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Subject: Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

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  • From: "Lani Smith" <LSmith AT minlib.net>
  • To: typicalgirls AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [TypicalGirls] female record collectors
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:38:04 -0500

I'm trying write an article on female record/music collectors. Unfortunately, I feel I need to answer whether or not girls even collect at all... Then I'd like to answer, or ponder why there seem to be fewer female collectors.
 
Check out this quote below from Simon Frith, a music writer that I had a lot of respect for.
 
Please let me know if you have any thoughts, or ideas, or would like to talk about this, on list or off!
Thanks,
Lani
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PSF: You've talked about generalizations of record collecting habits where girls are 'dupes' and boys are 'cognoscenti.' How do you find this so?
 
SF: It's just that there's a very strange thing and who knows where it lies? In a course that I was doing, it came out about different peoples' record collections. I found there was a huge difference when we were talking about it in a social way with boy versus girl or whatever. One of the few generalizations you can make is that if a boy likes a record, they'll go out and buy all of them (by an artist). You find that when boys buy a Bon Jovi record for instance, they have to go out and buy all the Bon Jovi records, whereas girls may have two. And the boys are very contemptuous of girls, thinking that they're not serious listeners. And that just kind of struck me through a lot of anecdotal experience- just to hear how girls listen to music, that they're not collectors like boys are. And that's something with a very long history and that goes across any number of cultures too. Being collectors and cognoscenti seems to be a very masculine attribute. How you actually explain that, I absolutely have no idea- what sort of cultural or psychology things are at play and such.
 



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