Hi Nancy!
-> You remember our discussion of how hard it is for a woman to be
-> accepted in sound work (cause it's mostly men.).Well, looks like it
-> is still here amongst us!  Jeff worked with IATSE (as a decorator)
-> this week and one of the fellers asked him if he had any sound
-> experience, "cause we need some big boys like you to muscle around
-> equipment". He's 6'3" and 250+ lbs.  The guy does several
First off, in all of my experience so far as a stagehand, it's been
"move this here" and "hoist that there" and seldom has my experience as
a technician or audio engineer had a damned thing to do with anything.
In my case, small is not a word that people use to describe me, petite I
am not, but, in our local IATSE #50, we have a number of women working
the calls, and with a few exceptions, we do the same jobs as the men
including lifting. When we place large consoles like the Amex Recalls on
the KISS tour, there were 8 people lifting them.
Anyway, that isn't necessarily gender discrimination by itself, and in
the case of KISS, the FOH mixer was hardly involved with the "in" at
all until firing up the system.
I would hope that the talents and capabilities of a person beyond the
abilities to muscle around equipment is considered in the equation
somewhere. Candice, the lighting designer with Grateful Dead, is such a
person, with ability well beyond what is required to do the job. She's
not a very large person, either, but her talent as a lighting designer
and operator easily offsets things.
But, you are right, discrimination is still common whether intentional
or not!
Bonnie *:>
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