Response to Ambidancetrous: Celebrating the difference of the sexes.
Or dancing: So much for feminism, how about a little masculinism?
There have been some great blogs recently (http://ambidancetrous.tumblr.com/post/52100508545/shhh-dont-tell-swing-dancing-is-sexist) about the role of ambidextrous dancing. I think learning to both lead and follow can be a very good thing, but I want to spend a few moments looking at the flip side of what has been argued.
Feminism has been hugely helpful for women over the last half century, and there is not doubt in my mind that women’s position in society has been vastly improved as a consequence. Likewise, I applaud much of the writing encouraging the dismantling of strict gender stereotyping within the dance scene. However, I would like to shift the attention slightly, first by remembering that there hasn’t only been gain, but also some significant problems caused for women by the feminist movement. This is because of the basic fact that women and men are not equal. It is surprising that something so obvious is such a risky thing to say in today’s world, and that is the point which I want to discuss. Despite the development of a far greater role for women in commerce, politics, sport etc, the truth remains that only women can carry babies, and only women can breast feed. This places the women of our society in a direct and sometimes brutal conflict – most often and obviously framed as ‘family or career?,” although there are more subtle variations as well. As a result we have the average age of conception climbing steadily, and along with it increasing rates of complications in pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia (pregnancy related high blood pressure) for the mother, and downs syndrome for the infant. This is a big issue today. In case anyone doubts the magnitude of the shift occurring in society, here are some statistics:
Average age of conception in England and Wales by year.
I use this by way of example. However I can imagine some people saying “but we are not making babies when we go out swing dancing, right?” (Right??!). So before we march on in and dismantle a traditional heritage that involves men (mostly) leading and women (mostly) following, let us consider whether taking this step might have some complications. Dancing may not necessarily be sexual (although it certainly can be!), but it has generally been gendered, (there is a difference), and I want to point out some of the roles that this plays.
I am a man, and so I am going to present the point of view from my own personal experience, having grown up in the age of feminism. As women have become more powerful in our society, it has become ‘politically incorrect’ for a man who is sensitive to these issues to challenge this. However I am going to put my head on the block and say that this runs counter to our nature as men, and is not healthy. Men have significantly more testosterone circulating in their system, and this makes them on average more active, more aggressive and stronger than most women. This is part of the biological distinction I mentioned above. When we deny this, we deny a basic reality of life. I am the first to admit that this basic reality causes huge problems in society, and this is part of what makes it hard for men to speak up. It is men who commit the vast majority of aggressive violence, rape, and even theft and burglary. I think men can take responsibility for the ugliest of the social problems in our world today. And so the natural response of our society is to pacify men, to take away this aggressive edge to their personality. Feminism sometimes confuses this with its agenda of improving women’s rights. Feminism does not do this though – instead I believe it has had the unfortunate counter-effect of making men feel that what lies within them is either wrong and shameful or angry and destructive.
The (predominantly young) men who are at a stage of development where they are forming their own identity need an environment to work this out. The sports field is a great place to take competitive urges, aggression and excess energy. But being a man is a far more subtle process than just possessing a surplus of aggression. By contrast, the dance floor is a place where men can learn to interact physically with their bodies in a way that is subtle, is gentle, and yet is still ‘masculine’. I believe we must retain a use for this word for men to maintain a healthy sense of identity. Leading places men repeatedly in socially demanding situations where they must take charge in a fashion that is traditionally masculine, that engages the side of their psychology and physicality that has been developed under the influence of testosterone, but that can not be resolved by use of brawn or strength. Learning to lead teaches men to be more sophisticated men, who feel strongly masculine while still being sensitive and responsive to the follows they are interacting with.
I think it can also be a great thing for men to learn to follow – but this is a very different thing we are talking about now. It teaches men other things – a deeper understanding of how dance works, what it is like to be on the other side of the interaction that is dance, how to wait and be patient, and to collaboratively submit to another person. But it does not provide men with the sense of identity that will help to address today’s social problems. I know from experience, becoming a man in today’s society can be an extraordinarily complex task. We experience strong pushes from our biology and our social environment to assert our selves. The simplest way to do this is with aggression, but some men manage to sublimate this into a strong competitive spirit in their corporate work. But there are other possibilities too, and I believe learning to lead dance has helped me to develop these. Some people may be surprised to hear me advocating for dance as a way to address such huge sociological difficulties, and I am not naïve enough to think it is going to be the answer by its self. But if we are going to address any of the problems we face today, I think it is important we look at everything we do in this light.
