Why do you suppose more males than females are Rush fans?

[Flavia2112]

It's not sexist to point out reality that for much of their existence, 90% of Rush fans were men.

Fortunately, they picked up more female fans as time went on.

Not what I'm saying. It is probably true that there are more male fans than female fans. What I'm saying is that it's sexist to say the reason is that women only like dance music or whatever.

Yeah, overall -- GENERALIZATION INCOMING -- many women like to feel romanced by male singers. It's a tradition as old as troubadours in Provence.

Ged and Neil emphatically did NOT romance anybody in the vocals.

Instead they sang about evil galactic priests, radio waves, and how we gotta deviate from the norm.

Maybe it would've been different if they hadn't been married, and actively dating. Regardless, their minds were evidently elsewhere.

 

And guys don't like to be romanced by singers?

 

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Straw_man

I don't see why that's a straw person argument. Entre_Perpetuo is making a legitimate point.

[IbanezJem]

I haven`t read all the comments, but if it is true, then I don`t think it would be an exclusive to Rush thing. Are fans of prog rock male or female? The question is not a fair one, because when bands where emerging through the 70s society was completely different. Most of my ex`s were and indeed my wife is keen on aggressive rock music, if not prog, and listened to music just as keenly as I do and there was no "romance" element - beauty and feeling but not crooners singing love songs.

[Weatherman]

It's not sexist to point out reality that for much of their existence, 90% of Rush fans were men.

Fortunately, they picked up more female fans as time went on.

Not what I'm saying. It is probably true that there are more male fans than female fans. What I'm saying is that it's sexist to say the reason is that women only like dance music or whatever.

Yeah, overall -- GENERALIZATION INCOMING -- many women like to feel romanced by male singers. It's a tradition as old as troubadours in Provence.

Ged and Neil emphatically did NOT romance anybody in the vocals.

Instead they sang about evil galactic priests, radio waves, and how we gotta deviate from the norm.

Maybe it would've been different if they hadn't been married, and actively dating. Regardless, their minds were evidently elsewhere.

 

And guys don't like to be romanced by singers?

 

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Straw_man

I don't see why that's a straw person argument. Entre_Perpetuo is making a legitimate point.

Sorry, no. It was a classic straw person argument.

My point: Many women like to feel romanced by male singers.

His response: Are you saying men don't like to feel romanced by female singers?

His response was unrelated to my comment, and also unrelated to Rush, because the singer in Rush was male.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

It's not sexist to point out reality that for much of their existence, 90% of Rush fans were men.

Fortunately, they picked up more female fans as time went on.

Not what I'm saying. It is probably true that there are more male fans than female fans. What I'm saying is that it's sexist to say the reason is that women only like dance music or whatever.

Yeah, overall -- GENERALIZATION INCOMING -- many women like to feel romanced by male singers. It's a tradition as old as troubadours in Provence.

Ged and Neil emphatically did NOT romance anybody in the vocals.

Instead they sang about evil galactic priests, radio waves, and how we gotta deviate from the norm.

Maybe it would've been different if they hadn't been married, and actively dating. Regardless, their minds were evidently elsewhere.

 

And guys don't like to be romanced by singers?

 

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Straw_man

I don't see why that's a straw person argument. Entre_Perpetuo is making a legitimate point.

Sorry, no. It was a classic straw person argument.

My point: Many women like to feel romanced by male singers.

His response: Are you saying men don't like to feel romanced by female singers?

His response was unrelated to my comment, and also unrelated to Rush, because the singer in Rush was male.

 

What I did was find an implication in your greater argument. Here's my understanding of it:

 

-given factual premise 1: more males are Rush fans than females

-your possible premise 2: women like to feel romanced by male singers

-implied premise 3: Rush don't sing many love songs and don't romance their listeners

-your conclusion: thus women are more likely not to be Rush fans than to be Rush fans

 

You could draw the conclusion from premises 2 and 3 without involvement from premise 1, but the issue is premise 1 matters because it is factual and this thread is asking for reasons why it is so. The conclusion you give doesn't actually answer the thread's question, not without looking into its implication a little bit. By saying women are more likely not to be Rush fans than to be Rush fans, you haven't said anything about whether men are more likely to be Rush fans than not to be Rush fans, nor have you said anything about the ratio of men and women in the Rush fandom. It could be true that men also like to feel romanced by male singers (or perhaps female singers, this point doesn't matter that much), and since Rush don't tend to do much romancing, men are equally not likely to be Rush fans. If this were the case, then the Rush fandom would have a roughly equal split of male and female fans... but it does not! Premise 1 tells us it doesn't.

