Is gender imbalance self made?

Dave Bailey said:
Yup. The basic premise seems to be that beginner men drop out more than beginner women because.... errr, I'm not sure. Their egos are too fragile? Something like that. It basically doesn't make any sense at all. :confused:


Oh, you and your boring facts.

Now, that all said, from my experience, some beginner men do drop out - possibly more than beginner women - but that's simply because men aren't used to learning to dance and don't appreciate the learning curve needed. Again, probably because men culturally in the UK aren't used to learning to dance.
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AS whASSINAME said "67% of statistics are made up on the spot..."
 
dchester said:
Agreed. A big part of the gender imbalance is because experienced men are more willing to dance with newbie followers, than experienced women are to dance with newbie leaders.
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Heck no. At least, most places where I've danced, the leaders keep choosing to dance with the same few advanced followers instead of asking anyone else. That's why I gave up on AT. I would dress up, go out, and spend the evening just sitting most of the time. It was like a vicious circle, people wouldn't dance with me because I wasn't advanced, but I couldn't gain more experience because people weren't dancing with me.
 
That is a very unusual behavior within your former tango community. I find that the other extreme is more abundant: advanced leader usually look for fresh meat and grab the inexperienced dancers first. (Which might also be a reason to leave that community).
 
opendoor said:
That is a very unusual behavior within your former tango community. I find that the other extreme is more abundant: advanced leader usually look for fresh meat and grab the inexperienced dancers first. (Which might also be a reason to leave that community).
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you cant say that; it might be unusal for where you are; but you are on different continents for pete's sake...
 
opendoor said:
That is a very unusual behavior within your former tango community. I find that the other extreme is more abundant: advanced leader usually look for fresh meat and grab the inexperienced dancers first. (Which might also be a reason to leave that community).
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Isn't there something of a contradictory standard here? If experienced leaders don't dance with inexperienced dancers, they are charged with being elitist, or something. If they do ask beginners to dance they are charged with going ofter fresh meat. Maybe they are just trying to encourage new women to dance tango.
 
AndaBien said:
Isn't there something of a contradictory standard here? If experienced leaders don't dance with inexperienced dancers, they are charged with being elitist, or something. If they do ask beginners to dance they are charged with going ofter fresh meat. Maybe they are just trying to encourage new women to dance tango.
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It can be framed either way, but in practice the latter characterization ('going after fresh meat') rarely happens, and the few times such an imagery is created it rarely sticks.
 
jennyisdancing said:
Heck no. At least, most places where I've danced, the leaders keep choosing to dance with the same few advanced followers instead of asking anyone else. That's why I gave up on AT. I would dress up, go out, and spend the evening just sitting most of the time. It was like a vicious circle, people wouldn't dance with me because I wasn't advanced, but I couldn't gain more experience because people weren't dancing with me.
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opendoor said:
That is a very unusual behavior within your former tango community. I find that the other extreme is more abundant: advanced leader usually look for fresh meat and grab the inexperienced dancers first. (Which might also be a reason to leave that community).
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bordertangoman said:
you cant say that; it might be unusal for where you are; but you are on different continents for pete's sake...
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The question is generally not whether you - or one person - experienced it. The question is whether you and most of your peers (beginner women) experienced it as well - if that's the case, then wherever you live is certainly an inversion of the generalization some of us are proposing. But if the observation is largely limited to yourself, that could have been an aberration, or perhaps can be explained by other causes.

It is very common for leaders to dance with experienced followers (and vice versa). The question is not whether such a behavior happens - it's whether it happens to a degree that beginners are starved out.

In my community, neither men nor women (beginners of either gender) are starved out. In my observation, beginner-men have it harder, but they are by no means stuck sans options for growth or opportunities for dancing with experienced women.
 
opendoor said:
TangoCynic always knows the answer
youtube.com/watch?v=twVJEmYLsAw
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Yep....that sums it up. :rolleyes:

And if you don't care to watch the video (though I recommend it) -
The question is generally not whether you - or one person - experienced it. The question is whether you and most of your peers (beginner women) experienced it as well
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My answer to the question is yes, many beginner women in my city have had the same experience as I did. I'm far from alone in this. I've talked to followers who said they had to attend milongas regularly for at least a year or more, to reach the point of being asked to dance much. Personally I ran out of patience.
 
jennyisdancing said:
...I'm far from alone in this. I've talked to followers who said they had to attend milongas regularly for at least a year or more, to reach the point of being asked to dance much. Personally I ran out of patience.
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This is a vary interesting topic for me. I have two favorite partners; one gets asked to dance so much that I'm lucky to get two tandas from her in an evening. The other rarely gets asked to dance. IMO, they are almost equal in ability.

