When I first started calling, my least favorite part was having to use the terms "ladies" and "gents", because they just felt culturally odd and archaic to me. I was embarrassed to use them when calling for conferences, family reunions, and other groups of folks who were not that familiar with the traditional language of contra and square dance, and I find them confusing and weird to use for folks dancing roles that are different from their biological gender. I tried "women" and "men" for a while, but it just felt too stiff and not playful enough. Over time I've gotten a bit more comfortable with ladies/gents but I have been SO HAPPY to see this conversation going on.
I just searched out Will's original message because I remembered really liking the reference to Larry Jennings' quote. Solving this problem and coming up with a new pair of terms that gains general acceptance (like Ms. has) will be, in my view, a giant step forward. On Dec 30, 2012, at 10:47 PM, William Loving wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Tavi Merrill and I have started a very active discussion on the Facebook > "Contra Dancers" Group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204574738 ) about > finding a new pair of neutral, logical, easily assimilated terms for the > traditional Gents/Ladies terms as well as their variants, men/women, > lead/follow, bands bares, etc., all of which have various issues for various > people within the dance community. As Linda Leslie has already noted in the > thread, > > "Larry Jennings once said that the person who came up with just the right > terminology was going to be responsible for the next evolutionary leap in > contra dancing. A great challenge that has been around for several decades! > Wonderful to see the suggestions! And debate the merits….." > > There is another thread on the same group about the issue of gender or role > balancing at weekend events and some of the issues with the existing terms > are addressed there, but the main thread is about brainstorming new > possibilities and I'd like to invite you all to join in on FB or to develop > an additional discussion here. There have been many interesting as well as > highly amusing suggestions but there is a consensus I think that agrees on > the need for something: > > 1. Matches the one/two syllable form of gents/ladies, men/women, etc. > 2. Sounds distinctly different for easy recognition > 3. References Left and Right (for left-hand person and right hand person) > 4. Is gender and connotatively neutral without a lot of referential baggage > > So far, I think the best one we've come up with so far is "Port/Starboard", > which seems to meet all those requirements. > > Sincerely, > > Will > > Will Loving > Downtown Amherst Contra Dance > http://amherstcontra.org > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers <>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<> Delia Clark PO Box 45 Taftsville, VT 05073 802-457-2075 [email protected]
