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Question for and about men


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(Note: I'm on spring break this week, which is why I've been more loquacious than usual :yahoo: )

Okay, this is the question. It's about men and the arts, including the liberal arts.

I was talking to two friends this week, teachers in different fields, at different universities, one (a man) in English and the other (a woman) in art history. Both of then taught classes that were overwhelmingly female. Not just a plurality, but a landslide -- only one, two, three men in classes of 20 and 30.

They did not think this was odd.

When did this happen? Just about all the men I know are involved in the arts in some way, and so all read fiction, go to art museums, and do not squirm when the word "opera" enters the conversation.

I know that the audience for ballet has become predominantly female (and I don't thnk this is a good thing) but I didn't know that reading, writing, painting and music were equally on the It's Not a Guy Thing list.

Thoughts? To the men on this board, can you talk about ballet with friends? To the parents of sons, do your children read? Or is a teenage Guy embarrassed to be caught with a book? Do they read "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," "Madame Bovary," "Anna Karenina?" Or are these Chick Lit? (women with opinions may also respond, of course!)

Not looking for scientific studies, just anecdotes and opinions. I mean this for all the arts, but put it here in the hopes of drawing a bigger crowd :shake:

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From what I'm seeing these days, teenage boys and college students don't read books, period. They seem to be, by a large majority, headed on a business administration track, and nothing to back it up. The MBA seems to be the goal, and the need for gratification is as instant as it can be. MBAs I know started in other disciplines, lived and worked for awhile, got some experience of the broader world, and then pursued the advanced degree. Now, it seems like Liberal Arts are there as an unnecessary evil, and treated as such by students. It also doesn't help to have instructors who want to get the uninterested ones out of their disciplines as quickly and painlessly as possible. Inflate the grade, so it won't spoil the student's chances of getting into grad school. Ecch! :bash:

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Well, my son is only four, so who knows where he'll end up. But we have been exposing him to "the arts" and so far he likes them -- he can't read, but he loves books and being read to. He has favorite paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (mainly Jackson Pollack), and he often chooses dance videos to watch beore bed over Little Bear. How this will all change as he gets older and peer presssure kicks in, I can't say.

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My Boys (22 and 20) read (mostly nonfiction but literature at school), watch movies (TV and Theater) and like going to both museums and art galleries. They think about, talk about and synthesize what they see and read.

It is Television and the Movies, as the dominant forms of entertainment, both now and then (when younger), that mostly determine their pattern of cultural activity. They will be far more likely to watch a movie of a Jane Austen book then to read one.

TV is the culprit in our changing needs of culture, artistic, political, the ways we relate to each other publicly. That and computers, which also involve us sitting in separate compartments and dealing with life through a screen. But it's irremediable, alas.

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To the parents of sons, do your children read? Or is a teenage Guy embarrassed to be caught with a book?  Do they read "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," "Madame Bovary," "Anna Karenina?"  Or are these Chick Lit?  (women with opinions may also respond, of course!)
I am the mother of 3 sons and 3 daughters. My eldest son (31) has read voraciously all his life, mountains of books in every genre, but he is an unusual soul. My second son (24) probably has not read any of those "are these Chick Lit?" books. As a comedy writer and cartoonist, he's always been drawn to quirky humour (Farside, Bizarro-type things) which he reflects in his own work. He's always got a book with him, but I don't see him as a big reader. My third son (14) is not a reader at all -- has never read for pleasure. In school he's had to read a few novels (right now it's Moonfleet) and I see that his interest can be engendered, but, so far, only if a book is forced upon him! (Sometimes I think that my daughters got the rest of the reading genes -- after child/son no. 1 -- and left little for their brothers. My DD, for example, inhales books and cannot live without them. Whenever anyone in our Estonian community visits Tallinn, where my daughter dances, I send another book along for her. She favours the classics.)

We are an arts-oriented family. Our children are artists, dancers, singers and writers, except for daughter no. 1 who is a biology teacher (as well as a folk dancer!). I think that makes a difference in their reading choices and their preferred social milieu. Also, our 2 oldest sons have never been interested in sports, and that makes a difference. And, our home has always been filled with music (my husband is a French teacher by trade, a performing singer by vocation), as is our life in the Estonian community (does anyone know of the "Singing Revolution" which was instrumental in the overthrow of Communism in Estonia in 1991? Estonians are a singing people). That makes a difference too. Our sons have not had to hide their interest in the arts from sports-immersed friends, since they didn't have any such pals. Our social circle includes dancers, opera singers, musicians, writers, artists and songwriters so the children, both sons and daughters, have always been exposed to the arts at a high-quality level. This makes the biggest difference of all. It's been their life. This is their normal, and no one is embarrassed by it, either to discuss their interests or to go to performances or museums. Now, if we were a hockey family......