Partner 1 sits in a high traffic area, does not get involved in deep conversations, and is always easy to ask. She looks like she is eager to dance.

Partner 2 often sits in out-of-the way areas, frequently becomes involved in focused conversations, and is not easy to ask.

Partner 1 dances all night long. Partner 2 sits most of the night. It is my thought that partner 1 is simply more available to dance than partner 2.

For me, asking partner 1 to dance is just easier. Approaching partner 2 takes more effort. Partner 1 makes it clear that she wants to dance. Partner 2 does not.

I'm very interested in what other leaders may think about asking ladies to dance.
 
What i think about asking ladies to dance is a bit confused - i think it is hard for followers to get good dances, and that leaders tend to get into patterns of who and when they dance with people, but also that a lot of followers don't seem to work very efficiently at getting asked.

First the leaders perspective on how many people i can actually dance with in an eveing: A tanda is (very) roughly 15 minutes, i.e there are 4 tandas in an hour, and if I dance 3 hours that makes about 12 tandas. With dancing two tandas in a row if it goes really well i guess i dance on average with 9 people. Depending who is at the milonga there are usually 4 people who are close friends/favourite partners/old dance partners and so that i "have" to dance with. This guarantees that i am not going to dance with most people. There might be a lot of people i would like to dance with, and even more that i would dance with, but there is just not enought time. If get there late, or have to work early the next day or anything i will only dance 2 hours or so, and the ratio gets even worse.

Second how do i pick people to dance with: Whenever i blogs i am amazed at what deep planning some leaders seem to be able to put into their evening - the break between tandas is maybe 10 seconds, the first bars of the music gives me another few seconds, but i really don't have much time to decide anything. If i want to dance that tanda the i am then looking around frantically till i find somebody a) i think i would like to dance with and b) who looks like they want to dance with me. And my impression in these discussions is that a lot of followers underestimate how important b) is. I think that while for there are milongas where the cabeceo is not used, for followers every single milonga uses the cabeceo. The eye contact and smile might not be enough to negotiate the dance, but if there is no eye contact the guys are much, much less likely to ask. When i am in a restaurant and would like to order i make eyecontact with the waiter, and do the little nod thing, and the waiter realizes that i am interested in him (well, in paying the bill/ ordering something else), and comes by as soon as he can. I don't sit and stare into my coffee mug and then complain about inattentive service when i am left alone. So i would like a follower to give me at least as much respect as a waiter in a coffee shop or a bartender.

(of course this might also be a matter of what kind of waiters you like - i prefer to be left alone till i need/want something, and the overly attentive and intrusive service that has become popular in some chains is really annoying to me. Attentiveness is wondeful, and good waiters are close to telepathic, but coming by every few seconds and asking if i need something is imho the opposite of attentiveness - if they were truly paying attention to me they would know if i needed or wanted something).

Gssh
 
How little is too little? It is not about quantity. I believe very often people don't get to dance, and don't enjoy themselves, because they are ....too eager to dance.
After a recent milonga one woman complained to me that in the whole night she only got three tandas, one of them being with "a very inexperienced leader". She was extremely dissatisfied. Meanwhile, at the same event I also danced three tandas, and one of them was with a beginner. I felt it was a great milonga, and I had a fantastic time...
 
jennyisdancing said:
Heck no. At least, most places where I've danced, the leaders keep choosing to dance with the same few advanced followers instead of asking anyone else. That's why I gave up on AT. I would dress up, go out, and spend the evening just sitting most of the time. It was like a vicious circle, people wouldn't dance with me because I wasn't advanced, but I couldn't gain more experience because people weren't dancing with me.
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Ah Ha! - I guess that's one of the reasons dancers from jenny's area travel about 2 hours to get to milongas in my area


Gssh said:
... If i want to dance that tanda the i am then looking around frantically till i find somebody a) i think i would like to dance with and b) who looks like they want to dance with me. And my impression in these discussions is that a lot of followers underestimate how important b) is...Gssh
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me too.

e.g. last milonga I approached the table of a lady I had danced with before, hopefully conveying my intention by staring intently at her & walking directly toward her. She never lifted her eyes to glance toward me even when I was an arms length away. The lady seated just behind her however smiled & nodded towards me. I smiled & extended my hand towards her. We danced.
 
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