As a female, what was it like for you in those early days of electronic music?
Well, the funny thing is that now, they’re looking back historically and discovering that those at the origins of all this were often women! It is not about technology in this sense; it is more about the combination of art and technology. I’m an artist; even though I did solder machines in the beginning, I don’t concern myself with machines on the inside, more on the outside. That is a very organic relationship. I think men identify more with gear and machinery. However, there are more women in this today, and I think we are starting to see a critical mass. The fact that you are not the only woman in the room now gives women more confidence and it doesn’t matter what men think of them anymore. Even if we have more women doing this, it only still matters what we women think.
I always say that we are not trying to get into the boys’ club. We are not interested in trying to be men. We just want to be who we are, and we want that context of having women around and be able to talk about this with a fellow woman. I look at some of the electronic music magazines… if you look through these magazines, you’d still see women modeling a compressor or something else. I used to complain about this, because it really does insult the typical female reader. There is not enough representation of the brilliant women in this field. All these women just don’t have visibility, and that is all.
Do you think women will ever get this visibility?
Yes, I think they will. I tell women to be the best at what they do, be confident, and just do it. Claim your space and do it. I did a concert in New York that I had never done before; it was called Dame Electric, and it was all women! It was amazing!
These sorts of events with an all-women line up often bring along a lot of controversy, but an all-male line up is still seen as normal.
Yes, it’s a real ongoing issue. I actually think this issue is still around because at some point the girls got lazy. My generation, we were aware and we fought hard. We hated seeing how women got lazy after getting a lot of new advantages all of a sudden. Now we’re back and we’re fighting again. It is also generational to some extent. The older guys, they are the worst; the younger guys were brought up by enlightened women and they are not as boxed in. Don Buchla was a sexist, but he evolved away from that. It did take him fifteen years to get out. It was never my intention to prove men wrong; I was just doing what I loved. I ignored it, but it hurt sometimes.
You have become an inspiration to a lot of artists – and especially women – in electronic music. What advice would you give to the younger women in the industry?
Do not try to be men. Do your own thing by using your authentic voice. Be very good at what you do. You have to be better, to break through. You can’t show up and falter. Women have become better than men, because we have to be. Men are so much more relaxed, because they don’t have to constantly prove themselves. We do. To get your confidence, you have to be sure of your skills. Women are overqualified, but still deemed to be not as great as men at what we do. Like Gloria Steinem said: “I can’t wait for the day that women can be as mediocre as men and succeed.” Nobody is going to give you anything: you have to fight for it. A positive change that I’m noticing now as we are getting a sort of critical mass of women, is that we can help each other out. I can network with younger women, and I already know some women in high places. Ask each other what you need, and network effectively.
The misunderstanding here is that we hate men, but we love men. We have nothing against men. I don’t think men consciously blocked women out. They’re not consciously pushing us out, just like we are not consciously pushing them out. We are just looking for our own comfort zone, and our comfort zone is not being the only woman in the room. That’s also great about being 70 years old; I don’t have to deal with that sexual innuendo anymore. It is very relaxing. As a young woman, you are unfortunately often still looked at in that sexual way.
Are there any artists that inspired you when you were starting out?
One of the greatest inspirations for me was a woman named Ilse Bing. She was a photographer; when I met her she was already 80 years old. I always felt like photography was a technological art form. A chemist, she made her own paper and chemicals. She was a real scientist in this field. She was a breakthrough woman. Actually, not that I’m trying to be sexist about this, but it’s the same situation here; you will find that women were the ones who advanced the art of photography. There were men too, of course, but there were definitely various great women who played an important role. Ilse was one of them, so she was a big inspiration for me.
Was Ilse an inspiration in the way it empowered you in your own field, or did her photography work directly inspire your work?
Both. We did a piece together: she wrote the lyrics for a two-piece called Lumière. She also did a drawing for it. The thing about Ilse was that she was so excited and energetic. All she cared about was art. Like when I would come visit her, she would say: “Suzanne! Tell me about your work! How is it going?” All I wanted to talk about was my boyfriend, my problems, that kind of stuff. She just wanted to talk about my work. Ilse was an artist until the end of her life, at the age of 99.
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