[Tango-L] Women stop studying tango: EPIDEMIC

[Ron Weigel]

On 7/4/06, Tom Stermitz <stermitz at tango.org> wrote:
> ENDEMIC PROBLEM
>
> I've recently noticed in several different venues, that the women
> have not been living up to the skill level of the men. There may be
> many explanations, but I think fundamentally, women learn quickly at
> first, but have a much more difficult path going from Intermediate to
> Advanced. Men learn slowly and steadily from the very beginning.

What I've noticed teaching close embrace in a mixed embrace community
is the following:

- In the first 1-2 months, the women have problems with walking
backward and extending their legs to make space for the man's advance,
which is more difficult than the men walking forward and leading with
their chest. When we used to teach open embrace, the men had greater
difficulty right from the start (beginning material: walk to cross,
forward ocho).

- At the next stage (2-4 mos) men are struggling with leading the
different combinations that arise from the ocho cortado and back
ochos. Women have little difficulty with back ochos, but some 'fear'
the cross coming from the ocho cortado and are more likely to take
their leg behind (could be a back ocho if led that way) than in fromt
to the cross. Most women get past this obstacle quickly. Those that
don't either quit tango or shift to open embrace.

- At this point many women stop taking classes. They have reached a
state of 'adequacy' in following. More advanced leaders are much more
likely to ask beginning followers to dance, so the followers have
better partners and improve faster ... to a point. Meanwhile men that
continue classes are improving their leading skills. They are learning
about improvisation and musicality. Somewhere around 6-12 mos, the men
start complaining about women not following well. The greatest
complaints from continuing male students about female partners are
- steps too long
- continuing moving before lead is given (also ahead of the music)
- pull leaders off balance (often due to shifting embrace, throwing
weight back onto heels, too long steps)

The women who quit classes early are typically younger, learn faster
in the beginning, are asked to dance more at milongas (may be due to
better skills, but also because they are prettier). If has been said
many times that women prefer the best leaders as partners but men
prefer the prettiest women as followers, so the motivation to get
better is decreased for women and increased for men.

There are a few women who continue to get better by dancing with the
best dancers, but generally they are not as good as the women who
continue to study. Those that continue to study tango tend to be older
and had more difficulty in the beginning. This continued study is
often with private lessons, because many of their skill limitations
can only or are best addressed in this format.

However, the greatest inhibitor to women improving their skills is
that they continue to get asked to dance. Increasing their skill will
not increase their frequency of dancing. If the standard set in a
community by most women dancers is not high (somewhat of a silent
conspiracy not to improve) there will not be many advanced women
dancers.

Why men continue to study when they have reached a level of 'adequacy'
is another issue. I think it is because of the type of personality
that is attracted to tango. In our university community, we have a
high representation of engineers, computer scientists, physical
scientists, and biologists among the men studying tango. We also have
some women in these disciplines, but we have more women in the social
sciences, arts and health care professions. Perhaps this reflects the
gender distribution among disciplines, but I think men are even
overrepresented in tango relative to their distribution in the
physical and biological sciences. The men are attracted to the logic
of tango - particularly the improvisational possibilities. They enjoy
the intellectual challenge of tango.

To some degree women also drop out of classes because the classes
focus more on the abilities men need to acquire. However, even
emphasizing maintaining balance, connection, focusing on the mans'
axis, waiting (not anticipating), etc., has limited impact. The impact
is greatest when I, as a leader, am able to get into the line-of-dance
during a class and give direct feedback to followers, but since we
have more men in most of our classes, this rarely happens.

Although women could benefit from private lessons, we typically have
men or couples for private lessons. For couples taking private
lessons, it is almost always the woman who suggests the lessons so
their partners can improve. Sometimes women with partners send their
men for private lessons and won't join them themselves.

What also allows women to remain satisfied with their level of
adequacy is the tendency for sensitive 21st century men to apologize
for any mistakes that occur in dancing.

I haven't differentiated much between open and close embrace. Class
experience is entirely close embrace, except as otherwise noted.
Community experience is mixed. When we taught salon style, women
studied for longer. We taught our share of ganchos, boleos, and
embellishments for women. However, I've noticed in our community that
the women who are more likely to use these elements in open embrace
now are also those who stop taking classes (with open embrace
instructors) earlier. They are also younger.

Economics is partly a factor. Older women have more disposable income
than younger men, but this does not explain why younger men with
limited income continue studying tango.

We have more men than women in our tango community. This tendency for
women to stop classes earlier will not stop until one of two things
happens:
(1) some women break away from the pack and make an effort to improve,
thus becoming more highly preferred dance partners by the better male
dancers
(2) the gender balance changes towards more women than men.

I think #1 is more likely than #2 in our community.

Ron
Urbana IL