What Do Women Have Against Loud Music?

"Mind if I turn it down a tad, honey?"

What’s wrong with this picture? Last night I was ironing and listening to music when my 15-year-old daughter came into the room and said, “Dad, can you please turn it down? I’m trying to study.” For Christ's sake, girl, dump those books and get down to the golf course with a bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag, some cigarettes, and a boy to snog. Kids today, eh?

Or it could just have been her gender-dictated disposition to turn down music. Stick with me here. I’m not prone to making generalisations about the opposite sex, because the feminist peers my dad claims metaphorically castrated me during my formative years taught me otherwise. And believe me, I’m 100 per cent behind any female’s right to empowerment, a career, and even a driver’s licence. But experience has taught me that any time a woman walks into a room where music is playing, the first thing she’ll do is walk over to the amplifier and turn it down.

A chauvinist would say that it’s because a female can not bear any competition to the sound of her own voice. If I’m listening to music, then I might not be giving the female my full attention. I am appreciating the beauty of something besides the female.

Fortunately, I’m not a chauvinist, so I realise this is complete nonsense. Unfortunately, I
can’t think of any other reasons. When I protest as the sound is reduced to a murmur that might as well be OFF, the actual reason always given is the utterly unreasonable, “It’s too loud!” My brilliant counter-argument is, “No, it’s not!” I’m always tempted to add, “You just don’t understand why this music is astonishing, because you haven’t taken the time to sit down and repeatedly listen to it, and other artistes of the genre, SO JUST TAKE YOUR FUCKING FINGER OFF MY VOLUME BUTTON.” Because every time this happens I have to really, really fight the urge to get mad that someone, who just always happens to be female, walked into the room and, without even asking, turned down my music.

It happens in cars as well (often accompanied by the comment, "Jesus, what is this crap?"), as if there was anything else to do in a car besides drive and listen to music. I don’t understand it, and no one can offer me an explanation. It’s almost like there are people in this world who think that conversation should take priority over art. As though there are really pressing matters that need to be discussed before the CD has reached the end of its final track. How can this possibly be?