[Tango-L] women leading

[Igor Polk]

I still do not understand that fuss about "leading" and "following" in the
tango community.

These words where not chosen to be "gender neutral". These words are used
all around the world at least for a hundred of years to describe relations
between dancing partners. I have heard it since I was a boy! "Lead me",
"I'll dance it if you lead it", "He is such a good leader", "He led me so
well" - that is routinely is used in russian language. Without any negative
feeling whatsoever. About women we usually say differently. She - dances. I
lead her in the dance. I'd like to know how it is in other languages.

At times at some places there was not enough of dancers of the opposite
gender. So what? They danced with each other. No problem whatsoever. This is
less interesting, of course, sometimes funny, but it is better than to seat
in the corner. Literature, movies, personal memories vividly present such
episodes. There are few of them, because nobody even paid much attention to
it: it was more than normal, it was unnoticed. You know, there are things
which we do, but do not pay any attention to it, we take it as granted.

May be in Argentina, where at times there were many more men than women,
dancing women presented something extraordinary - they ignored men.

For me to "follow" is to be able to perceive and react to the lead well.
This is it. Just a name. Because of my limitation in language and culture, I
do not sense any negative connotations. I could say "feeling". There is such
thing like "feeling of the partner".

Igor

PS.
I am not really good in English, but I have to tell you how I see the
problem, then you might understand me better.
In Russian, there are 2 words equivalent to English "Lead": "Lead", directly
borrowed from English, (leadership), and "vesti" - a slavic root. The
first - "Lead" has to do with authority. "Bush is an  American leader".
Russians would use exactly the same word. The second one, "Vesti" means "to
show a path". A father leads his baby along the path, a man leads a woman in
the dance, a TV host leads the show or a discussion. We can say: "We lead
the conversation". It means we have the conversation, we go along the same
path, when one speaks - he leads it, we exchange our roles in conversation.
But it does not have much relation to authority.