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(Note: I'm on spring break this week, which is why I've been more loquacious than usual :) )

Okay, this is the question.  It's about men and the arts, including the liberal arts.

I was talking to two friends this week, teachers in different fields, at different universities, one (a man) in English and the other (a woman) in art history.  Both of then taught classes that were overwhelmingly female.  Not just a plurality, but a landslide -- only one, two, three men in classes of 20 and 30.

They did not think this was odd. 

When did this happen?  Just about all the men I know are involved in the arts in some way, and so all read fiction, go to art museums, and do not squirm when the word "opera" enters the conversation. 

I know that the audience for ballet has become predominantly female (and I don't thnk this is a good thing) but I didn't know that reading, writing, painting and music were equally on the It's Not a Guy Thing list.

Thoughts?  To the men on this board, can you talk about ballet with friends?  To the parents of sons, do your children read? Or is a teenage Guy embarrassed to be caught with a book?  Do they read "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," "Madame Bovary," "Anna Karenina?"  Or are these Chick Lit?  (women with opinions may also respond, of course!)

Not looking for scientific studies, just anecdotes and opinions.  I mean this for all the arts, but put it here in the hopes of drawing a bigger crowd :)

i am not surprised either.

i was a Math major and American Lit minor in College and went to a fairly prestigious Engineering school in PA, which was also a prestigious drama and dance school.

Discarding 100-level classes, my math and engineering classes were painfully devoid of female students and my lit classes were fairly devoid of male students. My art history classes were split, but favoring females. My business classes were split, but favored the males.

As a computer game programmer in Boston, we had 1 female in the Development dept; we also had an art dept, whcih also had only 1 female. I was also a high school math teacher for a short time and the majority of the math teachers were female. WHen i was in medical research, there were some , but not many female researchers and techs. In my culinary classes, it was just about split.

i've always read alot and written alot as well as done programming and math and sports. Most of my [guy] friends were similar. Of course, things that we read were not Bronte sisters, Plath, or Rand; rather, i'd prefer HP Lovecraft, Poe, Hemingway, Hawthorne, Twain, Heinlein, Asimov, ...

-goro-

Edited by EvilNinjaX
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Thanks for these responses!

Goro, why "Of course, things that we read were not Bronte sisters, Plath, or Rand" ? When I was in high school and college both males and females read the Brontes and Austen (Rand was political, Platt was new then, so not on the required reading lists. I read her for pleasure, as I read many male novelists). Austen was read and studied for her use of the language and insights into character, not because she wrote about domestic matters. Several boys in my high school class majored in English at college with the hopes of becoming writers or journalists.

That's part of the change. The men I know who are scientists also read poetry (and msytery stories) for fun, but they're older -- some in their 60s and 70s. Most of the men I know who aren't directly involved in the art form who go to the ballet with pleasure are also in that age group.

Is this just television? Or has there been such a split between the genders that one doesn't read/partake in "the other's" interests? And that, coupled with the push to the MBA and computers, making colleges more trade and technical schools now, with the liberal arts having only a vestigial presence? (I noted, the last time I visited Georgetown, one of my alma maters, that the theology department now shares quarters with the business department and the latter has four times the faculty and the space as the former.)

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Thanks for these responses!

Goro, why "Of course, things that we read were not Bronte sisters, Plath, or Rand" ?  When I was in high school and college both males and females read the Brontes and Austen (Rand was political, Platt was new then, so not on the required reading lists. I read her for pleasure, as I read many male novelists). Austen was read and studied for her use of the language and insights into character, not because she wrote about domestic matters.  Several boys in my high school class majored in English at college with the hopes of becoming writers or journalists.

That's part of the change. The men I know who are scientists also read poetry (and msytery stories) for fun, but they're older -- some in their 60s and 70s.  Most of the men I know who aren't directly involved in the art form who go to the ballet with pleasure are also in that age group. 

