>> Has any woman contributed anything groundbreaking to magic?

Houdini's Mother contributed him,,,,,

It was Nani Darnell, not Mark Wilson that got me to watch his magic show Magical Land of Allakazam! That is groundbreaking!

Doug

In all seriousness...

Lynetta has introduced the magic fraternity to her creations, this being just one of them:

http://www.fabricmanipulation.com/magictricks/index.html

Her change bags, egg bags, Glorpy The Gerkulating Ghost hanks, all have the care in manufacture we so miss today! She really got my attention with the Crown Royal Change Bag! Imagine taking a bottle out and doing standard stuff with this!

I'd say Lynetta and Randi Rain are STELLAR examples of BRILLIANT women in this field! For a great example of Lynetta's work, click the above link. Randi has a cutting edge Rocky Raccoon box you should look at, too:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......rum=8&36

This cracked me up! Expensive? Yes! "600 big ones", as Randi so eloquently put it! Worth it? Ask anyone who bought one! There are quite a few more wonderful women in the Art Of Magic. Ya just gotta look...

Doug

I don't have the patience to read through all the women bashing posts, but I recently attended a Tamariz lecture in Vegas, last March, and he did a routine that was a variation on a routine that was invented by a woman. Unfortunately I forgot her name, but it was a very impressive routine.

Also, if someone says something dude-oriented just to get your dander up, like the ol' "Why aren't there more women in magic?" or something bone-headed like, "Have any women contributed anything to magic?" only because want to hear themselves give you their own genius answer, ignore them. They're just excited to talk to an actual live woman.

...women bashing posts...

Yeah, it's hard to believe we're in the 21st century! I feel kinda foolish for posting here now. Maritess is right: "Have any women contributed anything to magic?" seems to be borderline women-bashing. It may have not been MEANT that way, but I see your point Maritess.

I don't blame the gals for thinking we're bone-heads! I'm guilty of it more times than not. Of course the next request would be forgiveness.

Doug

LOL!

I like to read the 'Men Bashing' post,from the Women!
~G

The are plenty, the mothers of Dai Vernon, Slydini, Houdini, Henning, Copperfield to name a few, lol

Dear Maritess,

Thank you for your reply.

As the OP I feel compelled to clarify a few issues, lest this thread devolve into insinuations of misogyny or testosterone-driven male posturing.

The original question was posited by Roberto Giobbi (“Has any woman contributed anything groundbreaking to magic?”).

Dougini’s post of April 17, 2012, omitted a word (“groundbreaking”). This omission profoundly changes the meaning of Giobbi’s question.

This is akin to the difference between the often misquoted line by Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”). What Emerson wrote was, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

One word more or less really does matter.

I am not an historian of Magic and do not know the answer to Giobbi’s original question, hence my post. I do think it is perfectly legitimate to ask the question. We needn’t start a gender fracas.

In a different context, author Gerald N. Callahan, in his book, “Faith, Madness and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception,” has a deeply absorbing section on why there have been so few female self-portraiture visual artists. His thesis is stunning and revelatory.

Sometimes, provocation can lead to legitimate scientific/historical advancement.

I do not see Giobbi’s question as an attack against Female Magicians.

It is merely a question.

If there are legitimate rebuttals, this seems to be the forum to place them on record.

You're right, Pan. My bad! The key word here is "groundbreaking". Quoting the OP:



Groundbreaking is too vague a term. Women have given so much to magic, I don't know where to begin. Do we have a female David Copperfield? A female Blackstone? Melinda was big for a while but where is she now?

Galina from the Ukraine was phenomenal but sadly, regional. Randi Rain is all the rage in Austin Texas, but nobody's ever heard of her in Maine!

Being a full time magic performer is something that seems to be still male dominated. Society does that. Some day our civilization will climb out of this narrow-mindedness, and embrace the female as our EQUAL!

Doug

"Being a full time magic performer is something that seems to be still male dominated. Society does that. Some day our civilization will climb out of this narrow-mindedness, and embrace the female as our EQUAL! "

Doug

Well, OK, but I won't go along with "superior"... unless I am told to...

The late Marian Chavez, wife to the late Ben Chavez, owned the Chavez School of Magic in Los Angeles, California. They both trained hundreds of magician in the art of magic and manipulations. I think that is a significant contribution to magic.

I don't think women look at magic the same way a man does. Therefore, they have totally different reasons for entering the field of magic.

I do know magic welcomes women into magic with open arms, and does everything possible to make them feel accepted. In the end, they all seem to disappear for some reason.

I am only guessing, but it may be that women do not keep magic as a side interest, if they are not successful at it, they move on to something else.

Where or what is Jade and Juliana Chen doing today, I have not heard or read anything about them in several years.

You don't read much about them because they are working.