So in order for both premise 1 and your conclusion to be true, it's fair for me to assume that another implied premise in your argument is this: "men don't like to be romanced by male singers, or at least men don't care about being romanced by male singers" (again, substitute male singers for females singers if you please, though that does technically muddy the logic a little bit). That would make the logical equation look something like this:

 

-given factual premise 1: more males are Rush fans than females

-your possible premise 2: women like to feel romanced by male singers

-implied premise 3: men don't like to be romanced by male singers, or at least men don't care about being romanced by male singers

-implied premise 4: Rush don't sing many love songs and don't romance their listeners

-your conclusion: thus women are more likely not to be Rush fans than to be Rush fans

 

So when I asked "And guys don't like to be romanced by singers?" I was questioning the truth of one of the implied premises in your argument, not creating a straw man. And I still question that premise.

[Maverick]

This is definitely how Rush fans argue a point.

[JARG]

Because Rush is such a long-lived band, the demographic of its audience has changed over the years, so my comments are going to focus mostly on the first decade of Rush as a recording unit -- this is when they developed their core fan base, a fan base that rewarded them for the risk they took in recording 2112, the success of which allowed Rush a shitload of artistic freedom.

 

My first Rush concert was 42 years ago today (Hemispheres tour) and I can confidently say the ratio of males to females in the audience that night was probably 20:1. That ratio was slow to change for many years, with the biggest single-tour shift happening during the MP tour.

 

The scarcity of female fans at those early Rush shows prompts two possibilities in my mind:

1. There were just as many female fans as Rush fans but the female fans didn't care to go Rush concerts

2. There just weren't as many female Rush fans as male mans.

 

I think it's the latter. I had many conversations with my male classmates in high school about music in general and Rush in particular, and far fewer likewise conversations with my female classmates -- they just didn't seem that interested. The reason for that is that my male classmates loved to talk about music, almost obsessively, and those of us who were Rush fans really connected. I don't know if it's true today, but back in the late 70s and early 80s, males tended to bond over musical interests. I don't know women did that much, but if rock music wasn't the lingua franca with females the way it was with males, then that probably explains why Rush didn't really catch on with females in the numbers that they did with males.

 

If there are any aged 50+ females in our ranks here at TRF, can you speak to this? Was rock music in general, and Rush in particular, something you girls would spend hours talking about in HS?

Edited February 25, 2021 by JARG

[Nova Carmina]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

[JARG]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

Going by personal observations at concerts, I think the premise is likely correct.

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

Why couldn't musical taste be gender biased? Is it not possible certain styles of music appeal to one gender more than another in sufficient enough numbers that generalities could be reasonably inferred?

[JARG]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

Edited February 25, 2021 by JARG

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

Going by personal observations at concerts, I think the premise is likely correct.

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

Why couldn't musical taste be gender biased? Is it not possible certain styles of music appeal to one gender more than another in sufficient enough numbers that generalities could be reasonably inferred?

 

The idea is that gender isn't supposed to be about taste, though it is often treated like it is about taste. Gender is more about self-expression and identity. So it's not directly about what you like but what you are like. Perhaps an argument can be made that people who are more like x are more likely to like y for reason z, but obviously those variables would need to be filled in and then the logic would need to be analyzed.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women. Because it was the expectation of those with the power to influence who would be exposed to what, it became the reality. Really it became the reality prior to Rush, going probably back to the mid-late 60s. Maybe there was an assumption among marketing folk that women wouldn't like, say, King Crimson out of a belief that women would prefer music that was more romantic or emotional and men would prefer music that was more realistic and cerebral. So despite heaviness and proginess, a band like Led Zeppelin might have been more equally recommended since they had qualities which people expected both men and women to prefer, whereas a band like Genesis was missing the qualities that it was presupposed women would like.

