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So, I recently started a Pandora station at work. I "seeded" it with Bonnie Dobson, and Pandora kept playing the same 10 songs. That got boring, so I added a couple more female singers. Some good songs played, and I liked a couple songs by groups with male singers. Beetles. Simon & Garfunkle. Stuff like that.
Four hours later, I started wondering why I was hearing less than one female singer/group an hour when the three main seeds I'd given the program were all women or female groups.
Now, don't get me wrong, I was enjoying all the songs I was hearing--what I wasn't loving was what I wasn't hearing. There are so many fantastic female artists! Where were they?
I decided to do an experiment. At home, I started another station with all-female seeds. I've spent time over the last week sending male singers off to other stations. Even so, every 4th or 5th song is by a male artist. Now, I've never seen Pandora list gender of singers as one of their criteria for "why we played this song"; as far as I know, that's not one of the things the program tracks.
My conclusion (based, admittedly, on a limited sample), is that It's difficult to get a whole hour of all women artists, but easy to get more than an hour of all male artists even when the station's seed artists are female.
I'm tired of stumbling over examples of how often and how easily women are overlooked in our world.
Even when there's good cheese:
Four hours later, I started wondering why I was hearing less than one female singer/group an hour when the three main seeds I'd given the program were all women or female groups.
Now, don't get me wrong, I was enjoying all the songs I was hearing--what I wasn't loving was what I wasn't hearing. There are so many fantastic female artists! Where were they?
I decided to do an experiment. At home, I started another station with all-female seeds. I've spent time over the last week sending male singers off to other stations. Even so, every 4th or 5th song is by a male artist. Now, I've never seen Pandora list gender of singers as one of their criteria for "why we played this song"; as far as I know, that's not one of the things the program tracks.
My conclusion (based, admittedly, on a limited sample), is that It's difficult to get a whole hour of all women artists, but easy to get more than an hour of all male artists even when the station's seed artists are female.
I'm tired of stumbling over examples of how often and how easily women are overlooked in our world.
Even when there's good cheese:
