October 28, 2015
The Age Prejudice in Tango
A few years ago, a friend of mine made a comment in a personal email after she read one of my blog articles. Although I've kept the content private out of respect for her concerns at the time, I think it’s now appropriate to “declassify” it. My last post, How to Get More Invitations in the Milonga, generated a call for discussion on the men’s role in the issue, which is exactly what her comment addresses. Here is her comment:
“I read your blog article with interest and agree with everything you say, but I'd like to comment on one aspect of behavior related to tango that you didn’t mention. I'm making this comment privately rather than publicly because, from bitter experience, I know how annoyed it makes men to hear what I think on this subject. It has to do with men’s attitudes at milongas regarding whom they choose to dance with - and men in Argentina are even worse than men in America about this.
Most men feel entitled to dance only with women they are personally attracted to and who, they think, will enhance their image. I can understand not wanting to dance with women who are poor dancers or unpleasant people, but this is seldom the case. Men tend to ignore women who aren’t sufficiently attractive or young, even if they are good dancers and even if they have friendly relationships with them. Women can sit out tanda after tanda, surrounded by men they know who otherwise treat them kindly, but who will ask every other woman around to dance while ignoring those they deem undesirable as romantic prospects or status symbols on the dance floor.
When this subject is broached, men often get very angry, or if a woman shows her disappointment while sitting alone, they resent the implication that they owe anyone anything or that they’ve failed in courtesy or generosity. Then they blame the women, calling them bad sports or accusing them of unfair demands. We're all taught that milongas are social gatherings, and the idea of the tango community is emphasized. Yet, while most women will dance with men they don’t particularly enjoy dancing with to be civil and avoid hurting anyone’s feelings, almost no men will go out of their way to help a woman enjoy herself at a milonga unless they personally want to dance with her. I think that the integrity and social concern you rightly address should include more compassion in partner choice.
At every milonga I've ever attended, I see women suffering silently as they sit unasked among friends and acquaintances, not to mention strangers, while young, attractive beginners are asked constantly. My own gray hair has put me in this position all too often, and in Buenos Aires, I was even told that if I wanted men to dance with me, I should dye my hair or wear a wig because men don’t want to be associated with aging women on the dance floor. This chronic macho selfishness is tango’s biggest drawback for women, and it’s a deep source of sorrow for more women than you might imagine.”
I have to admit I felt guilty as I read her comment, realizing that until then, I’d never seriously considered how deeply some women are affected by the way they’re treated by men, myself included. Though many see the milonga as a refuge, it’s often a bittersweet place where men and women come together to tango, yet our enjoyment of the dance is too often hampered by prejudice, arrogance, and selfishness.
I can’t argue with human nature. Men are attracted to young, beautiful, and sexy women, just as women are drawn to young, handsome, and attractive men; we all tango for pleasure. However, we shouldn’t let our natural inclinations mislead us. A tango partner is not a life partner. Whether she is young, pretty, or fertile is irrelevant. What matters is her knowledge, understanding, musicality, taste, skills, and maturity as a tango dancer. These qualities take years of diligent study, practice, and education - at least ten years, in my opinion. Tango is an adult dance. Most people begin their tango journey as adults, often after completing their child-rearing responsibilities. By the time they truly get it, they are no longer young. That’s why milongueros and milongueras are generally older, yet they’re regarded as symbols of tango status. Dancers from all over the world come to Buenos Aires to dance with them.
In the US, the first and second generations of tango dancers are also reaching senior age, as the revival of tango that began in 1983 is now more than thirty years old. But unlike Argentina, here senior dancers often face ageism. At a recent event I attended, out of over a hundred participants, about a dozen older women sat mostly ignored. Under encouragement from the organizer, I decided to dance with each of these women, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience because all of them were excellent dancers, with most having danced tango for more than ten years. This experience taught me a valuable lesson about the naivety of bias against older dancers.
