voice Collective
flourishes at every level of this industry. Fighting for a more equitable community
at only one level—whether jazz education, institutional development or the festival
circuit, where female instrumentalists are underrepresented as headliners—won’t 
be enough. So how do we institute change across the board?

One approach supported by statistical research is to get serious about installing
more women in leadership roles, including in education. Studies have long shown 
that women are more likely to be sexually harassed than men, and that sexual harassment
is reported more frequently in male-dominated fields. Where men hold more leadership
positions, a culture of complicity around sexual harassment develops, contributing
to the frightening numbers revealed in a recent study by the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission: Seventy-five percent of workplace sexual-harassment victims
experience retribution for speaking out.

In a 2017 study published in the Harvard Business Review, sociologists Frank Dobbin
and Alexandra Kalev argued that “training programs and reporting systems won’t end
harassment; promoting more women will.” Their research shows that instituting measures
like anti-harassment training gets fewer results than promoting women, which challenges
perceptions about gender roles and fosters a culture of mutual respect.

Of course, women can’t be leaders if there are no women, a fact SFJAZZ Director 
of Education Rebeca Mauleón struggles with daily. “We have this constant challenge
to bring more young women into this world and, at the same time, what do they see?
They see themselves not represented on stages, not as the directors of these programs;
they see themselves further marginalized,” she said, citing the two young women 
out of more than 20 players in this year’s SFJAZZ High School All-Stars band as 
an example of the gender imbalance. “We have to go the extra mile.”

[[

**Terri Lyne Carrington**

It’s also essential for young male players to see women—and, in the interest of 
intersectionality, people from various marginalized groups—as mentors. “I still 
don’t see as many women teaching jazz, and I feel it’s important for young men to
learn from women because that shifts their perspective,” said drummer and Berklee
professor Terri Lyne Carrington, who’s seen “so many” male students shift from being“
a little dismissive about what I can offer” to considering her to be their mentor.

“If you’re able to look to a woman as a mentor in this music, it’s going to affect
your outlook on it and who you hire once you’re out there [playing professionally],”
she said.

Both Carrington and Mauleón are big believers in the need to keep a wide representation
of identity groups involved in “open and honest conversations” about these issues.“
We’re talking about issues of race and class and privilege … all of that has to 
be taken into consideration as a whole,” Mauleón said. “When we’re playing music,
we’re expressing our humanity. We’re taking turns, we’re listening. Music is the
ultimate equalizer.

“At the end of the day, we need to be able to understand each other to play music
together.”

![#MeTwo](https://i0.wp.com/cdn2.jazztimes.com/2018/03/Metoo_image_4c-420x290.jpg?
resize=420%2C290&ssl=1)

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