Is this just television?  Or has there been such a split between the genders that one doesn't read/partake in "the other's" interests?  And that, coupled with the push to the MBA and computers, making colleges more trade and technical schools now, with the liberal arts having only a vestigial presence?  (I noted, the last time I visited Georgetown, one of my alma maters, that the theology department now shares quarters with the business department and the latter has four times the faculty and the space as the former.)

In College, I spent the majority of my time with the graduate math students (ironically, i wasn't dancing then and i was attending a Univestiy that was reknowned for its strong dance dept) and all of them had extremely varied tastes that extended well beyond teh math/sciences. None of them were the stereotypical math nerd (although almost all of them...er, i mean, "us"... were quite odd to some degree). THere were so many that were extremely well read; in fact some of my math grad friends were more well-read than my Lit grad friends! Hard science guys (and math and ocmputer sceinece guys in particular) are really a quite eclectic bunch! and these were grad student guys in mid 20s.

and alot of my buddies love "comic books" or rather graphic novels. stuff like SIN CITY or ASTRO CITY or SANDMAN.

as to the whys of it all... hard to say, maybe you should ask the Harvard President! :) lol..

I'm not sure it's television; i'm not sure how that has anything to do with it as it's sort of a universal dummification device.

i do know that the engineers and mathematicians i knew didn't have much time to take extra courses as their load was quite full and so didn't have the opportunity to take additional classes.

i also think that a man (perhaps moreso than a woman) will direct himself to a more profitable course of study and sacrifice the liberal arts. I know from when i ws in high school, that a focus on me and my future was "how will I earn enough money to be able to provide for a family." and as such there's a responsiblity there that requires some sacrifice. i think more women feel similarly nowadays also.

Men will also gravitate towards sports rather than the Arts (not that they are diametrically opposed or antyhign). Instead of watching a ballet, rather go to a football game. Instead of taking ballet class, go to the gym and play a pickup game of basketball.

They may also be ascaird of being labelled the infamous "metrosexual" if they partake and enjoy the arts too much.

It may be all about money in the end. People want to earn money and it's generally NOT going to be thru the liberal arts. Universities want to earn money and that's generally not going to be thru the liberal arts. Although, interestingly, there' snot much money to be made thru Hard Science research either (unless it's a very specific, targetted research topic, particular engineering or medical related).

it's hard to say, exactly, but hasn't it ALWAYS been that the ballet or a museum has been sort of intimidating to young males?

-goro-

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i do know that the engineers and mathematicians i knew didn't have much time to take extra courses as their load was quite full and so didn't have the opportunity to take additional classes.

i also think that a man (perhaps moreso than a woman) will direct himself to a more profitable course of study and sacrifice the liberal arts.  I know from when i ws in high school, that a focus on me and my future was "how will I earn enough money to be able to provide for a family." 

It may be all about money in the end.  People want to earn money and it's generally NOT going to be thru the liberal arts. 

My father, an alumnus of an Ivy League university, class of 1938, used to interview applicants to his alma mater. A liberal arts student (during the Depression, you'll note), he was always saddened when a student expecting to go into pre-med spoke of getting the Liberal Arts requirements "out of the way" as soon as possible. (These were kids graduating high school in the 1970's and 1980's.) I shared his reaction that I wanted be treated by doctor who was a well-rounded human being, rather than one who took the extra course in chemistry.

I think these days, the pressures to get into graduate school encourage early specialization.

But getting back to the so-called real world, if guys are (and this may be too strong a term) put off by dance, literature, opera, and the visual arts, why does this not hold (as) true for music, film or theater?

Edited by carbro
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goro, thanks a lot for your insights. I think the "metrosexual" element has a lot to do with it, but this, too, is a change.

it's hard to say, exactly, but hasn't it ALWAYS been that the ballet or a museum has been sort of intimidating

I don't think so. Before World War II, men were the core of the ballet audience. Some of them (one reads) were lured there by the chance to see flesh (costumes were skimpier in the theater than on the street) but educated people -- the men who, motivated by money and family expectations as much as for a question for knowledge, and not implying that there's anything wrong with that -- people who went to Harvard and Yale to prepare for a profession -- attended theater. It was part of your life.

A family anecdote: my aunt, who turned 18 in 1920, did not like ballet, and once said that she had seen the Ballets Russes because "I'd go if that was the only way I could get a date."

Women have never been dominant in math or engineering classes, for reasons that most people, including those who gave the President of Harvard a vote of no confidence :), say is the result of cultural barriers and programming. But educated men were always a part of the arts world.

