Thanks dial 9for the comments. My thoughts in response:
Yip, increasing age of mother’s is multi-causal, I agree with you. There have been lots of factors which have gone into this, only one of which is the change in culture we recognise as linked in with the feminist movement. My observation however is that this throws many of the women I spend time with into a conflict, which is “I have a very serious career on my hands, and I do not have time for both children and job”.
Irrelevant to swing dancing? – well perhaps tangential, and I may not have made my point clear – but certainly not irrelevant. My point is that it is extremely important that society recognises we are not all “equal”, what ever that would mean. We have differences deep inside us that affect us in a profound way. What I am trying to say isn’t necessarily clear at first glance, so I will have another go. But to first be clear: Women’s rights, black American rights, Indigenous rights, gay rights, etc, in my mind these are all great movements of our time and era. They are especially fantastic when we celebrate the difference each of these groupings can offer society. However these very same movements are part of the problem when society asserts ‘equality’, because we are different!
You requested some referencing. I too don’t want to get into “just a bunch of statistics” (you can find statistics to support anything) so I will reference a theory (even though you can find a theory for anything too!). Don Beck is a ‘large scale psychologist’ (ie social psychology) who was heavily involved in consulting to Nelson Mandela in the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. I refer to his book “Spiral Dynamics”. He describes how societies tend to progress through a series of dominant ‘value memes’, or ideas that shape the whole culture. Racism, gender oppression etc are relatively primitively structured values systems which served to maintain the basic social order in many societies over the last few hundred years, but have largely been replaced by other values in most modern societies. There have been a series of values shifts in this time, and just to point out, this isn’t a stepwise progression - societies tend to span several different values at any point in time. However we can simplify things by talking of a ‘centre of gravity’ located at one value system. I believe in the culture I am immersed in is centred largely in Don Becks “Green” system, which gives everyone a voice, including and especially minority and previously oppressed groups. This is the age of striving for equality, bonding between fellow humans, ecological sensitivity, social networking. Reality is seen as entirely socially constructed, and room has to be made for everyone’s perspectives. In this system, hierarchies are attacked. They represent the oppression which this culture has struggled (and continues to struggle) to release its self from.
The problem with this is that it is an oversimplification of the complexity of life. Yes it serves a powerful purpose, to attack the dogmatism and oppression imposed on society by earlier cultures. But we loose the ability to be opinionated, to recognise some ideas are more true than others, and we actually marginalise people who are still operating strongly in cultures who are sexist, racist etc. It becomes impossible to make decisions and take decisive action which might address these problems as we are so busy listening to eveyone’s point of view that we forget we have to do something. This will not solve the problem, instead we need to understand why they behave the way they do, and think about how society might provide the conditions for this to change.
Okay, now I feel I’m open to being accused of straying from Swing Dancing somewhat, and this is getting to be a long post, but this IS relevant! Cultures such as we have in the Swing Dancing Community are exactly what shape these ideas. The world I want to live in will embrace the idea that we are not born as blank slates. Rather we are all born with unique and yet multiple potentials inside of us. Some of this is determined by our biology, our genes, our gender. Some, modern science has no way of explaining, and to my mind can be best described as the qualities of our soul (although some people who operate within a scientifically rational values meme may not like the religious connotations). Sorry, no citation provided (!).
I’m trying to bring myself back to my point. On an individual level, gender is not going to determine whether you are ‘this’ or ‘that’ sort of a person – obviously there are lots of aggressive females and “gentle-men” in this world. I agree we are more than the bits between our legs, but on a societal level, the bits between our legs are extremely important – as I said, men tend to be more aggressive, competitive, less ‘relational’, less emotionally connected etcetera. Part of this is culturally conditioned, sure. But there is also a lot of evidence (which I don’t want to cite as this would take forever) that much of this is innate, and it is how culture interacts with this innate potential that determines what is actually expressed. The bit we can change is the culture.
So, let’s promote the conditions in society that are likely to allow men celebrating that they are men, who have access to gentle, communicative, expressive ways of identifying as male – like lead dancing. I have no gripe against men taking it further and learning to follow – I personally love following, although I’m not very good at it, I do want to do more. Yes, old fashioned social conventions have no doubt blocked me from doing this, and this is a bit of a problem, albeit a relatively manageable one. I’m arguing we have more to gain by not dismissing the history of the dance, which I personally don’t view as too rigidly oppressive (as has been discussed elsewhere there is a long history of men following and women leading, but some people clearly find it too gender-constrained). Regardless, leading has historically been associated with males, and this alone accounts for some of its masculinity. I take it further and say that it is an expression of some ‘soul stuff’, but don’t bother challenging me on that – if you don’t agree that is fine. Still, I say, let men identify with historic role models. Let’s let the swing dance community be a culture accessible to lots of people, including those men who still find standing chest to chest with a strange man a bit too challenging. Despite what dial 9 says, this IS how we change culture, and changing culture changes societies problems (okay, it doesn’t necessarily ‘fix’ the problems as there will only be new ones in their place, but to claim that would be bit idealistic because I think we will never be ‘fixed’).
As dial 9 also says, today’s wider culture views dancing as a very feminine pass time “dancing is for girls, ewww, I’m going to play footy”. I know this one, I frequently encounter raised eyebrows when I tell work colleagues what I am going to spend my weekend doing. Feminism may be trying to work against this, but if viewed from the perspective of the footy playing males, is it possible it is having the reverse effect? What would happen if we celebrated the masculinity which I have argued is imbedded in leading? We can still have female leads and male follows, and we can still have a bloody great time doing it.
Love to hear more thoughts and responses.
areudirty
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theartofmadeline
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