I can't find Ivan Illich's quote (help, anyone?) but he said something like:
It's very good for industry to have men and women be "equal". ie, interchangeable cogs in the machine. But this destroys the cultural delight of differing roles and gender celebration. -------------------- Lindsay Morris CEO, TSMworks Tel. 1-859-539-9900 lind...@tsmworks.com On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Lewis Land <lewisl...@windstream.net> wrote: > I feel compelled to comment on this very fascinating discussion about > calling gender-free dances, especially now that the subject of eliminating > "dominant/submissive" moves like the courtesy turn has come up. I have a gay > son, and one of my students once described me as the most > politically-correct person he'd ever met, but come on, people. One of the > things that adds zest to contra dancing, and in my opinion to life in > general, is the interplay of men's and women's roles... as one of the > earlier correspondents put it, "when do they match and support each other? > When do they work in opposition, it's what makes dances so unexpectedly > yummy. We have to acknowledge and embrace those issues, because if we get > too neutral we'll lose the story lines that make some of our best dances > come to life". I couldn't agree more. I am not sure what new language could > be developed to replace "ladies" and "gents". Some of the suggestions seem > valid. But when the discussion turns to eliminating some of the most > pleasurable aspects of contra dancing simply to make the event more > gender-neutral, I cannot help but think we're becoming absurdly politically > correct. -Lewis Land > > > As one who's life has been a little gender-role-freeish, I feel politically > >entitled to come out and say I DON't like the band/bare thing, just > because > >the verbiage is less than euphonious to my ears. That said, I don't have > any > >better ideas .... yet. But I'm thinking, I'm thinking. > > > >In many dances the roles of the "gent" and "lady" are NOT the same -- one > is > >a little more active, one is more reactive. > >In any given pair of people, one PERson is often more active than the > other. > >It's the interplay of these two things (when do they match, support each > >other? When do they work in opposition?) that make dances so unexpectedly > >yummy. > >There must be a way to acknowledge and embrace this -- if we get too > neutral > >we'll lose the story lines that make some of our best dances come to life. > > > > On 12/4/2010 10:08 PM, Jim McKinney wrote: > >> There's my inexperience showing. Beckett formation never even crossed my >> mind. >> >> Something I have been thinking about in regard to this gender free >> discussion is ladies chain with a courtesy turn. Having Evens/Ns/Bares >> chain removes gender from the language but the act of courtesy turn still >> seems very dominant/submissive to me. My wife and I tried walking through a >> couple options: a skater's/promenade hand-hold in front or a no hand-hold, >> kind of gypsy to maintain the interaction and still get turned around the >> right way. The thing we decided we liked best was evens chain across to an >> allemande left. That seemed to keep the roles more neutral no matter which >> part was danced by a man or woman and still get everyone into the right >> places. >> >> I love ladies chain with a courtesy turn and as a dancer would hate to >> give that up but as a caller I think I need to be prepared for the occasion >> when neutral is better. >> Jim >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > call...@sharedweight.net > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
