Re: [Callers] Gender disparity responsibilities (was: booking ahead)

I think you might be missing some of my point. I don't think that anybody is obligated to dance any role, or with any gender. I think that the people who INSIST on only dancing one role and only dancing with people of the opposite gender have an obligation, when there is a gender disparity, to shoulder some of the burden of the imbalance that their preferences have created by sitting a dance or two out rather than dancing every single dance with somebody of the opposite gender. For those of us who enjoy dancing with people of the same gender, it's not an issue; we can shoulder some of the imbalance burden (which we did not help create, but it's a community, so it's nice to try to make things work for everybody) by dancing with people of the same gender. So my point is not that gender imbalances need evening out or anything like that. It's simply that, there are some people who will only dance with one gender. If fewer than half the dancers are people of that gender, then it is bad for the community for those people to insist on dancing every single dance with their preferred gender. Somebody else with similar preferences will be shut out of the partnering process if they do so. I don't think they should be forced to dance with anybody, of course-- sitting out is a perfectly acceptable option. I don't see it as evening out imbalances or anything like that-- it's simply taking responsibility for difficulties in finding partners that your own commonly-shared preferences have caused. -Dave On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 12:10 PM, Maia McCormick <maia.mcc(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Casserly (cell) 781 258-2761