I’m not saying all older people are great dancers, nor do I advocate “charity” dances. But I believe that age discrimination in tango doesn’t make sense. It’s in our own interest not to judge or confuse tango with courtship. From my experience, women in their fifties and sixties are often the best social dancers. Men, especially younger men, shouldn’t miss the chance to dance with them. While mature women may not appear as fresh and sexy as younger ones, their embrace, connection, musicality, communication, and coordination are often much stronger. In other words, they have attained a deeper understanding of tango - a strength that mature women can fully use to serve themselves.
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I have noticed the difference between a new male dancer and new attractive woman dancer. The woman will advance very quockly. Plenty of good dancers are anxious to teach the young lady what to do. She becomes use to dancing with best dancer and will not dance with a novice
ReplyDeleteThis relates to new male dancers who cannot lead and have trouble finding partners. Often if they came with a woman after a couple weeks she shows alone.
this is tough issue and there will always be this prejudice.
I never understand why woman cannot ask a man to dance. I think .it might change both perspectives
This gap between male and female beginners is temporary. Tango is not just a skill, but also a culture, history, value, attitude, understanding, taste, experience, etc. It is a growing process. In the long run, the so called "ten-thousand hours rule" makes sense, which holds in any area of learning, whether it is dance, music, sport, science, medicine, it takes ten-thousand hours of study and practice to achieve excellence. Any average person if can put ten-thousand hours on whatever field he/she is learning will become among the best in that field. Ten-thousand hours is equivalent to 4 hours a day for ten years. That is why age discrimination in tango or any field of study doesn't make good sense.
DeleteI have heard that a lot and initially felt a bit guilty as well. But I do not agree with your friend. I was in my early 40ies when I started dancing and in the beginning, to spare myself the most humilating experiences, I mostly adhered to women who signaled that they wanted to dance with ME. I was as charming as one could be and everyone danced better anyway. Usually, I ended up with quite experienced dancers, ten to fifteen years older than me. I must have been an attractive bait - a comparably young man, socially easy and eager to learn. You see the analogy with the pretty female beginners getting all the dances? Works the other way around as well.
ReplyDeleteSome of these ladies are still among my favorites, but many are not. The attractivity of a dancer is made up of several ingredients. First and foremost the dance skills. But what makes here a pleasure to dance with is more than that. Sympathy is important, that young sparkle in her eyes, an empathic connection aside from tango. A tasteful dress and a personal attitude that matches her age doesn't do harm, either. These are the same things that make a women attractive in general. I am not talking about romantic thoughts, I mean character and identity. It's the very same for men, by the way, although they admittedly have the minority advantage in tango.
Their dance skills, however, are often over-estimated by the very same dancers. Very few of us will make it to the 10,000 hours in this lifetime and 10 years of experience doesn't make a good dancer. The years of striving to become better make a good dancer, one that is a joy to dance with. Those women who fell back on my personal hit list, are not. They have long stopped improving and the very moment one stops improving, skills deteriorate. This should be no offense to your friend, as I don't know her at all, but all of those ladies that I know think of themselves as fairly to very good ("experienced") dancers. They sit and wait with a dire look on their faces and I no longer feel guilty for ignoring them.
What a joy in comparison, to dance with an attractive young beginner, socially easy and eager to learn! Some of them are over fifty and some have been dancing for years and "beginner" to them means, that they are long-time learners, young at heart. That, for me, makes them attractive. They simply dance better.
I agree with your points that time alone doesn't make a good dancer, that one has to remain humble, young at heart and eager to learn, and that good attitude is more important than good skills in terms of one's attractivity as a social dancer. A good social dancer is not just a skilled dancer. In fact, a skilled dance could be a lousy social dancer, as you rightly pointed out. Which is another reason we should not be deceived by any bias.
DeleteWell... when I think about my comment above, it is my own point of view and for many women, it is probably a mixed bag. Staying with mediocrity is not a female phenomenon, on the contrary, the tendency is more male than female, because of the the minority advantage.
