On Thu, Jan 03, 2013, [email protected] wrote: > > Aha! Much of this makes sense...if you are programming a dance that > is meant to be gender-free. This is a much different program than for > an open public dance or a long-running traditional dance series. I am > familiar with Chris. We attended American Week at Pinewoods together > once or twice during the early 90s. I can understand an LGBT group > being very sensitive about gender roles. What I object to is forcing > this same naming system on the rest of us. Most dancers I know much > prefer that gender roles be kept, with the understanding that one > might choose to dance the other part if there is a gender imbalance.
The only real reason to push (note: NOT "force") gender-neutral terms into the whole contra community is to have uniformity of terminology. Square dance has moved somewhat in that direction; for example, "walk around the left-hand lady" has been changed to "walk around your corner" (which not-quite-coincidentally also has the advantage that the corner woman no longer has to translate "left" to "right"). -- Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/ <*> <*> <*> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
