Saturday, September 29, 2012

DJ vs DJane: is this even a real word?


So I've been seeing this word more and more, and I thought I would address these articles that were sitting in my draft box at the same time: DJane. I know its not a new word, but I'm seeing more and more female DJs refer to themselves as DJanes and I thought it was weird. I feel its like calling a female lawyer a "lawyera" or something bizarro like that. Mostly, I find it divisive. In the field of engineering, especially in the 90s, men dominated the field, and it was thought that women were more "intimidated" by technology. In the last 3 decades, that has clearly changed, but I think the same thing can be said about DJing. A lot fewer females were in the game back in the day, but now more women are stepping up to the plate, learning the DJ tech gear and producing too. But why would you call yourself "DJane"? Unless there is something feminine about the way you are spinning, then I don't get why. I think that this is why I was so up in arms about Paris Hilton's (thankfully, failed) attempt at DJing http://jackhadagroove.blogspot.ca/2012/05/paris-hilton-as-dj.html and http://jackhadagroove.blogspot.ca/2012/06/rant-on-about-paris-hilton.html. It was quite obvious she wanted to use her feminine wiles to gain her notoriety in the electronic world. But it takes a certain amount of skill/knowledge to be successful and no image can change that. Influence it maybe, but if you can't beatmatch or even put together a decent pre-recorded set for entertainment value, then looking pretty won't save you from a crowd of boos.

I wrote about this earlier back in April http://jackhadagroove.blogspot.ca/2012/04/i-am-female-and-i-like-house-music.html but I found it interesting when last month these two separate articles emerged:
http://www.heyreverb.com/blog/2012/08/16/sexism-female-djs-edm/54394/
Its an interesting article, with most of the participants stating that sexism does exist in the industry.

The Australian Pulse Radio took the opportunity to praise some of the female DJing elite in this article and get quotables.
http://pulseradio.net/articles/2012/08/that-s-what-she-said-female-djs-speak-up

In the article, Nina Kraviz complains about sexism. But then she recently posed nude for a Hugo Boss fahsion (or lack thereof!) campaign, with a title that read "sounds good looks good." She can definitely do what she wants but how do you rid of sexism in a male dominated industry by posing like that?  http://www.hugoboss.com/de/en/blog/sounds-good-looks-good/?fb_action_ids=3245065584799&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map=%7B%223245065584799%22%3A146652928809828%7D&action_type_map=%7B%223245065584799%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map
I've never seen a male DJ naked in one of his promotional shots. Even DJ Tiesto has joined the fashion brigade of DJs, but he's not showing skin! http://www.guess.com/tiesto/

Maybe its unavoidable as a female, I dunno. I think you can be sexy and tasteful, but it won't change the quality of your music productions or music selections. But I think its an interesting topic, so I wanted to share the articles with you!

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