OK, (bracing for backlash) so while I acknowledge the ever-increasing need for male dancers, I often feel kind of...how can I say...I feel like they often get unfair treatment and have many opportunities open to them based solely on their gender, not on their technical or performative ability. I understand that many men and boys need an extra incentive to start and continue dancing, but as a female dancer I sometimes feel like I am overlooked in favor of male dancers for scholarships, grants, gender-neutral roles in choreographies, etc.....I don't mean to sound spiteful, but it gets a little annoying after a while. I feel like I work so hard and get less recognition for my efforts and achievements than if I was a man in the same position. Am I the only one that feels this way?

To Shallom: ding ding ding!

On the one hand, I support the equivalent -- ie, recruiting for women in fields in which women tend to be underrepresented. I think it's vital and incredibly important.

On the other hand, I get miffed, *especially* when it is so often the case that men get choreographic and AD roles at a rate that seems to me as wildly disproportionate to the number of men coming up through the ranks. That's another discussion for more educated people.

I don't know how to resolve these two things -- internal logical consistency vs. what my gut is telling me.

Shalom, it is not just you who gets annoyed at the fact that men and boys are rewarded for their gender. In fact many women I've come across resent it.

It seems that this favouritism is a compensation for the public attitude towards males and dance. If the dance industry makes life too difficult for men, and the rest of the world makes life too difficult for men, then life's just too dificult for men in dance and there are no male dancers.

For women and girls it's quite glamourous to be a ballerina, so they tend not to have to overcome the attitudes of the rest of the world to pursue their calling. Men on the other hand have often staked their credibility, and indeed sacrificed their right to community with other men, to dance. Therefore, in light of that much greater sacrifice, the extra attention and sensitivity given to men and boys in dance is a little more justified.

To be a truly gender-equal industry, the general attitude to men and boys in dance needs to change. Like racism, such a huge cultural change can only happen slowly, over a couple of generations, to have a lasting effect. Sure, movies like Billy Elliot and male dance programmes will help, but it will be a slow evolutionary process, which I believe has alredy begun.

So until we reach this ideal, it seems we will need to continue to coax men into the dance industry with special classes, scholarships and bursaries, good roles in performances, extra attention in class, and in a million other ways. I'm not saying it's right, but it is necessary.

<small>[ 07 January 2005, 10:59 PM: Message edited by: Failli ]</small>

An unusual situation. This company lacked girls good enough, so a man has to dance Snow Queen:

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<small>[ 23 January 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>

In the Arizona Republic, Vandana Sebastian contributes to the discussion of men in dance.

Arizona Republic