乐器的性别

Gender of Instruments

Almost from the beginning, our sexual stereotypes have become so entrenched that they influence nearly everything we do, from the sports we play to the instruments we study to the careers we finally pick. A recent study reaffirmed that young boys are far more likely to pick instruments generally considered "male," like drums, the trumpet or the saxophone, and girls will pick "feminine" instruments", like the violin, clarinet or flute. Betty Repacholi of the University of Washington and her former student, Samantha Pickering of the University of Sydney, reported their findings in the current issue of the journal Sex Roles. The researchers, who studied more than 600 kindergarten and fourth-grade Australian children over the past couple of years, found that it't far easier for a little girl to break away from the stereotypes and pick a masculine instrument than it is for a little boy to pick up the violin. Some boys do, of course, and many of the true masters of that instrument are men, perhaps indicating that gender is far less important as the inner muse takes over on the road to excellence. But in those early years, it can be really tough for a little guy to pick up his violin case instead of a football and head out to school. That's not what boys are supposed to do. In other words, it might not sting as much for a girl to be called a tomboy as it does for a boy to be called a sissy. So girls, the researchers suggest, make the break more easily than boys, at least in the short term.

几乎是从一开始的时候，我们的性别定式就已经根深蒂固得足以影响我们所做的差不多每件事情：从我们从事的运动、我们学习的乐器直到我们最终选择的职业。新近的一项研究再次证明男孩子们更倾向于选择像鼓、小号或萨克斯管这样通常被看作“男性”的乐器，而女孩子则会选择“女性”乐器，比如小提琴、单簧管或长笛。华盛顿大学的贝蒂·雷帕科利和她以前的学生、悉尼大学的萨曼莎·皮克林在本期《性角色》杂志上公布了她们的发现。研究者们在过去几年中对澳大利亚的600多名幼儿园和四年级学童进行了研究，发现小女孩更容易打破性别定式去玩“男性”乐器，而小男孩就很难会去拉小提琴。当然，也有男孩子会这么做，而且许多真正的小提琴大师都是男性，这也许意味着当人在天赋的引领下走向卓越的境界时，性别的影响力就大大减弱了。不过在孩子小时，拿着提琴盒而不是足球去上学对一个小男孩来说可真不是件容易的事。那不是男孩子该做的事情。换句话说，女孩子被叫做假小子不会像男孩子被说成娘娘腔那样叫人受不了。研究者们指出，至少短期而言，女孩因此比男孩更容易突破乐器性别的限制。

Remarks：古人评论苏轼和柳永的词风的时候曾分别以“关西大汉执铜琵琶”和“十七八女孩儿执红牙板”作比，可见乐器确有性别；但看时下某些前卫乐队的作派，不但乐器，连人还有没有性别都是个问题了。