push

[tdjohnsn]

So, I was pushing checkers around, and discovered that during the chicken plucker, the boys of which ever couple you start with progress one spot in sequence with every call, and the girls go the other way till they meet back where they started. Its really very cool.

I also discovered as I am working through the definitions that callerlab has a real problem with sexist language . Now, I am not a booster for the PC police in any way shape or form, but if you really believe men and women are equal, what ever differences they may have, then it seems to me you should really be using parallel construction when you talk about the sexes. It is Men and Women, Guys and Gals, Boys and Girls, Gentlemen and Ladies, not "Men and Ladies." Yeesh. Is it 1972 already?

That construction always makes me think of guys with lots of gold chains acting real smooth at the Sizzler's bar, "Hey little lady, can I buy you a drink."

**Update**

I realized from some of the comments that I should have said i was talking about the written callerlab materials. I don't think I have ever heard a live caller use anything but "Girls and Boys" which seems just fine to me.

Comments

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

That first sentence is very mysterious if you don't recognize it as square-dance talk. It's almost like code!

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

There is a reason so many square dance callers are computer programers. It is kind of a combination of programing and geometry, only live and set to music!

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Betsy Gotta says "gentlemen" or "gents" and "ladies" always, never "boys/girls" or any other combination. That consistency keeps her on the right side of the parallelism issue and she doesn't even have to think about it.

Other big-name traveling callers say things like "girls, run around your beau" or other colorful language which runs the risk (in its spontaneity) of sometimes being sexist or worse. It's kind of interesting to observe. Of course, many of them have been calling since the 60s or even before, so it's VERY hard for them to retrain themselves. Imagine them having to deal with gender-free language in contras...!!

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

I've updated my post to be more specific. I was talking about the written materials, where spontanetiy doesn't play a roll. I'm not sure I have ever danced to anyone who uses anything other than "girls and boys" and that seems just fine to me.

I think it's a hearing thing

[fuzzygruf.livejournal.com]

I bet that someone probably figured out years ago that it's easier for the dancers to distinguish the words "Men and Ladies" rather than "Men and Women." I can imagine dancers try to figure out "Did she say 'Men' or did she say 'Women'?"

At Advanced and higher, there is the positional naming convention of Belles & Beaus. It's just a hunch, but I'm guessing that it's probably wrong to substitute those for "Belles & Bums" or "Beaus & Hos."

Re: I think it's a hearing thing

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

I've updated my post to be more specific. I was only commenting on the written materials, where spontinaity and hearing (which I had never thought of) don't play a roll. I don't think I have ever danced to a caller who uses anything other than "boys and girls" (which doesn't have the same problem as "men and women") so it actually didn't even dawn on me that it could be a problem live as well as in the written materials.

[apparentparadox]

Haven't you noticed that square dancing is very partriarchal? It's all about the men. I can't think of the phrasing off hand, but there's at least one phrase that is common and favors men (it may be something like "your corner lady" -- when I'm dancing "girl", I always grumble because I don't have a corner lady).

Eventually, you may learn about Head Corners or Side Corners. The former is the Head men and their corners, the latter is the Side men and their corners. Completely defined in terms of the men.

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

Well, I think "patriarchal" is over stating it, but things are definitely cued off the men, the head man specifically. Historically, callers were always (or at least usually) men, and in order to work through choreography, they put themselves in the place of the head man to walk through things as they worked on new sequences. It makes sense to define things in terms of the men's actions from that context. You can only track so many people in the square, and choosing the part you have dance the most makes perfect sense. As more women have taken up calling, a lot of this "head man centric" calling has broken loose (with good results for the flow of the womens parts.)

As society changes in its understanding of the rolls of men and women, square dancing changes too. More and more callers say simply "walk around your corner" and leave off the "ladies." The point of my post is that the organization that should be leading this change is falling down on the job by not using parallel language in its definitions of the calls.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Re: Parallel construction in MWSD...

It's always great to read when someone stumbles on that [gents/women, boys/ladies, etc] just by reading square dance material! That was certainly one of Kris Jensen's pet peeves for a VERY long time. Everytime I find myself using some weird combination of naming roles, I (mentally) slap my head. It was brought up in a couple of the caller's schools I went to way back when.

For a long time, I used to do an icebreaker on first nights and open houses by having all the dancers paired up in the "ladies/gents" roll in a large circle. Then with lively music on, and as they are circling, I'd say, "All the GENETIC women" jump up to the middle and back.

ALWAYS, there was ONE guy that would wander up amongst the women, everyone would look at them in surprise, and we'd all get a chuckle out of it. Then I'd explain that gay square dancing uses the terms Gents/Ladies etc, but that those are just dance role names and have no bearing on who you are in real life.

THAT is all over now. Our square dance club has so many dancer now of undertermined gender, I dare not take the risk of offending by doing that old ice-breaker!

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

I just read on the callers list serve about a club that requires it members to come to every dance in color coordinated outfits for each club dance so that everyone in the club will all be wearing the same colors each month.

That made me realize that worrying about parrallel construction is a pretty small issue in the spectrum of things that can be off-putting for new dancers..

:-)