I am sure learning to lead is also advantageous to women, and I want to encourage women to learn to lead too. But I feel much more strongly about the need for this for men in the society we inhabit today. In my observation, it is in many respects men who are now the lost gender, who cause the majority of the social havoc, and who no longer know how to be themselves. Women may be diagnosed with higher rates of mental illness such as depression and anxiety, but perhaps this too is a result of men no having the tools to adequately express themselves apart from causing social chaos. Learning to lead can help teach them this. Let us encourage the mixing of gender roles where people want to do this, but let’s not put social pressure on this system. There is something valuable in the traditions of dance, and we need to carefully choose the environments where we wish to experiment with alternatives. Ambidextrous dance classes are a great thing, but some men on these blogs are telling you they are not comfortable dancing with each other. This must be respected or we will loose new people coming to learn the dance, and we will be back to a society where the things I have been discussing can, at best, be worked through on the sports field or computer games, and at worst in the ugly side of delinquency and crime. Remember too that people who come to dance classes are not entirely free to choose. If every class becomes an ambidextrous dance class, then every time a man joins a beginner class as a follow, he is putting great social pressure on the beginner leads to dance with him. This may be something they are not ready for. I am sure in many cases this causes men to leave dancing all together.
Okay. I’ve decided to weigh in on this one, because I’ve re-read it and I personally have issues with some of the claims (which are generally un-cited - yes, this is Tumblr, not a peer reviewed journal, but I feel claims about biology need to be backed up). My thoughts aren’t particularly organised so I’ll just respond in a point-wise fashion and people can criticise me all they want.
1. The increasing average age of mothers is just that - a bunch of statistics. Education has had an impact, as has IVF and ICSI and artificial insemination - all science - which has allowed older mothers to give birth too. Men also have had a role in this - they can delay fatherhood as well! Is this bad? Debatable. Overall, more babies and mothers are surviving in this day and age than at any time in history (infant and maternal mortality - Google it), and this is less a feminism win but an overall society win. This argument is also largely irrelevant to the whole swing dancing gender role thing.
2. I haven’t done tonnes of research on biology and the effect of testosterone, but http://www.gender.org.uk/about/06encrn/60_intro.htm seems relatively well reasoned and contains citations. Essentially, the continued presence of testosterone (and higher levels of it) isn’t correlated to aggressive or violent behaviour. So, trying to reduce violence in society isn’t going to be an attack on men specifically. Geez. We’re not trying to emasculate you all, in fact I’m pretty sure a large number of us prefer you with your balls. “Improving women’s rights" doesn’t equal “taking rights away from men". If you think this, you may have been interacting mainly with second-wave feminists who can be a little crazy. Men aren’t shameful at all! There’s nothing wrong with being a man! (just as there isn’t in being a woman).
3. Women are competitive too, and also need to form their own identity. I don’t think identity is wholly linked to gender - I can be many things regardless of my gender. Every human being requires some kind of physical recreation (it helps produce endorphins, which make you happy and probably less likely to commit crimes!). Perhaps the “dancing is for girls, ewww, I’m going to play footy" phenomenon is a product of patriarchal society - and this is what feminism is trying to work against.
I think leading and following are two sides of the same coin. Everyone has to co-operate in order to get along and actually dance together! I prefer a shared undertaking because it is mutually beneficial and I enjoy it more.
I feel like I’m arguing in circles and not really getting my point across. Maybe this is because gendering dance roles isn’t really going to help fix “society’s problems" and anyway, it’s not like it’s *only* the men who can solve these problems. Your place in society and how you function shouldn’t be defined by your gender. You are more than the bits between your legs (or the bits you wish you had between your legs).
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.
There is a difference between being the “same" and being “equal". I suggest zigsposts learns this.
Yeah there is a difference between “same" and “equal". But men and women are not the same, nor are they equal. My point is let’s not be scared of this, or even scared to say this. As I say, women are obviously not equal to men when it comes to carrying babies. And we recongnise it would not be sensible to put the male heavy weight boxing champ in the ring with the female champ. So why are we so scared to discuss it?
No – a man and woman are not the same due to one having a womb and the other having a ball sack. But they both have equal worth as parents to their offspring. You have failed the lesson.
And if a woman boxer chooses to fight a male boxer, she has every right to beat the crap out of him. Who are you to stop her?