 

I'm actually starting to think this couldn't have been limited to simple marketing systems (because goodness knows a lot of the suits probably had no idea what this new rock and roll thing was or why people liked it), the lines of thinking I keep referring to were probably pretty well ingrained all the way down to kids in grade school not expecting girls to like guitars and not expecting boys to like stage clothes. One of the brilliant things about the artists in rock and roll though was they were always trying to push those expectations and make people realize their taste in music or clothing or whatever was not predetermined by their gender.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Entre_Perpetuo

[JARG]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

Edited February 25, 2021 by JARG

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

 

So you're saying you think it's linked to biology. That testosterone drives men to like more aggressive music and estrogen drives women to like less aggressive music. I'm not going to discount this possibility, but I do think it's still possible (even likely) that societal expectations cause people to decide they don't or do like certain things at a young age not because they naturally feel any way about them, but because they're told they're supposed to feel certain ways about them.

[JARG]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

 

So you're saying you think it's linked to biology. That testosterone drives men to like more aggressive music and estrogen drives women to like less aggressive music. I'm not going to discount this possibility, but I do think it's still possible (even likely) that societal expectations cause people to decide they don't or do like certain things at a young age not because they naturally feel any way about them, but because they're told they're supposed to feel certain ways about them.

 

Let's assume it's 1976 and you're an advertising exec for Mercury. How would you market Rush to appeal to females? To males?

Edited February 25, 2021 by JARG

[Maverick]

Girls don't like Rush because the lead singer's ugly and his nose is too big.

 

Facts.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

 

So you're saying you think it's linked to biology. That testosterone drives men to like more aggressive music and estrogen drives women to like less aggressive music. I'm not going to discount this possibility, but I do think it's still possible (even likely) that societal expectations cause people to decide they don't or do like certain things at a young age not because they naturally feel any way about them, but because they're told they're supposed to feel certain ways about them.

 

Let's assume it's 1976 and you're an advertising exec for Mercury. How would you market Rush to appeal to females? To males?

 

No no I'm seeing your point about the marketing thing not being a great answer. If all I have is the source material and the job to market it to different demographics, I'm going to see different results based on what aspects I highlight. I not really with this advertising reason so much any more. Certainly there are ways where marketing could help try to even things out, but short of placing the same ads in magazines already heavily marketed towards female and male stereotypes (which doesn't really solve the larger problem as much as tries to work around it) there's not a good way to be both unbiased and to get the music to both men and women. The problem is with social expectations. As a guy, I shouldn't be expected not to like Katy Perry, but I am. Girls shouldn't be expected not to like Rush, but they are. These expectations come from peers, friends, parents, and yeah to some extent advertising (though advertising isn't trying to influence people not to like things as much as to like things. You can bet if Barbie could find a way to successfully cross over to the boys' demographic it would). But a lot of those societal expectations are changing, and that's probably part of the reason why many more women could be found at rush shows late in their career than earlier on. More and more people started getting wise to the fact that expectations do not have to be reality, and they started deciding what they liked on more unbiased grounds.

[Amps211]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

 

So you're saying you think it's linked to biology. That testosterone drives men to like more aggressive music and estrogen drives women to like less aggressive music. I'm not going to discount this possibility, but I do think it's still possible (even likely) that societal expectations cause people to decide they don't or do like certain things at a young age not because they naturally feel any way about them, but because they're told they're supposed to feel certain ways about them.

 

Let's assume it's 1976 and you're an advertising exec for Mercury. How would you market Rush to appeal to females? To males?

 

No no I'm seeing your point about the marketing thing not being a great answer. If all I have is the source material and the job to market it to different demographics, I'm going to see different results based on what aspects I highlight. I not really with this advertising reason so much any more. Certainly there are ways where marketing could help try to even things out, but short of placing the same ads in magazines already heavily marketed towards female and male stereotypes (which doesn't really solve the larger problem as much as tries to work around it) there's not a good way to be both unbiased and to get the music to both men and women. The problem is with social expectations. As a guy, I shouldn't be expected not to like Katy Perry, but I am. Girls shouldn't be expected not to like Rush, but they are. These expectations come from peers, friends, parents, and yeah to some extent advertising (though advertising isn't trying to influence people not to like things as much as to like things. You can bet if Barbie could find a way to successfully cross over to the boys' demographic it would). But a lot of those societal expectations are changing, and that's probably part of the reason why many more women could be found at rush shows late in their career than earlier on. More and more people started getting wise to the fact that expectations do not have to be reality, and they started deciding what they liked on more unbiased grounds.