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This past weekend, I attended the repertory bill at the Boston Ballet, as well as the Christopher Marlowe drama, "Dido, Queen of Carthage" at the American Repertory Theatre.

Although both audiences appeared to be comprised of "older" people, there were by far more men at the theatre.

I just asked my husband, an MIT grad, why he prefers theater to the ballet (he is happy to go to the theater, will only go to the ballet -- student performances-- to see his daughter perform.)

He said ballet was "too subtle."

Maybe men used to go to the ballet because it was expected of them -- now it's socially acceptable to go only if it interests you (or your wife insists).

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Gay men or straight? I'm gay, everyone in my circle is either gay male or (self-described) heterosexual female. Myself and most of my gay male friends love the ballet OR the opera - I am one of the few who likes both - and we love to read. Most of us also like sports (basketball and tennis esp.). My female friends don't like opera or ballet (except for those in the professions) and they buy books but don't always read them. The few self-identified straight men I know fairly well (co-workers mostly) do like classical music to a degree but wouldn't go out of their way to see an opera or ballet. Those who I have "sent" to the ballet with their wives or girlfriends liked it more than they expected to. Most of these guys are not avid readers. They watch rental DVDs by the dozen.

When I was growing up in a tiny town I was the only boy in school who read for pleasure. 90% of the girls also read only what was assigned. Everyone was too busy with sports, clubs, helping their fathers on the farm, or making out in parked cars to do any reading. And once I got to college, everyone was too stoned.

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My father, an alumnus of an Ivy League university, class of 1938, used to interview applicants to his alma mater.  A liberal arts student (during the Depression, you'll note), he was always saddened when a student expecting to go into pre-med spoke of getting the Liberal Arts requirements "out of the way" as soon as possible.  (These were kids graduating high school in the 1970's and 1980's.)  I shared his reaction that I wanted be treated by doctor who was a well-rounded human being, rather than one who took the extra course in chemistry.

I think these days, the pressures to get into graduate school encourage early specialization. 

However, the research scientist spending 18 hrs a day trying to find a cure for Cancer; maybe you'd rather that he have been extremely focused even at an earlier time? My father is like this. He has been so absolutely narrow-focused his entire life and as a result has some amazing field-level achievements (including having the Nobel Prize winner in Medicine ask for some assistance in particular areas of research!).

I hesitate to fall too much on either side, b/c i've experience so much on either side. Personally, i enjoy being more eclectic, but i've found that my achievements HAVE been leser as a result. And i've had the good fortune of being around many interesting people with many intrests. I've also known some that are very very focused. They are quite interesting to be aroudn, as well. There are MANY dancers that fall into this category, as well...

But getting back to the so-called real world, if guys are (and this may be too strong a term) put off by dance, literature, opera, and the visual arts, why does this not hold (as) true for music, film or theater?

I think many men (and women) do not like classical music, theatre, or "art films". Many friends see my dvd collection and have never even heard of most of them. One good friend of mine did not know what Cirque du Soleil was. And music is more popular than ever, but really is Britney "music"?!?!?

This may be a broader question dealing more about what is happening to Culture in the United States and why (maybe) it is being "paradigm shifted" away.

I read this amazing statistic in 1990-something: The illiteracy rate was at an all-time high (for the modern period, i assume), yet booksales were also at an all-time high! the natural conclusion is that the people that were reading were reading more but that fewer people wer reding. Cultural divide and all...

There's also been a huge change in affluence. There's all this "new money" and all the mindset changes that might invoke.

-goro-

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This may be a broader question dealing more about what is happening to Culture in the United States and why (maybe) it is being "paradigm shifted" away.

Yes -- And this discussion has taken that tack. But it doesn't address the question Alexandra first put, as to whether there is a marked gender difference in which Sex studies and/or consumes Art-Literature-Theater or other Particular Cultural Forms. I take it, from what's been said above, that this is being observed in the Colleges. I don't particularly see it in the Theaters, the Galleries or the Museums. But I'll look harder.

