Girls Don't Play Trombones

1974 - I'm on my way to band camp!

Born in 1959, I am officially a part of the Baby Boomer generation.  My generation is credited with a lot of things, some great and some questionable.  It is important for young women today to understand how difficult it was at one time to do simple things that today are taken for granted.  In 2009, only 2.9% of professional orchestra trombone players were female (Foulk, 2012). So imagine how low that number must have been in 1970.  My generation was the first to benefit from the women’s movement, but it was not without some courage.

When I was 11 or 12, I started taking band at our elementary school.  The band director at my school took those students interested in band to the stage and had us try out on instruments.  Girls were given woodwind instruments, such as a flute and a clarinet, to try out on.  The boys were given brass and percussion instruments to try.  I wanted to be like my older sister, so I was thrilled when the director put me on flute. 

I played the flute for a year and I was pretty good for a beginner.  My sister helped me and I liked to practice.  Sometime in that first year or so of playing, my father had an idea.  He wanted me to play the trombone.  He taught high school and had found out from his own band director that there fewer students playing brass instruments; therefore, there would be less competition and, thus, more opportunity to shine if I played a brass instrument.  I agreed, so my parents bought a trombone. When I told my band director what my parents and I planned to do, he just looked at me quizzically.  I found out why when I carried my new instrument onto the bus for school.  It wasn’t too heavy for me, but it had baggage.

The first morning that I took the trombone to school, you would have thought that I had gotten onto the school bus naked!  I went through a little rough patch while everyone at school wrapped their minds around the (apparently) shocking idea that there was a girl who wanted to play a boy’s musical instrument.  My friends were horrified and wondered how I was going to ever look pretty carrying and playing a trombone.  I was warned that I would never get a boyfriend. 

The truth of it is, I had many boyfriends; most of whom I met by sitting in the brass section in my high school band!  I will admit, however, that the male athletes that wanted to date cheerleaders didn’t show any interest in dating a girl like me.  It hurt my feelings at the time but, in retrospect, I’m immensely glad that I never had to date a boy who thought a trombone-playing girl wasn’t good enough to be seen with.

For my generation, the gender rules were less strict than they had been for our mothers, but we still suffered from a lack of female role models.  People couldn’t imagine a female trombone player because they had not seen one. There was some awareness the rules were changing, but still a lot of uncertainty about what the consequences would be.  It is like being the first one to jump into a pool to test the water; once everyone sees that you didn’t jump right back out, they’ll try it themselves.

It was my father who suggested that I break traditional gender roles.   My father encouraged me to lift bales of hay, to attend Outward Bound Survival School, and to drive a motorcycle (which I never did, but hopefully a go kart will count).  My mother was an open-minded woman and progressive but, because she was a woman, she also knew what I would face if I tried to break barriers.  She was supportive and enthusiastic, but I don’t believe many of these things were her idea.  She wouldn’t have wanted me to put myself into a difficult situation.

Fathers can make a tremendous difference in the lives of their daughters.  Just recently the Huffington Post reported:  “…in the realm of actual behavior, dads are key... The daughters of egalitarian men are also more likely to have broader, less gendered interests — they're less hemmed in by stereotypes that say girls should only play house or dress in pink.” (Pappas, 2013) I remember once my father saying that sports for females would get a big boost towards equality when the girls’ fathers got involved.  His point was that if a man has one offspring (and it is a girl who wants to play sports), then that father is likely to support her by making sure she has same opportunity in sports that a son would have had.   

I was fortunate to have an egalitarian father and a supportive mother.  Would I have been doomed, though, had I not?  Of the young women that I’ve spoken to, all feel stressed and many feel trapped.  None of them feel that total equality for women in our society has been obtained.  Most don’t have any idea what can be done to change the Female Condition.  I, too, have more questions than answers.

Alice Walker (activist, feminist, and author of The Color Purple), is credited for saying, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”  You can’t change your history, but you can change your future.  Surround yourself with positive, uplifting, empowering people.  If you want change for your daughters, live the life you want for them. 

In other words… buy a trombone.

 

2000 - My daughter also played the trombone.

 

Works Cited

Foulk, L. (2012). Why WIBC 2012? Retrieved April 29, 2013, from International Women's Brass Conference 2012: http://www.iwbc2012.org/why_iwbc2012/index.html

Pappas, S. (2013, January 21). Fathers' Sexism May Curb Daughters' Work Ambitions, Reseach Says. Retrieved April 29, 2013, from Huff Post Science: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/21/fathers-sexism-daughters-work-ambitions_n_2515906.html