 

Just like usual we can look to This Is Spinal Tap for the answer lol

 

 

Marty DiBergi: "Let's talk about your music today, uh... one thing that puzzles me, ummm... is the makeup of your audience. It seems to be, uh, predominantly, young boys." David St. Hubbins: "Well, it's a sexual thing, really. Aside from the identifying that the boys do with us, there's also a reaction to the, of the female to our music." Nigel Tufnel: "Yeah, really they're quite fearful. That's my theory. They see us on stage, with tight trousers... We've got, you know -- armadillos in our trousers. I mean, it's really quite frightening -- the size. And, and they, they run screaming."

[Entre_Perpetuo]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

 

So you're saying you think it's linked to biology. That testosterone drives men to like more aggressive music and estrogen drives women to like less aggressive music. I'm not going to discount this possibility, but I do think it's still possible (even likely) that societal expectations cause people to decide they don't or do like certain things at a young age not because they naturally feel any way about them, but because they're told they're supposed to feel certain ways about them.

 

Let's assume it's 1976 and you're an advertising exec for Mercury. How would you market Rush to appeal to females? To males?

 

No no I'm seeing your point about the marketing thing not being a great answer. If all I have is the source material and the job to market it to different demographics, I'm going to see different results based on what aspects I highlight. I not really with this advertising reason so much any more. Certainly there are ways where marketing could help try to even things out, but short of placing the same ads in magazines already heavily marketed towards female and male stereotypes (which doesn't really solve the larger problem as much as tries to work around it) there's not a good way to be both unbiased and to get the music to both men and women. The problem is with social expectations. As a guy, I shouldn't be expected not to like Katy Perry, but I am. Girls shouldn't be expected not to like Rush, but they are. These expectations come from peers, friends, parents, and yeah to some extent advertising (though advertising isn't trying to influence people not to like things as much as to like things. You can bet if Barbie could find a way to successfully cross over to the boys' demographic it would). But a lot of those societal expectations are changing, and that's probably part of the reason why many more women could be found at rush shows late in their career than earlier on. More and more people started getting wise to the fact that expectations do not have to be reality, and they started deciding what they liked on more unbiased grounds.

 

Just like usual we can look to This Is Spinal Tap for the answer lol

 

 

Marty DiBergi: "Let's talk about your music today, uh... one thing that puzzles me, ummm... is the makeup of your audience. It seems to be, uh, predominantly, young boys." David St. Hubbins: "Well, it's a sexual thing, really. Aside from the identifying that the boys do with us, there's also a reaction to the, of the female to our music." Nigel Tufnel: "Yeah, really they're quite fearful. That's my theory. They see us on stage, with tight trousers... We've got, you know -- armadillos in our trousers. I mean, it's really quite frightening -- the size. And, and they, they run screaming."

 

Funny clip.

[Flavia2112]

At the risk of being reductive, do we agree that the premise of the question is correct?

 

Are there fewer female fans?

 

The lines to the restrooms at concerts would say so; the active membership of this website suggests it.

 

Those are anecdotal, but if there are fewer female Rush fans, I don't see how it would be possible to answer the question of why without resorting to some gendered essentialism and large-scale claims that any critic could puncture with specific counter-examples.

 

Are there/have there been social pressures that kept females from music like Rush's? Surely something like musical taste is not gender-based. What would those pressures have been?

 

I'm still of the mind that it came down to marketing and societal expectations. Namely people didn't expect women to be fans of loud rock music, so they didn't market it to them.

 

OK, but if Rush was marketed in such a way as to appeal to males more than females, that suggests that there is something about Rush that could be marketed in such a way, which then suggests that gender does play a role.

 

Sure, so with Rush that thing is that they were a loud heavy progressive rock band in the 70s, and people tended to expect that men would enjoy those qualities in music more than women.

Probably correctly so, generally speaking. That assumption was (and may still be) likely generally true, particularly if you're talking about young men who are awash in testosterone. The "in your face" quality of early Rush and the themes of rebellion against authority certainly hit me in the right spot when I was awash with testosterone. My girlfriend in HS certainly tolerated my love of Rush, but I know she didn't share it. The music was too aggressive for her and she couldn't really relate to the lyrical themes -- she didn't find "herself" in those sorts of Rush songs, whereas I did. Was she an anomalous female? I don't think she was. I think she was very representative of her gender at that age.

I happen to know quite a few high school girls who are huge Rush fans.

[Rhyta]

Because Rush is such a long-lived band, the demographic of its audience has changed over the years, so my comments are going to focus mostly on the first decade of Rush as a recording unit -- this is when they developed their core fan base, a fan base that rewarded them for the risk they took in recording 2112, the success of which allowed Rush a shitload of artistic freedom.