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I agree with EvilNinjaX... men are still generally more concerned with their financial future than women are (although I believe there are more women these days in medical school than men). Isn't there some overused joke about liberal arts graduates "do you want fries with that?" The financial return on a Liberal Arts degree or a teaching degree is less enticing than the MBA... although I thought Liberal Arts were what you were supposed to take for entering Law School? Is that a mistaken impression? As far as engineering is concerned, it seems there are still few women in that field...although to talk to the professors around here, there are also very few native born Americans filling the engineering schools. I grew up in Bell Labs' backyard in the '60s & '70s and neither I nor my older sister heard any of this "girls aren't naturally good in math" stuff until we were in our 30s... frankly, I think it's a con game... the more it's said, the more it seems true and the less likely a girl is to think she can do math easily the less likely she will.

(Of course the con game works the other way too... in that men think they won't like ballet because they've been led to believe that men don't like ballet). People like what they are familiar with. It gives them a way to compare, contrast and judge. If ballet is unfamiliar, it's much harder to notice things in it. Fendrock, perhaps you should contrive to have your husband take your daughter to professional ballet performances by himself (you may need to sneak in a schedule conflict for yourself so that you can't go with.) "On his own" he may begin to see more in it.

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The larger part of the audience for virtually any kind of art is female. If I give a book talk eight out of ten people in the audience are women. This goes for most forms of art. When I get letters it's usually from women. I was talking this over with a colleague, and he said it's like it's genetically imprinted in women to be interested in the arts.

Up till recently women were tied to the home; they didn't have careers and if they wanted to know something about the world (not all people do) they had to order books and music and magazines with stories and pictures. Women are not embarrassed about this. A lot of men are. (Market research shows that men predominately purchase non-fiction books: history, biographies of men of action etc) We all know the jokes about men refusing to ask for directions when lost. This goes for the arts too.

The problem is, I'm not sure if it's genetically imprinted. My colleague and I started talking about this because I can't help but notice that the women in the audience are usually at least 45 years old. If you go down in age there are not as many more women than men. And there are not a lot of 'em anyway. Writers and publishers are really concerned about this.

The era from the Thirties through the Seventies have shown an enormous, unprecedented arts boom, as people regarded a familiarity with the arts and literature as a way to enrich their lives and become part of the professional classes. The Reagan - Thatcher era pretty much put an end to that notion. Perhaps we're back to normal. (The history of mass arts participation is really too short to be able to tell what's "normal".) In terms of sheer numbers this is very unfortuante. On the other hand I do think it's good that a larger proportion of a concert / ballet etc audience consists of people who are really into it, rather than that they're just keeping up with the Joneses.

I'm just very worried about the current crop of twentysomething women, who not only smoke more avidly than men do, pursue business and law degrees just as numerously as men do, but their cultural consumption habits have changed, too. Chicklit is just a joke; and just like the men they seem to need decades to find their way to the concert and theatre halls - not 'till they've hit age forty. If they do. If they don't, there's going to be a lot of empty seats out there.

It also means the old male fantasy of the museum as the sure spot to meet nubile women in a receptive mood is fast evaporating. Sorry, had to get that joke in. It was a question "for and about men" after all.

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A colleague of mine in the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, noted that exclusive of group and school tours, attendance at New York State Historic Sites for calendar year 2004 only averaged 400 children's admissions each. Our site was above that figure, but I have noticed over the last four years that of the kids that do show up, an astonishing supermajority are girls. Go figure: I work at a military site, and the boys aren't interested, or are not being introduced to history by their parents. And children's admissions are counted as being ages 5-12. So wherever they're going (I suggest the First Church of Vince Lombardi, Scientist), they're not going to history museums in New York State.

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A possible explanation for the lack of under 40 women (and men) in audiences, is the change in childcare and babysitting. My parents never hesitated to hire a babysitter to go out for the evening, but now families tend to either stay home in the evenings or are involved in the children's activities. At least that's how it was for us. As my daughter got older and became interested in ballet, she became my "escort" to the ballet, and with the cost of tickets being so high, I'm just as happy to leave my uninterested husband at home so that we can afford better seats :).

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The era from the Thirties through the Seventies have shown an enormous, unprecedented arts boom, as people regarded a familiarity with the arts and literature as a way to enrich their lives and become part of the professional classes. The Reagan - Thatcher era pretty much put an end to that notion.

Can you explain what you think Reagan and Thatcher had to do with ths, Herman? Thanks.

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I think it's a con game... the more it's said, the more it seems true and the less likely a girl is to think she can do math easily the less likely she will. 

Amy, you are right on the "girls are not good at math" con. There was, some years ago, an experiment by a Stanford psychologist. He selected men and women that had equal marks and abilities and separated them in two groups. Both groups took a math exam, but the first group was informed first that the test they were taking had been proved neutral to gender. To the second group no commend was made.