Ahh, equal worth, I didn’t realise you were talking about worth! I never mentioned worth, and I wasn’t discussing worth at any point in the above conversation - that is an entirely different topic. And one I certainly wouldn’t argue with. but you have hit the nail on the head. People are scared of discussing this topic in case they imply someone is worth more than another. Lets get over that.
How do you define “equal" if you are not implying worth or value? And please don’t give the definition for “same". We’ve been through that.
Thanks for sustaining the interest Mr Migy, but I don’t particularly feel inclined to define equal. We have had a lot of that in the last few decades, and I think most people know what equal rights means. And it has been a great thing. In our culture most women would no longer be considered oppressed by virtue of being women. AND in addition to this, (which is not so great), little boys are being told many of their little boy activities are not longer acceptable to society. Boys need to have less aggressive play, and then they wont be aggressive in adulthood, Boys are being told they need to be the same as little girls, who are better behaved in the classrooms easier for teachers to look after. Boys are being told to be a certain way that they are not. They are not being told they must be ‘equal in worth’ to girls, they are being told to be the ‘same’ as them. At least that is my observation. They have been told not to play with toy weapons, and people have tried to bring up their boys without any exposure to these, only to find them improvising weapons out of sticks and utensils. This is not a way to change behaviour that actually works (and infact repressive approaches are more likely to promote increased social deviancy). If we want less aggression and less sexual violence, boys need to have safe/healthy ways to explore these aspects of self and learn useful channels to release the energy which this is expressing. Granted a lot of what is in popular culture is neither safe nor healthy, and the truth is I have no idea on a factual level of whether learning to dance as a young man would serve the purpose of curbing aggression. I doubt very much that it has been studied. But I do suspect dancing helps men explore their sexuality (which is different from female sexuality), as well as their interpersonal relatedness and physical contact with other human beings, and my personal hunch is that if all these aspects of one’s life are intact one would be unlikely to be physically violent as well.
Now the problem with the loss of the association of lead dancing with maleness is that it does exactly what happened with the toy guns. Girls are welcome to play with toy weapons and lead dance too. Of course they have their own aggressive impulses (weapons), and some will prefer to lead (dance), but I say we have to stop insisting that males and females behave the same, because what is inside tends to be different.
So you disagree with equal and the same being the same, but also say that people are being asked to be the same but not equal and that equal does not mean identical worth or values but it doesn’t mean same but you’re not inclined to define something that has already been defined even though you say you don’t know what it means. I’m confused.
When you say men and women are not the same and that men and women are not equal what do you mean? Simple question - one paragraph. GO.
Okay migy, good you are pushing me to be clear about what I am trying to say. I will ignore my concern that we might be getting pedantic about words and instead I will thank you for encouraging clarity and give you my thoughts.
I believe in striving for “equality” for men and women. This is different from saying men and women are “equal”. Dictionary.com defines the adjective for equal as “Being the same in quantity, size, degree, or value”. Confusing as same is part of the definition of equal. Equal is more specific than same though, to me same implies identical, whereas equal implies sameness with respect to a specific quality. To say men and women are equal includes but also goes beyond equal value. It implies men and women are the same in value and in quantity, size, degree as well. To play with the definition and make an obvious point, men and women are different in quantity (women outnumber men on this planet, in part a function of their greater biological robustness, lower infant deaths (although this has reduced in response to the horrendous practice of infanticide in some cultures) and longer life span to highlight a few other differences). They are different in size (on average – sure some women are tall, big etc but we are looking at population generalities here) and degree (here we can list numerous aptitudes where men and women tend to have different tendencies and strengths, including little girls preference to play with dolls and boys preference to play with trucks and guns, regardless of the cultural conditioning they are exposed to, and men’s careers biasing towards IT and engineering while women bias towards caring professions.
This all seems pretty obvious, but my issue is that modern society so often acts as if it is not, and this is to the detriment of both men and women.
True artists can say this so much better than me though. From the poet/writer C. Joybell C:
“We are all equal in the fact that we are all different. We are all the same in the fact that we will never be the same. We are united by the reality that all colours and all cultures are distinct & individual. We are harmonious in the reality that we are all held to this earth by the same gravity. We don't share blood, but we share the air that keeps us alive. I will not blind myself and say that my black brother is not different from me. I will not blind myself and say that my brown sister is not different from me. But my black brother is he as much as I am me. But my brown sister is she as much as I am me.”