 

My first Rush concert was 42 years ago today (Hemispheres tour) and I can confidently say the ratio of males to females in the audience that night was probably 20:1. That ratio was slow to change for many years, with the biggest single-tour shift happening during the MP tour.

 

The scarcity of female fans at those early Rush shows prompts two possibilities in my mind:

1. There were just as many female fans as Rush fans but the female fans didn't care to go Rush concerts

2. There just weren't as many female Rush fans as male mans.

 

I think it's the latter. I had many conversations with my male classmates in high school about music in general and Rush in particular, and far fewer likewise conversations with my female classmates -- they just didn't seem that interested. The reason for that is that my male classmates loved to talk about music, almost obsessively, and those of us who were Rush fans really connected. I don't know if it's true today, but back in the late 70s and early 80s, males tended to bond over musical interests. I don't know women did that much, but if rock music wasn't the lingua franca with females the way it was with males, then that probably explains why Rush didn't really catch on with females in the numbers that they did with males.

 

If there are any aged 50+ females in our ranks here at TRF, can you speak to this? Was rock music in general, and Rush in particular, something you girls would spend hours talking about in HS?

My take on this, I think that the way we consumed music in the 70's has some bearing on this. Top 40 radio played the hits of the Beatles, then bubble gum, The Jackson 5 and segued into disco. I don't remember hearing Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Rush on the radio because I didn't listen to hard rock stations in the 70's. Yet I went to a lot of concerts in the late 60's and early 70's and I saw Santana, Creedence Clearwater, Iron Butterfly, Amboy Dukes, eventually Kiss and Led Zeppelin. I heard about most of these groups by going to friends of friends houses and listened to albums they liked. I didn't hear Rush until my younger sister became a fan but for whatever reason they didn't call to me. My sister told a story of an encounter with a guy in one of her classes at the start of the school year. He sat down and asked her name then told her he was Alex Lifeson. She said no you are not, he laughed and said you don't even know who Alex is and she proceeded to tell him all she knew about Rush and he was taken aback. She was the only girl that called him on this gambit (or so he said) and they became fast friends after that. But why did she become a Rush fan and I didn't then, can't say. For me it is this assumption that girls weren't interested or the songs were too loud or complicated. It may have been true for some but not all.

I liked the sexy looking guys but I also listened to the music and picked out parts of bass lines and other things that caught my attention, so it just depended on what I wanted to listen to at the time and it constantly changed. My sister went to as many Rush concerts as she could through high school and beyond, I didn't see them until R30, go figure.

 

I went on to meet a musician and learned a lot about jazz fusion and some classic jazz and branched out into Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra but I loved ELO at the same time. I didn't come to Rush until late in their career and it was the same thing for me as with the fusion, I found things I loved about their playing and I liked that they weren't singing about party hardy all the time and getting girls to sleep with them. They made me think and I liked it, just like my sister was so blown away by 2112's story and how Neil weaved all these references into his songs. It's not helpful to try to pigeon hole female fans or generalize. Times change and musical tastes change.

 

I think the lack of female fans has just been a running joke, the scene where the band comes in the dressing room where Paul Rudd and his buddy were eating their food? Neil says I counted 7 girls in the balcony. Funny. I read some of the early comments when this thread was started and it is obvious they were trying to raise hackles and get some reactions. I'm just glad that my sister found them to enjoy and that I learned what I had been missing and became a big fan. There have been some good points made here but I guess I am too old now to get that upset about them, if guys want to use stereotypes to explain it, that's on them. I am a female Rush fan and glad I saw them 3 times in concert. It's all good.

[RushFanForever]

The perception of 'lack of female RUSH fans' is the same as the 'lack of male music fans' at Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair concerts in the 90's.

 

In relation to this thread.

 

The Globe and Mail - Breaking through the gender barrier (female Rush fans)

 

New York Post - Rush finally scores

 

Jam Bands - Rush: Why No Female Fans?

 

SFGATE - The women’s bathroom at last night’s Rush concert …

 

Time Magazine - Dude vs. Chick Rock: Is There a Music Gender Divide?