DeleteMany women start out as ambitious young dancers. Some really quickly build up their skills and are very attractive dancers, which stirs amition in return. Until... they become noticably better than their male peers. Then some dance partners are not so desirable anymore, they grow out of this level, which leaves them less choices. And, I think, at this point a lot of men, who made it to a mediocre but "acceptable" dancer, rather look at weaker dance partners, who they can impress more easily. So the good female dancers are somehow trapped: further improvement just adds fuel to the fire. Stalled ambition makes it even worse.
I have no solution for this dilemma. After all, many people just want to go dancing on Saturdays and do not plan participating in the mundial. It's reasonable. The only thing I can imagine that would help is to build a community with several very good dancers, people to look up to, a community where dance skills and the ambition to always improve are valued social assets. In a climate that dancing is fun, less commercial. Charity tandas I don't see helpful.
Absolutely true!
DeleteTo the author of the email declassified on Oct 28, 2015: You describe a milonga where women dutifully dance with unpleasant partners, but selfish men don’t dance with anyone that doesn’t feed their ego in some way. Please, slip off those heels for a moment, and walk a mile in my oxfords. Men get avoided and turned down for dances because of their age, grey hair, appearance, height, skill, clique membership, position in the hierarchy, etc. We don’t know why we’re refused; it’s uncomfortable for everybody if we ask why, so we don’t ask. Sometimes our invitations to dance are turned down, and then we see our invitee on the dance floor with somebody else thirty seconds later. This is very unpleasant. We too endure tandas with followers that are not very enjoyable. Personally, I don’t keep asking those followers out of a duty to the milonga, or responsibility to see that people are having a good time. I just do it to keep dancing. Some people believe a mediocre (or less) dance is better than sitting. Other people, leaders and followers, don’t feel that way. To say that it is only men that are selfish, indifferent to your suffering and sorrow, prejudiced, superficial, arrogant, angry, lack integrity, irresponsible, base, egotistical…….this is only a partial list what you said….while women endure their emotional abuse is unfair. I only have 4K characters for this response, but I could write pages about cold, rude, and sometimes bizarre treatment I’ve received from Followers. I don’t hate women because of some of these negative instances; some of these instances involved Followers that are now my favorite partners.
ReplyDeleteThey say more than half of communication is non-verbal. In tango it’s got to be in the high ninetieth percentiles. If you’re sitting at the milonga feeling wronged, hurt, and holding a long list of grievances against men, I’ll bet it’s being communicated whether you know it or not. One time at a milonga I was sitting directly behind a follower who was pulling and tugging on her cardigan sweater so that the lapels overlapped. She was seated on the edge of the dance floor, her shoulders square to the floor. She didn’t look back, or otherwise engage any prospective partners. She looked very frumpy and unattractive. I didn’t think she wanted to dance. I thought she was just cold and uncomfortable, stuck waiting for her girlfriends. A new tanda was starting, nobody asked her to dance. When the music of the first song began she turned her head so that I was in in her peripheral vision, and said kind of angrily, “so do you want to dance or not?” All this tugging and fidgeting wasn’t about the temperature and impatiently wanting to leave. It was frustration and anger at not being asked to dance. Did I fail to get the signal, or did she fail to send a comprehensible message? I said yes – I’d love to dance. As I walked around some tables to meet her on the floor, she put her sweater on the chair. I was shocked. Ms. Formerly Frumpy was gorgeous. She was wearing a beautiful velvet tango dress with spaghetti straps that revealed her feminine shoulders. When I offered my embrace she moved in very close in a way that made me feel I was being taken to heart. As I pressed my palm onto her bare back it was an exquisite moment of connection. Thirty seconds ago this woman was almost barking at me, now we were connected. We weren’t sitting-out because of her hair color, insufficient attractiveness, or other superficial reason. We were sitting because of a communication problem. It turned into a tango moment. This isn’t a story of sexual titillation or seduction. It’s a faithful husband’s story of a tango moment. Sometimes we catch the perfect wave, Mona Lisa smiles; the music comes into our ear, transfers through our core to our partner, and we move together to the music. There’s really a lot of hope in tango. That’s why we dance – not so that we can complain that the opposite sex is our brutal oppressor.
