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Yeah, swing dancing is sexist. So what are you going to do about it?

June 18, 2013 Reply
Sexism and misogyny in Australia has been in the news of late (in case you’re not from here or have been hiding under a rock). There’s also been a whole lot of new discussion in the Lindy Hop community about the nature of sexism in our community. See on blogs for example here, or on multiple stalkerplant threads e.g. here. A lot of the commentary has been less than great, especially from many men (seriously bros, what’s up with that? Just try reading it for a change, you might learn something.)

There should be more male voices in this conversation talking about what we’re doing to stamp out sexism and misogyny (rather than talk about the problem (or their perceived lack of it), which all too frequently gets done to the exclusion of female voices  – see the all male panel which had it appeared in the Green Left Weekly as opposed to Channel 7’s Sunrise would have been ironic as opposed to pathetic).

So without further ado and in no particular order here’s what I’m doing/will do:

Follow More
Our heteronormative paradigm of men=lead, women=follow leading to sexism has been covered well by others. Much of the time this is discussed in the context of women leading and everyone solo dancing as a means to end the hetero paradigm. However we’re not really going to deconstruct this without men playing their part i.e. men following women, men following other men. Bonus – nobody ever needs to talk about ‘balance’ ever again and we can make our scene friendlier to people who don’t identify as hetero male or female.

I’m going to follow more – I enjoy it and it’s fun. And if it helps get rid of some of the bullshit in our scene – that’s a bonus to me.

(And if you really think that men leading and women following is the best paradigm, read my other post here).

Dance more with men
See above.

Use my words
This is one I’m getting better at, but I still find myself asking people to dance without actually asking them to dance. I find it really annoying when people do this to me, so I’m going to stop doing it to them.

Volunteer more
In the great western tradition of giving women all the underpaid and under-appreciated jobs women seem to do the majority of the organising and volunteering (at least in the Australian scene). This is bullshit.

So the next opportunity I have, I’m going to stick me hand up to help out at a dance event.

Stop using “There’s too few leads men” as an excuse
The idea that leads are this sought after commodity is bad, bad, bad. It creates a sense of entitlement, reinforces conventions about men following or volunteering and leads to general asshat behaviour. So whenever I catch myself thinking this, saying it or using it online I’m going to stop myself and say  ‘bad thoughts’ and come up with the real reason as opposed to the bullshit one.

 
Call other men out on their bullshit
Whether its pick up artists (both in the crazy dips and tricks on the social floor or hitting on women meanings of the word), inappropriate touching, being a jerk or general creepiness I’m going to tell guys when they’re doing stuff that ain’t cool. Sure it might not make me any friends (but hey, do I want these people as my friends?), but it might help other people call them out too. Peer pressure ain’t just what’s making you take drugs in high school – it can be used for good here.

Now this is my list. Feel free to use it as your own, but I think its better we come up with these things ourselves. I welcome your suggestions in the comments (and yeah, they’re moderated – if you’re an asshat it won’t get published).

Links of the Week: A Gender special

November 10, 2011 Reply

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender and sexuality issues particularly in the dance space so I thought I’d post a bunch of links I’ve come across. 

ABC’s Artscape follows a group of gay and lesbian ballroom dancers as they battle injuries and prejudice to compete in the gay games.

Dahlia Lithwick on slate.com looks at the lengths conservatives will go to to protect people in power no longer are they denying the claims of women who experience sexual harassment, they’re now denying sexual harassment even exists.

Michelle Griffin in the Herald explores how even in today’s workplace women are still the ones who face the more difficult choices around parenting and career.

On a related note Amanda Czerniawski has some interesting commentary on Sociological Images on the following laundry powder commercial

And finally the world’s population supposedly hit 7 billion in the last month. Rob Brooks writes in the Conversation that if you’re serious about population control, you should be serious about feminism.

Why Men Lead and Women Follow – 10 Wrong Reasons

March 9, 2011 5 comments

Spuds posted a link on Yehooid to this article written by a dancer named Lloyd on his blog. It claims 10 ‘good’ reasons why men should lead and women should follow in partnered social dance. He doesn’t refer specifically Lindy Hop much but it’s definitely relevant to the Lindy scene.

Enough preamble – here’s why he’s wrong:

1. Someone has to lead
This is no more a justification for men to lead than for women, or space monkeys, or cats…..

2. Men are taller than women
I’ve 5’5″, which is about the average height of Australian women – does that mean I should restrict myself to following? I disagree with the ‘simple fact’ that taller follows are harder to lead, I’ve never found that in my experience. I’d say that, if anything, taller leads find it harder to lead (particularly when they’re learning) as they need to match the size of their movements to the range of movement of their, sometimes much, shorter partner. This is a skill that some may associate more with following than leading.

He also says something about the leader needing to be closer to a tall follow in order to turn her with his hand above her head. A big height difference can create opportunities for cool moves, such as jumping when you lead this sort of turn. No uncomfortable contortions required.

In any case – there only needs to be one counterpoint to this argument – Shorty George. Enough said.

3. Men are stronger than women
Lloyd argues that there are many moves (particularly in ‘Jitterbug’) that involve the lead taking the follow’s weight including aerials. You could apply this argument to performances or competitions, but how many moves like this do you actually see on the social dance floor apart from established couples (who should know better than to pull crazy aerials on the social floor anyway).

