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

What are Terryl's Troubles?

I’ve been recently inspired to write by various things.  After my mother died, my father found some of her writings.  They are precious and somewhat painful to read because her voice is so clear and the grief I feel over her death is still too fresh.  My father has also been doing a lot of writing recently in an effort to preserve the history of his family and his generation.  I found the honesty of his writing to be inspirational.  I also recently read The Women Who Broke All the Rules, which is a scholarly book about the particular struggles of the women of the baby boomer generation.  These events have made me think about the differences between my parents’ generation and mine; in particular, how it relates to the condition of being female.

Although the title would seem to suggest otherwise, I have a positive attitude about my life and do not believe that it has been unusually troublesome.  I do recognize, however, that my life is extraordinarily different from that of my mother.  When I was growing up I fully expected to have a life like my mother’s.  I believed that I would go to college, marry, teach, buy a house, raise a family, and enjoy grandchildren.  I never imagined that my life would include five homes, four marriages, and three husbands!  What strikes me is that while my mother’s story was not uncommon to her generation, neither is my story uncommon from many women from my generation.  It is my hope that readers will come to understand the title that I’ve chosen as a way to salute both my parents and myself. 

Just yesterday, a friend commented to my husband that he had never met a woman like me.  He mentioned how unusual it was (“especially in this area”) to find a woman so open and direct, independent, and adventurous.  As proud as I am of these comments, I have to honestly say that these are not qualities that most people truly admire in a woman.  Whereas I am glad I possess them, they have definitely given me a great deal of trouble!

I am proud to be a feminist and I don’t understand why anyone would deflect that title.  My father was the first feminist that I ever met and my husband, James, is the truest feminist that I have ever met.  Most of what I have learned about independence, I have learned from men.  Most of the women in my life have only tried to teach or help me to conform.  I’ve had so much advice from women on fashion, diet, make-up, childrearing, household chores, cooking, manners, and how to manipulate men, that I am a walking encyclopedia on these topics.  There have been periods of time in my life where I was interested in these things, but none of it ever lasted very long.  To be an independent woman, you need to know the things that men are taught:  how to fix things, operate machinery, maintain your car and home, manage your finances and business, and how to balance work and family without expecting yourself to be Supermom or Super Dad.  One of the most important lessons that you can learn from men is how to find the courage to do and be what you want.

Last year at the age of 52, I began racing karts for the first time.  One evening at the track I looked around and noticed there were several people helping me and all of them were men.  My husband, James, bought me my first racing suit, neck guard, and kart.  He introduced me to the sport and encouraged me when I felt nervous.  My son bought me my first helmet.  Our pit boss, Stevie, helps me with everything to do with my kart and my racing.  I have never been talked down to at the track or put on any type of pedestal.  Every man there assumes that I can learn about the karts just like anyone else.  When the Women’s Class was introduced for the first time at our home track, I told Stevie that I felt the term “Powder Puff” was demeaning.  Without blinking an eye, Stevie announced that from then on it would be called the Women’s Class.  A young boy asked him later why they weren’t calling it Powder Puff.  Stevie told the little boy that Powder Puff was the old term and that it was disrespectful.  (Note: no one has told me that I cannot race with the men; I’ve chosen not to until I feel I am fast enough not to be dangerous to the other racers.)

Driving a kart is not a big thing.  Danika Patrick drives for NASCAR, we have female astronauts, and females in the military.  However, for little girls and young women that I see at the track, I represent the embodiment of possibility for any female, even the ones who do not seem athletic.  I’m female, plump, and 53! There is actually a little girl, slightly overweight, who comes to the track just to watch me race.   I always take time to talk to her because I want her to know that I am ordinary and I hope she learns that you don’t have to be superwoman to try something different.

Young girls are now raised being told, “You can do anything you want to do.”  Greater strides will be made, however, when girls see women actually doing what they want to do.  Women need to speak up, step up, and “man up.”  Freedom has its price and we cannot continue as a gender to want it both ways.  You don’t have to burn your bra, but you might want to reconsider cheerleading and beauty pageants as a way to help your daughter gain self-confidence.

So mine is the story of an ordinary woman who stepped outside of the box just a little.  I didn’t make great strides for women everywhere, but perhaps the tiny steps I have made will broaden the path for others.  My mother was fond of saying, “Many hands make light work.”  The tiny steps of a generation of women can broaden the path of those that come behind us.  Those tiny steps need to be moving forward; we cannot move ahead as long as we march in place or slip backwards.