Thoughts on gender balancing and gendered dance in general
The other day, I got a Facebook message promoting a dance event. The relevant bits are quoted here, "It is NOT too late to register for X and get the Early Registration Discount! We are about half way full - just a few weeks into Registration so ...Gentlemen, please register soon and take one of our wait-listed ladies out of suspense!! Couples: There is still room!! Register today!...Ladies: Please find a man and sign up!"
Umm...
I'd been aware of gender balancing (controlling registration so as to have equal numbers of males and females at dance events) as some kind of theoretical or historical practice. Mostly, I'd only encountered it in the context of events that used to gender balance, but do not anymore. I'm sure that I must have been to at least one event that did take gender into account when registering people, but that fact did not register in my brain on any sort of conscious level.
But now, here it was, staring me in the face. And, frankly, I didn't like it one bit!
You mean Early Registration isn't over, you're only half-way full, yet there's already a wait-list of women trying to get in? There will probably be women turned away from this event because they did not apply with a male partner? For real? Well then, whatever desire I had to go to this event you're holding just flew right out the window.
I like dancing with women as much, if not more than dancing with men. Part of this may be a holdover from dancing in largely-female step dance classes and from starting SCD at BiCo, Haverford and Bryn Mawr's predominantly (if not exclusively!) female class. I've found women to make great dance partners, frequently seeming to have better timing, eye-contact, giving-of-weight, and general fun than men. (Of course, there are plenty of excellent male dance partners - many of whom may be reading this - you guys rock!).
As I wrote on Facebook, a big pet-peeve of mine at dances is when two men who do not wish to dance with each other try to break up two women who are dancing as a couple. I am incredibly thankful to my first SCD teacher, Kathy, for telling us girls that we never had to split up to accommodate two men who did not want to dance together, if we did not want to. My feelings towards this are: 'I asked this woman to dance, because I wanted to dance with her. There is no reason why you two men can't dance together, or sit out if you choose.' Many of the better male dancers do not have a problem dancing with other men (again, you guys rock!).
Where I am now, there is a pretty equal balance of genders at the dances. In fact, there is sometimes/often a preponderance of men. I find it frustrating that I have to dance with men all night - effectively knocking out 50% of the people that I *could* be having fun with! And, when I do get to ask another woman to dance, I feel like people are a little judgemental ('there's no reason for that with so many men around!'). It's one of a few reasons why dancing in this new community is not as much fun as I would like it to be.
Last year at E&A, there were more women than men. At one point during an evening dance, Carol Ormand (program director) got up and suggested that for the next dance, the far right line could be composed entirely of women who wanted to dance with each other. It was such a hit, that we had to have two lines. As I remember it, the dance didn't work all that well - but I remember having lots of fun, anyway! It's a memory that's come to have Significance for me.
In light of all this, you'd think I'd be all over gender free dances. But I'm not. I'm not against them, per se, but the concept seems a little silly. The lengths that people will go to in order to avoid offending anyone... You'll start off with "armbands" and "bare arms" but then that implies that one group has something while the other group lacks something. Then you can call people "leaders" and "followers" but that gets everyone in a huff about power struggles. Some places might use geographical markers ("pond" and "trees" or "wall" and "windows") but those really only work in one specific space and can make life hard on visiting/traveling callers/dancers.
Nope, I think I prefer what most like-minded dancers do, which is dancing whatever gender you want to be regardless of the terms "male" and "female". Want to switch back and forth? All the better, as long as you don't confuse other/newer dancers.
Now that I've gone and imposed all of my opinions on you, I'm curious what you all think about this. Am I alone in my strong reactions? Does it matter to you whether an event is gender balanced? Does it matter to you what part you are dancing, or what gender your partner is?