Females as leaders in competition

[Sagitta]

Speaking of judging I was talking to a female from teh cornell ballroom dance team and she said that it was quite common to have female leaders in USABDA competions and that in her experience there are quite a few judges who like seeing that!! Not men couples, but female couples!!
Talk of being sexist! What's your opinion on that?

[etchuck]

Speaking of judging I was talking to a female from teh cornell ballroom dance team and she said that it was quite common to have female leaders in USABDA competions and that in her experience there are quite a few judges who like seeing that!! Not men couples, but female couples!!

Talk of being sexist! What's your opinion on that?

Well I pretty much agree that it's sexist to allow women to be leaders but men cannot be followers (seeing that a few guys enjoy being followers because they're that serious about dancing). I've mentioned a few times at many contra dances, there is a move that callers be gender-neutral and instead call relative to the floorspace. Certainly the environment under those conditions seems to me much more social, even though I admit with my ballroom mentality, it still seems odd.

[KevinL]

Speaking of judging I was talking to a female from teh cornell ballroom dance team and she said that it was quite common to have female leaders in USABDA competions and that in her experience there are quite a few judges who like seeing that!! Not men couples, but female couples!!
Talk of being sexist! What's your opinion on that?

Of course it's sexist.

However, there are almost always more women interested in dancing then men. There aren't that many men who are sure enough of themselves that they are willing to do the follower role. It's culturally acceptable for women to be physically close to one another, but much less so for men to be physically close.

Also, rumor has it that much of the ballroom community is stuffy conservative people, and "those people" don't want to see two guys dancing together.

A bigger deal for me is that lady-leader/man-follower couples are as taboo as man/man couples.

[Sagitta]

Too true. I would ask to be a follower as now I know some people who might be willing, but I'm struggling a little too much right now in ballroom. Got to give it a little more time and I'll start pushing as many buttons as I can!!
:)

[Adwiz]

Personally, I think female-only couples in competition, if it gains ground, would be a trend that will ultimately kill the sport. That view is not based on any sexist ideology, but on what I've observed of human gender perception response to activities of this nature. Heres why:

It's already hard enough to get men seriously interested in DanceSport. I dismissed it for years because the word "dancing" brought to mind tutus and men in tights leaping gracefully across a stage. Just didn't click for an athlete like me. For many guys (probably most of them) it only becomes interesting because of the male-female role that it represents. Guys who try it like the fact that men have an important role to play.

My point is that men already have trouble seeing DanceSport as a male-friendly activity. Once female-only partnerships start to take hold in competition, guys will increasingly see it as a feminine activity. It will write the death-knell on getting more guys to sign up. This wouldn't happen overnight, but give it five to ten years and it becomes stamped as a "chick" activity like ballet. How many guys take ballet in North America? Audiences drop. Attendance drops. Awareness drops.

I think it's much wiser to leave things alone until the sport reached critical mass in North America before trying to mess with gender perception.

[ShyDancer]

I agree with Adwiz!

Also from the few women couples I have seen in competition, they lack the presence that a man brings to the dance, espescially in something like Paso Doble where the leader must be "strong" a lady looks funny trying to pull that off.
Every dance tells a story and you need to be able to play that story out to be able to really get the audience to feel the dance.

I probably sound a little sexist, but its how I interpret it.

[Larinda McRaven]

I see female leaders and male followers only in a few certain situations..

Female leads female at a party or social dance, almost as a joke, because of lack of males. Lots of laughing and a few sidways glances from the men.

Female leaders or male followers in a same-sex group class or party at a studio that has a large portion of gay dancers.

Female leaders (once a female leading a male) at collegiate competitions, due to lack of male paticipation.

The first situation has come up constantly in history. Lots of older women I know feel very comfortable dancing with another female, because that is what they did growing up when men were away at war and the women wanted to swing/lindy in the 40s.

The second situation is understandable. As same sex couples and social groups would like to be able to dance together as any other couple and participate in any other social activity.

