[Tango-L] Women's power in tango

[Shahrukh Merchant]

What a nice post, reminiscent of the some of the articulate and 
expressive posts of Tango-L's own "golden age"! A model post, really, in 
how even your disagreements with what others write are respectfully 
presented without losing any of their force. Please write more! :-) And 
feel free to copy your "Why I don't need saving" post onto the list as 
well; it would be interesting to see the range of opinions and reasons.

The main reason I find for women or men not getting to dance as much as 
they would like is the simplest of them all: demand and supply (aka 
gender balance in a milonga setting). And just like in the non-tango 
world, demand and supply forces can be modulated to some extent in the 
same way that it is in the commercial world: E.g.,
   - having a better quality product (however you define it)
   - marketing the better qualities that your mixed-quality product has
   - excellent marketing of a poor-quality product
etc. etc. (though the metaphor breaks down with "volume discounts" which 
doesn't really transfer over to Tango :-)).

Referring to the article you mentioned where the French guy was 
proposing symmetry in men and women being "allowed" to ask the other to 
dance: in terms of my own preference, I have no interest in being asked 
*directly* to dance by a woman (with the usual exceptions of those who 
know me well enough to do so, and I have no problem with the occasional 
"ladies' choice" tanda that some milongas have). But women have all 
sorts of ways of asking without having to ask directly, so they are 
hardly disempowered. Vive la différence! as far as I'm 
concerned--androgynous tango holds little interest for me.

Shahrukh