There’s plenty of moves where the follow supports the leads weight. Moves that involve one of the partnership taking the ‘weight’ of the other are much more about timing, balance and counterbalance and making the physics work for you than they are about brute strength.

He goes on to say that followers need to trust their leaders to support them and that men are unlikely to trust women, particularly if they are a stranger. Lloyd should consider that the reverse of this might be as valid. It’s a damn good argument for not pulling crazy stuff on strangers. More importantly trust in a dance partnership needs to be mutual for these sort of moves to work and be safe and fun.

4. It avoids arguments
Yes, I know Lindy Hoppers aren’t renowned for this, but the only thing that avoids arguments is communication. It only takes a couple of words to establish who’s leading and following and if this exchange were a convention it would be even easier. In fact you can ask it in the same question as asking the person to dance. For example the conversation:
“Would you like to dance balboa with me?”
“Sorry, I don’t dance bal – would you like to lindy instead?”
“Sure – let’s dance”

becomes:
“Would you like to dance as a lead with me?”
“Sorry, I don’t lead – would you like to lead instead?”
“Sure – let’s dance”

5. Each sex can specialise
The argument presented is that a new dancer should pick one part and stick with it. Whilst Lloyd uses this to support the established gender roles it’s not really an argument for it per se. Nevertheless it’s still wrong.

Think of all the best dancers you know. You’d have trouble naming any who can’t both lead and follow. Knowing the other part makes you a better dancer.

It may be advisable for a beginner to pick what role they’re going to start out with and stick with that whilst they’re learning. Once they decide to pick up the other part they will be able to do so quicker as they  already have fundamentals such as pulse, balance, frame, connection etc. It will never take twice as long to learn both parts and ultimately learning the other part improves your dancing.

Having said that I think there is a case for teaching both parts from the get go and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has ever learnt or taught both parts more or less at the same time. The first ever blues class I did had a huge excess of guys, so some of us followed as well as led. Whilst it probably helps that I was already a lindy hopper and blues isn’t really a left or right handed dance I managed both parts fairly easily. I actually ended up having a couple of insights during that class that helped me pick up the basics well.

6. Sex is part of the fun

Here I will refer to number 10: You need to get out more and post some videos

Dawn Hampton dancing with Steven Mitchell, Virginie Jensen, and Frida Segerdahl

7. Men prefer it
8. Women prefer it
I’ll group these together as it’s basically the same argument and makes the common fallacies of appeal to popularity, appeal to tradition and appeal to common practice. I’m sure there’s plenty of men who like to follow and plenty of follows who like to lead all to a greater or lesser degree. And you will find plenty of people who prefer to exclusively dance in their traditional gender role. Reasons for preference probably have more to do entrenched socio-cultural norms than pop evolutionary psychology (which isn’t really a science) explanations.

9. It isn’t command and obey 
This is about the only point that’s on its own is correct. Many dancers have discussed the partnership in great detail, for example here , here and here. However it still doesn’t refute the argument that in partnered social dancing generally and Lindy Hop specifically there is a strong current of sexually conservative gender norms and to a greater or lesser extent more obvious sexism.

10. You need to get out more

Basically this entire argument is an appeal to common practice, a common fallacy. Just because something is a common practice or a tradition, doesn’t make it right. And the truth is that there is a lot of sexism (much of it not intended and little of it malicious) in the lindy hop community. Others have posted about this at length, for example this excellent posting by Sarah.

Whilst most of us do have fun within this construct of gender roles I believe that we could have more fun by breaking them down. We’re also excluding many members of our society who could enrich the community we are a part of. I don’t think this will really change until more men start learning to follow, but more about that another time…

Links of the week

March 8, 2011 Reply

Today is International Women’s Day. Here’s a few articles from women that consider a range of issues about the status of women (and men) in contemporary society. There are still many challenges facing women around the world – but few men seem to be writing about them. The closest I could find to an opinion piece written by a man for International Women’s Day was 007 in drag and this article in The Guardian about the gender pay gap in the UK. Come on gents – we need to do better than this.

  • Annabel Crabb argues on The Drum “that the main reason women are under-represented in the senior echelons of just about any professional field is that they hardly ever have wives”.
  • Also on The Drum, Julie Cowdroy notes that whilst women in the West enjoy many more freedoms than they did 100 years ago, this is not true across the rest of the world. In The Australian Ida Lichter catalogues the challenges facing Muslim feminism and argues that the west should do more to help.
  • Even in the west some hard-won rights are in danger of being eroded. Amanda Marcotte on doubleX shows the absurdity of attacks by the religious right in the US on Planned Parenthood.
  • Finally Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench feature in this advertisement specially commissioned for International Women’s Day

Elsewhere on the interewebz:

  • As the carbon tax debate in parliament heats up Andrew Dyer on Unleashed offers a much more reasoned critique on the Government’s proposed carbon tax. The short answer: it won’t work on its own.
  • Rodney Smith argues in the Australian that it’s about time for the NSW Liberals to start outlining policy. They’ve probably won this election, so now’s the time to set the agenda and start thinking about winning the next one.
  • Spurred on by The Pope’s new book Dick Gross in the National Times takes a look at what the Bible says about who killed Jesus. Turns out it was the Romans all along.