Not only did men and women perform equally well in the first group, but also first group women performed better than second group women and first group men performed worse than the second group men.

Second group women were held back by their "girls are not good at math" belief and men were boosted. We rarely hear of research like this... all the emphasis (and financing) is on neurobiology research ("hard" science) versus psychological (cognitive) research ("soft" science)

I am female and went to an elec.&computer engineering school. On my first year just 10% were girls. 4 years later, with the internet revolution under way, computers had gone through an image make-over and 40% were girls. Once there, they performed on average as well as the men.

That is not to say that there are no differences between the sexes. Both sexes can approach successfully any subject, but empirically, I suspect they do so throught very different routes and some subjects come more natural to men, others to women. Art is one such subject.

Which brings me to the problem as I see it: the way we live now largely confines us to what comes natural to us (our gender, our upbringing, milieu etc).

Exploring new worlds (like art) takes energy and incentive. Who of the young professionals working 10-12 hours a day, plus commute, has the energy? These people want their food and entertainment pre-chewed for them, and who can blame them? They gravitate towards what comes easiest: escapist adventure, video games, graphic novels that can be absorbed in one sitting. In my parents time there was such a thing as an 8 hour work day!!!

As for the incentives to appreciate the arts, the combined forces of mass culture and postmodernism have managed to do away with them. If one is beset by vulgarity all around there is no shame in partaking of it and when everything can be art nothing (and whatever you like) is.

What we regard as an art boom could have been a secure middle class (reasonable work hours, reasonable income, reasonable job security) stretching its interests and discovering new worlds. As western society becomes more polarised I'm afraid this will happen less and less.

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The era from the Thirties through the Seventies have shown an enormous, unprecedented arts boom, as people regarded a familiarity with the arts and literature as a way to enrich their lives and become part of the professional classes. The Reagan - Thatcher era pretty much put an end to that notion.

Can you explain what you think Reagan and Thatcher had to do with ths, Herman? Thanks.

I can't speak for Herman, but I think that the Reagan-Thatcher era was the beginning of It's All About Money. Remember "Greed is good?" The 1980s is the beginning of the MBA boom and the decline in Liberal Arts. (I don't mean this as politics, but as history.) Of course, the 1990s started out to be about "getting back to basics" and how money didn't matter, and it somehow didn't work out that way.....

Herman, I hadn't started to worry about young women yet, but now I will! But what I meant to get at when I started this thread is that once men WERE the audience -- young bachelors went to the theater. Married couples went to the theater. In "My Fair Lady," Professor Higgins laments, in "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" that one can't take a woman to the opera or ballet -- I think it's because they're silly little creatures who can't deal with complex thought. The men I know in their 60s and 70s who go to the ballet also went as young men. A few that I've discussed this with say that they were taken as children. On Sundays (in America, at least) this was Arts day. You went to a concert, or a museum, or a ballet. (And thanks for the tip about meeting men in museums :) )

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Guest nycdog

I don't know that it matters that people have no taste nowadays. Are we hoping to please Allah? Must we really care if men generally don't like the ballet or Mozart?

There's enough people interested to support the arts anyway...let it be a niche thing.

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It also means the old male fantasy of the museum as the sure spot to meet nubile women in a receptive mood is fast evaporating. Sorry, had to get that joke in. It was a question "for and about men" after all.

Herman, you reminded me of the following, from Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam,” an artifact of the Seventies:

(Woody is wandering around a museum in the hope of picking up women. He sees a pretty girl standing in front of a painting):

Allen: That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it?

Girl: Yes.

Allen: What does it say to you?

Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe -- the hideous lonely emptiness of existence; nothingness; the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos.

Allen: What are you doing Saturday night?

Girl: Committing suicide.

Allen: What about Friday night?

Those were the days. I don’t know that the above is word perfect. I once played the girl in a high school production, which is part of the reason, apart from seeing the movie several times over the years, that I recall this exchange.

Sorry. Back to the topic.

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I don't know that it matters that people have no taste nowadays.  Are we hoping to please Allah or something?

Actually there are people here who do try to please Allah, or some general equivalent, and one of the pleasures of Ballet Alert has always been that others have refrained from making snide comments about that.

I could make an argument that religious presuppositions have shaped and sustained good taste, but this isn't the place for it.

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