Steven Schwarz writes:

>It's not a question of politesse, but of argumentative support.  A position
>that can't be supported by anything other than this syllogism:
>
>1.  Women are a different gender from men.
>2.  There aren't as many (or, in its extreme form, no) great women composers
>as men composers.
>3.  Therefore, great composition is marked by gender.

May I suggest that, for some of us at least, it doesn't boil down to
a simple syllogism.  I don't know anyone who seriously doubts that the
traditional discrimination against women is not a major and possibly
deciding factor in this issue.  But the hypothesis that there might be some
gender-based biological factor as well cannot be dismissed out of hand.
True, we don't have the means of testing that hypothesis reliably at this
point and must guard against the tendency some have to slip from hypothesis
to received truth.  But at least the former should be noted and, if we are
intellectually honest, assessed when and if the necessary means become
available.  There are, after all, some things at which either women or men
are demonstrably better than the other sex.  Is it utterly inconceivable
that men might, for some bizarre reason, be better equipped to write great
music? I don't subscribe to that theory, but you can't really dismiss it a
priori.

Richard, who invites you to visit his music, outdoors and other pages at
http://www.magi.com/~richard/