I recently posted about the practice of demanding that female students explain why there aren’t more women in the field. In one such incident, there was a command performance: another student called me at about 7am because a professor (we’ll call him Homunculus) insisted that she get other students to show up to some secret mini-conference in which all the old established guys in the field (and people from the younger generation who happened to be in the area so there was no cost to invite them) met to discuss the future of computer music. They’d kept the conference a secret from students, but at the last minute expected us to show up. In the end, there were just the two of us. We sat around for hours until about 4pm, when we were asked to explain why there weren’t more women in computer music. Fun.

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Some people in computer music ask why there aren’t more women in the field. When I was a student, occasionally people would put me on the spot and demand that I explain women and why there weren’t more of us in the field. Sometimes this question was asked in little seminars and mini-conferences in front of loads of old white guys, a handful of younger white guys, and that one guy who isn’t white. Occasionally, they’d throw another female student into the mix and grill her the same way.

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