My 2 cents: I believe there are several things in Western society that promotes the gender imbalance.
One of them is women's failure to make dancing something that is _required_ for meeting them. It is now considered absolutely normal, that women per definitionem are able to dance at some level (as in nightclub), but men are OK if they are just drinking beer at the bar. Even in places where dancing is more popular, women whom are able to dance well vastly outnumber dancing men. If women would at least declare that they _expect_ "real men" to be able to (partner) dance, the situation would be a lot different. Many men believes that dancing is a sissy type of thing only women do (at least until a few years ago, this was the case in Hungary - many dancers put an awful lot of effort to change that: result is when I say I'm a tango teacher the answer is invariably "wow, tango is very hard to learn isn't it?" and after a few minutes of talking, people ask me about courses and locations). Within existing communities, the average follower does not tend to indicate that she would gladly dance with the guys trying to get a dance. Cabeceo was invented for this reason, and really: I can't really find anything more interesting (and effective). However, it only works well if ladies distinguish between partners and pay attention to those they want to dance with. Most lady dancers take whomever asks them to dance - mostly because of the gender balance - with the exception of dancers they consider bad or repulsive, but it is very hard to see who they really prefer. This also creates a situation where men feel that they have to do nothing to get partners. There is no challenge, and therefore: little reward and little sense of success. If women would be more keen to play the GAME, then men would feel that they have to really pay attention to the women and would be more into the type of dancing that promotes less show, more _real_ tango: guys would face that mastering tango is really mastering how to please a women while dancing and not just mastering steps. Of course, while a guy in the majority urban population may socialize without the possibility of (his ego) getting hurt, this is not an easy thing to attract guys with such a "dangerous" environment, however the overall "feeling" of the milongas would be a lot more sexy and therefore the public perception of tango dancing would be more appealing (sex sells - especially among men). All in all the possibility of being rejected is a lot lower than at a club, where no partner dancing is involved. (Oh yes: the idea that men generally learn tango for the sake of tango - it is rubbish. My experience is: 5 out of 10 guys does tango to meet women or to learn a dance with which they can meet women, or consider it a training to learn how to handle women, so they are more successful with them. The other 5 already came with a girlfriend/spouse...) Cheers, Aron -- Ecsedy Áron *********** Aron ECSEDY Tel: +36 20 66-24-071 http://www.milonga.hu/ http://www.holgyvalasz.hu/ _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