 

Salon Media Group - I'm a woman and I love Rush (and I am not alone)

Edited February 27, 2021 by RushFanForever

[IbanezJem]

Because Rush is such a long-lived band, the demographic of its audience has changed over the years, so my comments are going to focus mostly on the first decade of Rush as a recording unit -- this is when they developed their core fan base, a fan base that rewarded them for the risk they took in recording 2112, the success of which allowed Rush a shitload of artistic freedom.

 

My first Rush concert was 42 years ago today (Hemispheres tour) and I can confidently say the ratio of males to females in the audience that night was probably 20:1. That ratio was slow to change for many years, with the biggest single-tour shift happening during the MP tour.

 

The scarcity of female fans at those early Rush shows prompts two possibilities in my mind:

1. There were just as many female fans as Rush fans but the female fans didn't care to go Rush concerts

2. There just weren't as many female Rush fans as male mans.

 

I think it's the latter. I had many conversations with my male classmates in high school about music in general and Rush in particular, and far fewer likewise conversations with my female classmates -- they just didn't seem that interested. The reason for that is that my male classmates loved to talk about music, almost obsessively, and those of us who were Rush fans really connected. I don't know if it's true today, but back in the late 70s and early 80s, males tended to bond over musical interests. I don't know women did that much, but if rock music wasn't the lingua franca with females the way it was with males, then that probably explains why Rush didn't really catch on with females in the numbers that they did with males.

 

If there are any aged 50+ females in our ranks here at TRF, can you speak to this? Was rock music in general, and Rush in particular, something you girls would spend hours talking about in HS?

My take on this, I think that the way we consumed music in the 70's has some bearing on this. Top 40 radio played the hits of the Beatles, then bubble gum, The Jackson 5 and segued into disco. I don't remember hearing Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Rush on the radio because I didn't listen to hard rock stations in the 70's. Yet I went to a lot of concerts in the late 60's and early 70's and I saw Santana, Creedence Clearwater, Iron Butterfly, Amboy Dukes, eventually Kiss and Led Zeppelin. I heard about most of these groups by going to friends of friends houses and listened to albums they liked. I didn't hear Rush until my younger sister became a fan but for whatever reason they didn't call to me. My sister told a story of an encounter with a guy in one of her classes at the start of the school year. He sat down and asked her name then told her he was Alex Lifeson. She said no you are not, he laughed and said you don't even know who Alex is and she proceeded to tell him all she knew about Rush and he was taken aback. She was the only girl that called him on this gambit (or so he said) and they became fast friends after that. But why did she become a Rush fan and I didn't then, can't say. For me it is this assumption that girls weren't interested or the songs were too loud or complicated. It may have been true for some but not all.

I liked the sexy looking guys but I also listened to the music and picked out parts of bass lines and other things that caught my attention, so it just depended on what I wanted to listen to at the time and it constantly changed. My sister went to as many Rush concerts as she could through high school and beyond, I didn't see them until R30, go figure.

 

I went on to meet a musician and learned a lot about jazz fusion and some classic jazz and branched out into Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra but I loved ELO at the same time. I didn't come to Rush until late in their career and it was the same thing for me as with the fusion, I found things I loved about their playing and I liked that they weren't singing about party hardy all the time and getting girls to sleep with them. They made me think and I liked it, just like my sister was so blown away by 2112's story and how Neil weaved all these references into his songs. It's not helpful to try to pigeon hole female fans or generalize. Times change and musical tastes change.

 

I think the lack of female fans has just been a running joke, the scene where the band comes in the dressing room where Paul Rudd and his buddy were eating their food? Neil says I counted 7 girls in the balcony. Funny. I read some of the early comments when this thread was started and it is obvious they were trying to raise hackles and get some reactions. I'm just glad that my sister found them to enjoy and that I learned what I had been missing and became a big fan. There have been some good points made here but I guess I am too old now to get that upset about them, if guys want to use stereotypes to explain it, that's on them. I am a female Rush fan and glad I saw them 3 times in concert. It's all good.

Excellent post, Rhyta. Rush are top notch musicians and it`s obviously incorrect to suggest that cannot be appreciated by all people. A bit of a left-field comparison, but I remember reading how Morrissey is huge in Mexico and amongst the Latino community. Why? Who knows, but it makes no more sense then why I love Canadian and Californian music when I`m stuck here in the middle of the UK.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

Because Rush is such a long-lived band, the demographic of its audience has changed over the years, so my comments are going to focus mostly on the first decade of Rush as a recording unit -- this is when they developed their core fan base, a fan base that rewarded them for the risk they took in recording 2112, the success of which allowed Rush a shitload of artistic freedom.

