Martin wrote: "men outnumber women at the overwhelming majority of practicas and milongas." I am very surprised and intrigued how NYC comes by this (to me) surprising phenomenon. Any ideas?
Michael wrote: "Some women found their voice" Gosh. I wonder how they managed before. It's a short, perhaps inadvertent step from that, to the assumption clearly described here https://www.facebook.com/yann.lohr/posts/10206447170080662:0 that women are disempowered and need rescuing or at least empowering. This guy, from the best of intentions I'm sure, wanted to change the mores of the milonga so that women could essentially "find their voice" and their "rights". I disagreed with this inadvertently patronising stance and replied http://tango-outpost.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/why-i-dont-need-saving-or-response-to.html But, I agree that there are women who tolerate a lot of bad dancing, coercive invitation and astonishingly, unsolicited criticism of their dancing, even mid-milonga. I ask them why and they admit it's true, usually with a shrug. Shahrukh listed many of the reasons. Eventually some women become more selective. Many don't and don't have that good a time - as you can see from their faces. Shahrukh wrote "a milonga is a *social* event and not a dance competition where you have to pick your partner based almost exclusively on dance skill or compatibility." That is true. And I will go to watch, listen and chat with friends and strangers. But it still doesn't mean I will get up to dance with people who I don't want to embrace closely and be that intimate with for 12 minutes, no matter how good looking or how good a conversationalist. Unless I feel I absolutely can't get out of it & there's nothing I hate more than that kind of coercion. It's heartening to see from this list that there are people out there who believe social dancing is about pleasure, enjoyment and music, the intimate and the personal and not that it should be dominated by endless improvement, skills and showing them off characteristic of the industrialisation of dancing tango. Felicity _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