AMEN to that. My last partner (a magician) lost interest in me, when I diversified my interests away from magic

Hi everyone,

I'm new to magic (I've only studied it for a year now), but am absolutely passionate about it. However, it's so disheartening to see how frankly sexist the magic world is. Giobbi's apparent skepticism that any woman had ever contributed anything to magic is no different from what men have been saying about women for centuries, about women and, let's see...poetry, drama, literature as such, social science, natural science, philosophy, tennis, chess...you name it. Even comedy, a similar performing art: the late Christopher Hitchens said that only men can be funny (he apparently had never heard of Lucille Ball, Madeline Kahn, Tina Fey, Gilda Radnor, and a hundred other brilliant comedic actors). Larry Summers lost his job as president of Harvard in part for floating the "suggestion" that perhaps women are underrepresented in the sciences because of their genes. And so on. But it's just plain old chauvinism. I was shocked to pick up the latest GENII and see an incredibly sexist ad for a card trick about a one-night stand, featuring "beautiful" women and one "ugly" one (guess which card you don't want to get stuck with in the morning?). Last month, Penguin Magic put out a free DVD download for its customers, introducing magic to young people. The magician on the program, well known to many on this list, made several demeaning remarks about women during the program, including one in which he said "we men use our hands to work, you females use them for dainty things" or some such rubbish. I was not only angry about it, I was disappointed, because I have been trying to mentor two young magicians and both happen to be young girls--and I certainly am not about to expose them to even more bashing of girls/women than they already experience in our society.

Why are there so few women in magic? Part of it is the misogynistic culture. Magicians have created a public image of magic that corresponds to the prevailing gender stereotypy. Namely, men are the agents, the doers, the ones who Make Things Happen in the World, while women are their Helpers, their Assistants in Life, and of course their sexy eye candy. Personally, I think if I see another act where a "beautiful young woman" is cut in two with a giant knife or saw or whatever, I'm going to lose my lunch. Enough already. If you look at class and classic acts like Vernon or Slydini or Tommy Wonder, they didn't have to pander to that sort of thing.

But there are undoubtedly deeper social reasons too for the relative dearth of women in this art. For millennia, we men were socialized to be engaged in the "public sphere" of the world, while the women were consigned to the private sphere. As someone said in one of the posts here (Lynetta?), women don't usually toot their own horns. They aren't raised to, and society certainly doesn't reward them for doing so (the assertive woman in the office is a "!@#$%," the assertive man is admired as a "leader" or "Alpha Male"). Society, which is male-dominated, instead rewards them for being the Helpers. Women are supposed to be seen, not heard, and so on. So I think that from a very young age, boys are given the message that magic is about public performance and controlling the perceptions of others, which have traditionally been pursuits relegated to the men, while girls are told that magic is meant to be performed by boys and men.

I personally think it would be really exciting to see what magic would look like if there were more girls and women involved--it would really change the culture. (It's interesting to consider that women have been involved in real magic arts, through witchcraft and folk magic, for generations in many cultures around the world.) I don't know whether either of the two young magicians I've been coaching will want to pursue it when they grow up. But for now, they are as fired up about, and are as talented at, magic as any boy could be at their age. It's up to those of us who love magic to keep pushing for gender equality and social justice in our art, because the exclusion of women and girls only diminishes it. Time to really open up this vestigial Old Boy's Club!

I have enjoyed every female magician I have seen. I have also enjoyed every magic act with women in it. We need more of them and that is ground breaking enough for me.

A bit of research will reveal a wealth of women who have contributed much to this art of ours. suzt Wandas was one of the most skilled manipulators of coins and such magic has ever known

I do not have time today to stop and list the legion of those who qualify.

I join Walt and others in a big OMG, that you were unaware.

KOtah

I'm surprised Ekaterina's name has not been mentioned. Ekaterina Dobrokhotova is doing something new that has never done before, and in that sense Groudbreaking. She has started what I think is a whole new category of magic, that is, magic with cosmetics. These are effects that men cannot perform, and that are natural for female magicians to use; this novel. Most female magicians can do all the tricks men do well, but she started a whole new category of tricks that only women can do, and this opens the possibilities to a whole new set of props for women to use. In a way she moved the "discourse" in that direction, so that other women keep thinking about transforming the use of cosmetics as magic props. She is still developing new ideas, and making them grow, but I love this freshness.

She is also incredibly accomplished as a card manipulator, this is how I think she has gained a lot of respect from men, and everyone in the magic community. What I love most, though, is that she is creating a whole set of effects that fit the female persona in a new way. She is a Model, and I think she studied marketing. In a way I think she is the perfect storm for a female magician in our times because she knows how to promote herself well, and a woman magician needs these skills in this male dominated territory (like it was said above). I also like that when she performs she doesn't take the performing persona of the "seductress" picking a man and being flirty. She performs feminine magic, but outside of what I see as a stereotype that ultimately belittles the female role a little bit.

Here's something on her card manipulation skills You better respect her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTVo3iA9my0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=FeUq......ndscreen

Here's some of the "Cosmetic Magic":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB9XvPX0Iiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN8P2kTTuyI

Here's some of her original releases:
http://www.papercranemagic.com/MagicTricks.php?Trick=Agape
http://www.theory11.com/tricks/pure-cardistry-ekaterina.php

Here's her bio:
http://www.ekaterinamagic.com/en/biography

I know she is a member of the Café, but not a very active one. Maybe she'll read this, and have something to say. I hope I'm not misrepresenting her. I am excited to see what she is doing, and I hope we see more coming. If you see this, Ekaterina, could you post more videos of you performing magic with Cosmetics?

Suzanne's cups and balls.

There's also Angela Funovits who is a great performer and card manipulator. Her site is:
http://www.angelafunovits.com/

In recent years, I have also seen a lot of great lady magicians emerge from Asian countries like China, Japan and Taiwan. You can see a lot of their videos on Youtube.