 

My first Rush concert was 42 years ago today (Hemispheres tour) and I can confidently say the ratio of males to females in the audience that night was probably 20:1. That ratio was slow to change for many years, with the biggest single-tour shift happening during the MP tour.

 

The scarcity of female fans at those early Rush shows prompts two possibilities in my mind:

1. There were just as many female fans as Rush fans but the female fans didn't care to go Rush concerts

2. There just weren't as many female Rush fans as male mans.

 

I think it's the latter. I had many conversations with my male classmates in high school about music in general and Rush in particular, and far fewer likewise conversations with my female classmates -- they just didn't seem that interested. The reason for that is that my male classmates loved to talk about music, almost obsessively, and those of us who were Rush fans really connected. I don't know if it's true today, but back in the late 70s and early 80s, males tended to bond over musical interests. I don't know women did that much, but if rock music wasn't the lingua franca with females the way it was with males, then that probably explains why Rush didn't really catch on with females in the numbers that they did with males.

 

If there are any aged 50+ females in our ranks here at TRF, can you speak to this? Was rock music in general, and Rush in particular, something you girls would spend hours talking about in HS?

My take on this, I think that the way we consumed music in the 70's has some bearing on this. Top 40 radio played the hits of the Beatles, then bubble gum, The Jackson 5 and segued into disco. I don't remember hearing Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Rush on the radio because I didn't listen to hard rock stations in the 70's. Yet I went to a lot of concerts in the late 60's and early 70's and I saw Santana, Creedence Clearwater, Iron Butterfly, Amboy Dukes, eventually Kiss and Led Zeppelin. I heard about most of these groups by going to friends of friends houses and listened to albums they liked. I didn't hear Rush until my younger sister became a fan but for whatever reason they didn't call to me. My sister told a story of an encounter with a guy in one of her classes at the start of the school year. He sat down and asked her name then told her he was Alex Lifeson. She said no you are not, he laughed and said you don't even know who Alex is and she proceeded to tell him all she knew about Rush and he was taken aback. She was the only girl that called him on this gambit (or so he said) and they became fast friends after that. But why did she become a Rush fan and I didn't then, can't say. For me it is this assumption that girls weren't interested or the songs were too loud or complicated. It may have been true for some but not all.

I liked the sexy looking guys but I also listened to the music and picked out parts of bass lines and other things that caught my attention, so it just depended on what I wanted to listen to at the time and it constantly changed. My sister went to as many Rush concerts as she could through high school and beyond, I didn't see them until R30, go figure.

 

I went on to meet a musician and learned a lot about jazz fusion and some classic jazz and branched out into Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra but I loved ELO at the same time. I didn't come to Rush until late in their career and it was the same thing for me as with the fusion, I found things I loved about their playing and I liked that they weren't singing about party hardy all the time and getting girls to sleep with them. They made me think and I liked it, just like my sister was so blown away by 2112's story and how Neil weaved all these references into his songs. It's not helpful to try to pigeon hole female fans or generalize. Times change and musical tastes change.

 

I think the lack of female fans has just been a running joke, the scene where the band comes in the dressing room where Paul Rudd and his buddy were eating their food? Neil says I counted 7 girls in the balcony. Funny. I read some of the early comments when this thread was started and it is obvious they were trying to raise hackles and get some reactions. I'm just glad that my sister found them to enjoy and that I learned what I had been missing and became a big fan. There have been some good points made here but I guess I am too old now to get that upset about them, if guys want to use stereotypes to explain it, that's on them. I am a female Rush fan and glad I saw them 3 times in concert. It's all good.

Excellent post, Rhyta. Rush are top notch musicians and it`s obviously incorrect to suggest that cannot be appreciated by all people. A bit of a left-field comparison, but I remember reading how Morrissey is huge in Mexico and amongst the Latino community. Why? Who knows, but it makes no more sense then why I love Canadian and Californian music when I`m stuck here in the middle of the UK.

 

And almost all my favorite bands are British, but I've never set foot in England.

[Rhyta]

And almost all my favorite bands are British, but I've never set foot in England.

Hear, Hear. In my case it was because of the Beatles that I became an anglophile but most of the best groups at that time were English. Just as I love Canada and Canadians because I am a hockey fan..or is it the other way around? :coy:

Edited March 1, 2021 by Rhyta