"So keeping those old barriers in place is your "intellectual" answer to this question? "

Please tell me where I said that. On the contrary, I said that I see no bar to women singing chanties.

"the thing that you've identified as the issue, but I digress), which I'm reading as "these songs used to be sung only by men"."

What I said was the opposite of that.

???

"Subject: RE: Should women sing chanties
From: Gibb Sahib - PM
Date: 29 Apr 19 - 05:13 AM

I don't think the chanty genre —pre-folklorization — was particularly gendered as male."

I go on to say that women participated in chanty singing.

And the implication is that, in term's of my personal opinion, women should sing chanties (or rather...shouldn't shouldn't sing chanties)

(Are these sentences short enough for you guys do get it now?)

I go on to say that my opinion that women should sing chanties does not, however, derive from the bland position of "anyone should do whatever they want." That would be too easy.

Rather, it derives from seeing that the chanty genre, as historically practiced, does *not* seem to have specified the importance of the singer being a particular gender.

And I make the side point that I think, if anything, the process of folklorization added male gendering. I'm not in favor of that; I'm observing that it happened.

Historical practice might not be relevant to one's opinion on this. However, people are evoking historical practice here, and I'm speaking to that. And I'm saying that historical practice does NOT suggest, in my opinion, any bar to women's participation.

I weighed in with that point because most of the points being made seemed to say that history says chanty singing IS gendered as particularly male, then they go on to either say 1. Screw history, we do what we want now or 2. Due to that history I'm not in favor of it. What I said is that this is not true (in my interpretation) of history.

What is the issue? That I'm also saying "Anybody should do anything" is not a very thoughtful or engaged response to the question of gender and performing traditions? Because yes, that's what I'm saying, and it comes from a perspective of studying music traditions where very much is at stake for the performers of those traditions and for the traditions themselves as people who feel entitled to do whatever they want newly adopted performing those traditions. "Can" isn't the same as "should" in ALL cases, so I'm not in favor of blanket statements about what people should do. Ultimately, as a modern, liberal Westerner, I side on the position of "let people do as they want." All I'm saying is that there is something valid to consider --at least a bit of self awareness is in order -- when one adopts the performance of a tradition that has had gender (or class, race, etc.) central to its meaning.