Lead, follow, feminist, whatever

So I was reading the first of all two posts that they have up on the Southern Belle Swing Bash Blog. So there's a synergy between throwing a girl jam and being a feminist? Ok, sure. Then someone else comes along and says "Dude, partner dance. Girls don't need their own jam time." Yeah. Sometimes I don't get these people. Do we have to get political about everything? For my part it makes perfect sense. In general guys get more instruction in the dance class simply because if he doesn't know it neither of you can do it. It doesn't matter a flip how many moves the girl knows because she's not leading. Now, I have always been able to go to our excellent leads and get tips on following -direction, momentum, speed, etc. However, that's not the same as getting together with a bunch of girls who know their stuff and learning how to really polish off whatever your lead is giving you. Is that feminism? Is that dissing the leads? No, it just makes sense.

Suppose your church had been doing a series on dating/courtship/getting to know each other with intent to marry, etc. Suppose at some point an older women took the girls aside for some chat on grooming, manners, emotions, etc. Are the guys going to shout "No, fair. This is a couples thing!" Are the girls going to call themselves feminists because "it's about time selecting the right hemline got fair time with the boys." Jeesh you people. It's the same thing with dancing. If you're going to be a consistent feminist it's hardly egalitarian to say that women have a specific and different role in this (dancing) relationship, and they might benefit from some specific training on how to handle that role well. Hmmm, does Titus come to anyone's mind?

Posting on this might seem a tad silly, but with the debate on Palin heating up it seems really, really ridiculous to start an argument over whether girls should have their own lindy hop workshops on occasion. Don't call it feminism just 'cause it has to do with girls. Don't cry foul when the girls want to have a tip-sharing time. /e shakes head