Its not so much age as the lack of beauty and isn't this just the story of life? We all seek beauty in various forms and tango is no exception.
ReplyDeleteIt is a sad spectacle. Role imbalance, which seems to be globally endemic to the tango experience, doesn't help either. I am yet to see a large venue where there are more leaders (typically a straight man) than followers. While there are events that seek to establish role balance through enrollment tracking, a stuffed venue means more revenue. It is just business.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I haven't experienced rejection at all in a milonga. Granted, I'm not what I call a serial dancer, a guy who cannot stop dancing for even a tanda or two, so becoming one one of these days could tilt the lopsided statistics in the future. But many women go through a lot of pain in milongas, no doubt. I was in a venue in Spain last year, and one night I decided to dance specifically with a good number of followers who appeared to be ignored regularly. I'm married, so I don't have to go around chasing women. In all honesty, that would change my approach. The next day, I did the exact opposite. It was ridiculous. Most every dude probably felt like a million bucks, and in the end I understood that you may not only may be hurting the feelings of many women, but also the feelings of people who love you.
In my opinion, role imbalance and how easy it is for a guy to secure as many dances as he wants in a milonga also impacts the quality and level of dancing. I'd even chance that it is even biologically absurd to have women competing for men. Historically, tango started reaching great levels of dance creativity when the situation was the exact opposite.
Endlich mal ein wahres Wort von einem männlichen Tangotänzer zu diesem Thema. Danke, Gustavo! Ich hätte es selbst nicht besser formulieren können. Es ist tatsächlich biologisch absurd und aus meiner Sicht auch in einem gewissen Maße entwürdigend für Frauen, wenn sie um Männer konkurrieren müssen. Auch ermutigt diese Situation viele männlichen Tänzer nicht unbedingt sich zu verbessern, wenn sie jederzeit so viele Tänze ergattern können wie sie möchten. Wenn ich allerdings diesen Umstand einem Mann gegenüber erwähne, schlägt mir regelmäßig totales Nichtverstehen entgegen. Schließlich ist es doch sehr schön, immer eine große Auswahl an tanzwilligen Damen zu haben. Gesund ist dieser Umstand jedoch nicht, denn viele gute Tänzerinnen tanzen auf diese Weise mit Männern, die tänzerisch weit unter ihrem Niveau sind. Doch im Vergleich zu einem erfahrenen männlichen Tänzer, der durchaus seinen Spaß in einer Tanda mit einer hübschen Anfängerin finden kann, bleibt der Spaß für eine erfahrene weibliche Tänzerin bei einem Tanz mit einem Anfänger komplett auf der Strecke. Dies liegt meiner Meinung nach in der Natur der Sache begründet, dass es ohne einen guten Leader keinen guten Tango geben kann.
ReplyDelete"I see women suffering silently as they sit unasked among groups of friends and acquaintances, to say nothing of strangers, while pretty young girls get asked constantly even if they're beginners."
ReplyDeleteYour suffering because you're being selfish, no leader owes you a dance, you don't owe them a dance so maybe you need time a bit of self-examination and change in your own behavior instead of manipulating other people for their choices. It is the followers choice to sit there waiting for a dance, it is your choice not to initiate leaders or to be social. The leaders is taking the initiative and choosing who we wants to dance with, he isn't selfish he is being kind - your upset/resentful because he didn't choose you.
Same in all dance styles. Not enough male leads. Young and attractive are seen and asked first by male leads. Older women have to ask the men. Women learn to lead to overcome the shortage of leads. Men have often said "we dont like to dance with womem who lead". Women, as is natural, like to dance with men, but dont mind a female lead uf no one else available...but if the ladies are friends, we love dancing with each other. There is no solution..it just is what it is.
ReplyDelete