The third situation is the one that I am confronted with and generally asked to judge. As a petite female with a masculine partner I am very aware of the concept that men should lead with their mass. And women leaders tend to not be able to duplicate this effect due to their relativley smaller mass. They will lead with individual body parts, trying to be "strong" or they will lean back slightly, trying to create a larger frame. The leader ceases to look grounded or in control. The same goes for male/male couples when the follower is relatively large for the role of following. I have a hard time marking these couples well because the very concepts that Steve and I find important and have as priorities in our own dancing are lost on these couples.

Not that I have any personal bias here against the partnership/people/couple/situation. I just don't think it is balanced or the mechanics work very well. I also think this applies to traditional male/female couples where the size ratio is skewed. Couples in this situation have one extra hurdle in their competitive dancing. But for social fun dancing where one is not judged...well then I suppose we shoud not be judging them.

Adwiz, I never thought of this in a larger sociological context. I suppose you are right though. It is hard to get men to "dance" in genral. Making it more feminine could ultimately undermine the whole idea of "couples dancing".

[Adwiz]

Larinda, is that you in the photos on the intro of your web site?

[SDsalsaguy]

Either that or she's got a twin! :shock:

[Larinda McRaven]

yes

err... yes that is me..not that I have twin.

[SDsalsaguy]

yes

err... yes that is me..not that I have twin.
yeah... not only would you have had to have had a twin... but they would have needed to be dancing with your partner as well! :shock: :lol:

Some great shots on your sight by the way... :D

[pygmalion]

I see female leaders and male followers only in a few certain situations..

Female leads female at a party or social dance, almost as a joke, because of lack of males. Lots of laughing and a few sidways glances from the men.

Female leaders or male followers in a same-sex group class or party at a studio that has a large portion of gay dancers.

Female leaders (once a female leading a male) at collegiate competitions, due to lack of male paticipation.

The first situation has come up constantly in history. Lots of older women I know feel very comfortable dancing with another female, because that is what they did growing up when men were away at war and the women wanted to swing/lindy in the 40s.

The second situation is understandable. As same sex couples and social groups would like to be able to dance together as any other couple and participate in any other social activity.

The third situation is the one that I am confronted with and generally asked to judge. As a petite female with a masculine partner I am very aware of the concept that men should lead with their mass. And women leaders tend to not be able to duplicate this effect due to their relativley smaller mass. They will lead with individual body parts, trying to be "strong" or they will lean back slightly, trying to create a larger frame. The leader ceases to look grounded or in control. The same goes for male/male couples when the follower is relatively large for the role of following. I have a hard time marking these couples well because the very concepts that Steve and I find important and have as priorities in our own dancing are lost on these couples.

Not that I have any personal bias here against the partnership/people/couple/situation. I just don't think it is balanced or the mechanics work very well. I also think this applies to traditional male/female couples where the size ratio is skewed. Couples in this situation have one extra hurdle in their competitive dancing. But for social fun dancing where one is not judged...well then I suppose we shoud not be judging them.

Adwiz, I never thought of this in a larger sociological context. I suppose you are right though. It is hard to get men to "dance" in genral. Making it more feminine could ultimately undermine the whole idea of "couples dancing".

How the heck did I miss this post? I must have been doing something fun the day after Easter. I just don't remember it, whatever it was.

Just curious. Does body mass (i.e. a man's size) contribute to a lead's ability to lead? Or can women lead just as effectively (although they've been impeded by society's norms)? Hmm.

[pygmalion]

I don't want to answer my own question, but I will say this:

I've had two teachers that I'll compare. One was tallish, but slight. The other had some serious body mass. The slight guy spent a heck of a lot more time explaining lead and follow to me, than the big guy. The big (not fat) guy just showed me with his body weight. Hmm.

