29 Jan
2017
29 Jan
'17
8:43 p.m.
Michael, is there any real reason to maintain the conflation that a male
person ends a swing on the left and a female person ends a swing on the
right? I see none.
Nobody is proposing "funny terms for people when [...] we already have
perfectly good terms". There aren't *any* terms for people. Just those dang
terms for dance positions that happen to have historical conflation with
genitalia.
Far too many new (and even not-so-new) dancers of whom I've asked "do you
have a preferred role for this dance?" have never even considered the
possibility that role has *absolutely nothing* to do with one's gender.
They have never considered dancing the "non-traditional" role because of
the subtle (and sometimes, regrettably, overt) reinforcement of the
male-dancer="gent"-position female-dancer="lady"-position.
Why reinforce that conflation at all?
On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 2:26 AM, Michael Barraclough via Callers <
callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
On Fri, 2017-01-27 at 09:04 -0500, Angela DeCarlis via
Callers wrote:
And many people are fine with things the way they are! I get that, and
that's great for you, but why on earth wouldn't you change things if it
meant being more inclusive, more just?
I understand that from your perspective we would be more inclusive if
we used gender-free terminology. It is my belief, however, that the
majority of the population would see the use of gender-free terminology
for roles as something that 'excluded' them - additional terms used by
a private club of people with their own rituals, kind of like masonry.
They can understand why we might need funny terms for the moves. They
cannot understand why we need funny terms for people when (as far as
they are concerned) we already have perfectly good terms -
men/gents/blokes and women/ladies/sheilas etc. From their perspective
it is definitely not 'inclusive'.
Michael Barraclough
www.michaelbarraclough.com
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