[Callers] gender

In reply to Read who said "When gendered terms are used, people are more likely to sort themselves by gender. Newcomers are unlikely to even consider the possibility of not doing so." I disagree. When I teach the introductory workshop I say, "You will see women dancing the men's role and men dancing the women's role." They see this happening immediately, even in the introductory workshop. In our community, men dancing the women's role is less common, but it will happen at least once at each dance so newcomers are seeing it. We often get new women who want to dance the men's role so that they can dance with their women friends that they came with. Of course this isn't a great plan since they're all newbies, but my point is that they don't hesitate to switch roles. I find that the long-time contra dancers are often the ones who are less willing. At a dance just a few days ago, I asked a woman to dance. Right beside us were two men dancing together. She declared that it was silly for two men to dance together when there were women available to dance with. Another time I asked a woman to dance and she said she would if she couldn't find a man to dance with. Another time I was lined up with my woman partner when two men came running over and declared "We know you'd rather dance with us!" and one of them grabbed my partner away and the other one grabbed me. These are long time dancers who are operating under the notion that a couple equals one man and one woman and anything else is only to be tolerated if the ideal cannot be had. So perhaps a non-gendered term would help the long-time dancers more than the new dancers! I notice that in this conversation thread - no one has actually proposed another option. I've thought it ought to be something totally random like "blue" and "yellow" but a shift that drastic just wouldn't happen I don't think. I'm reminded of the time I was asked to call a gender-free dance where where they were using "bands and bares." I spent a tremendous amount of time practicing calling bands and bares and getting dances I felt comfortable calling that way. IN the introductory workshop, I was passing out bandanas for the bands and one man was asking his friend what I meant by the "bands." She said to him - "She means the mens part." I thought why did I just bother to learn bare and band when they're just thinking women and men? -- JoLaine Jones-Pokorney "We are as gods and might as well get good at it!" - Stewart Brand