[Larinda McRaven]

So you definately felt the difference. :D Mass is a huge part of it, not mass in general, but mass relative to your parner. Mostly in smooth and standard. I saw some very good girl leaders last weekend in the rhythm where rythmical body actions outweigh (npi) mass. (PS...the girl leaders were the ONLY leaders able to break on the two in mambo consistently.)

[pygmalion]

*giggle* I used to have a teacher who couldn't hear the two, but thought he could. :oops: Poor guy! LOL. :lol: At least I had the sense to follow, not lead him. We just did salsa to mambo music. LOL.

[Chris Stratton]

People come in various sizes - just as there are M/F couples that would be poor matches, there are F/F couples that have fairly classic relative proportions. I wish you could have seen Sola & Jessica, who were 5th in the gold international viennese at MIT, and just a mark or two out of the finals of the other dances. To the extent that it's fair for me to comment on my peers, I see their challenge in dance quality being the same as everyone else's - to make as much technical and artistic improvement as available time, training, and determination can provide.

Another thing I would like to mention is that there are some very different looks to the dynamics of partnerships - a friend showed me a tape a while back of a contest between I think John Wood & Anne Lewis vs. Marcus & Karen Hilton. I hope I'm not mixing up the names here, but my impression is that to lead like Wood you have to outmass your partner, wheras Hilton seems to have an almost delicate (if still tall) frame and a correspondingly lighter looking lead. But despite the marked contrasts, these couples exchanged the top two spots over and over again.

[Kitty]

So you definately felt the difference. :D Mass is a huge part of it, not mass in general, but mass relative to your parner. Mostly in smooth and standard. I saw some very good girl leaders last weekend in the rhythm where rythmical body actions outweigh (npi) mass. (PS...the girl leaders were the ONLY leaders able to break on the two in mambo consistently.)

Oh so true about the mambo! I had such a hard time trying to keep my partner on beat past weekend. We were on and off and on again.

Larinda, you were judging my dancing past weekend at MIT:-). And I kept staring at you the whole time because it was you and because I've never seen before such long blonde hair!

[Kitty]

People come in various sizes - just as there are M/F couples that would be poor matches, there are F/F couples that have fairly classic relative proportions. I wish you could have seen Sola & Jessica, who were 5th in the gold international viennese at MIT, and just a mark or two out of the finals of the other dances. To the extent that it's fair for me to comment on my peers, I see their challenge in dance quality being the same as everyone else's - to make as much technical and artistic improvement as available time, training, and determination can provide.

I was cheering for them! What college were they from?

There was a couple consisting of 2 guys in prechamp, they placed 5th in latin 4-dance and 2nd in Paso. They were awesome dancers, however, at times you couldn't tell that there was a defined leader and a defined follower, so I agree with the placings although I wanted them to win.

[msc]

In my experience, leg strength and body strength are more important than mass. I've had some very slim women, 5-4 and under, give a tremendous amount of forward drive, easily "putting me on my back foot," and then some. It's kind of amazing how much power the legs contain, although you need the center tone and body strength to effectively deliver that power through the hand (and the partner needs the same to receive that power.)

[Warren J. Dew]

As a petite female with a masculine partner I am very aware of the concept that men should lead with their mass. And women leaders tend to not be able to duplicate this effect due to their relativley smaller mass. They will lead with individual body parts, trying to be "strong" or they will lean back slightly, trying to create a larger frame. The leader ceases to look grounded or in control.
Interesting - I'm glad it's a lady saying that! I've definitely noticed that look in even the good women leaders - it looks to me like they are leading with the frame rather than leading with their bodies. What you say sounds like the right explanation for it.

[pygmalion]

Yes, that is an interesting observation. I'm suddenly reminded of a female coach I used to have whom I outweighed by at least 25 pounds. Her leads were super clear, but I could feel her ... lats and triceps a lot, not necessarily her body weight. Hmm. :idea: An ah-ha moment here. :D

[DancePoet]

This thread is giving me motivation to get back to doing my pushups and weight training again!

[Chris Stratton]

Hmm, okay, how about lead shoulder pads?