[Tango-L] gender imbalance

[David]

Astrid,

I'm curious how you determined that people who dance with beginners are "preying" on them?  Is there something wrong with dancing with beginners?  I don't know if this was your intent, but you come across as being upset that people are dancing with beginners.

Rather than simply blaming these men that you appear to have such disdain for, maybe you might consider what you could do differently so that they might prefer to dance with you.  Maybe then, you could influence them to improve.

I feel fortunate to be in a community where there are some very good followers who don't become snobs around dancers like me who aren't up to their level.  It's funny, but I get the most complaints from intermediate dancers.  The really good dancers may offer suggestions (and usually only when I ask for them), but they are very positive and encouraging (ie. they also give compliments).

I don't know if you realize it, but by driving "mediocre" leaders to dancing with beginners, you are simply increasing the gender imbalance, since it sounds like the beginning followers are getting people to dance with them, so they are more likely to stay with it.  What are you doing to encourage the beginning leaders to stay with it, and to get the "mediocre" leaders to improve?  

David


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> From: "Astrid" <astrid at ruby.plala.or.jp> 
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] gender imbalance 
> To: "Brick Robbins" <brick at fastpack.com>, <tango-l at mit.edu> 
>  
> Brick wrote: 
> > And I'm sure that many of those women thinking the men are not worth 
> > the time, suck worse than the men they don't want to dance with. 
> > 
> And what gives you that idea? It takes a while for a woman to realise that 
> some of those guys who impressed her in the beginning are actually quite 
> mediocre compared to the really good ones. You know the type, those who prey 
> on beginners because they are the only ones they can impress with their 
> leading? 
> Whatever, this is news to very few people in here, probably, but the truth 
> is, on a lucky day, one may discover a new,talented, promising beginner 
> among the men, while on a bad day, one only sees the same eternal 
> intermediates who nevertheless may be so full of themselves that they have 
> closed themselves off to polishing up their weak points, and the gender 
> imbalance lets them get away with it.