**This is another Facebook note that I posted in March 2011**
I recently attended the Heartland Swing Festival in Des Moines, Iowa. As part of this event, there was a team competition that raised some latent concerns of mine. Another part of this event was the Miss Heartland Swing competition. I want to make clear right from the start that I am in no way judging this event, its organizers, the women in the competition, or the teams involved. The combination of these two events just coalesced some of the thoughts I’ve been having about partner dance.
Briefly, my issue with the Miss Heartland contest was only that it was gender specific. I think it is a great promotional idea, and I loved the vintage feel it gave to the event. However, because it was female-specific, rather than being both pinup and beefcake (don’t google it unless you are prepared to see junk, non-scandalous examples below), it gave off the vibe of being more of a beauty pageant than anything else, which to me is objectifying and, frankly, sexist.
As far as the team competition goes, there were three separate routines that all contained segments in which the follows were depicted as puppets, ragdolls, or other objects controlled by the leads. Three teams independently going with the same chauvinist theme reveals how pervasive sexism is in U.S. culture in general, but also specifically in dances in which there is a lead/follow dynamic. This is a topic that I have been thinking about a lot, both in regards to lindy hop and blues dancing. While the best instructors of these dances use language that stresses the equality of the two roles, the fact that we live in a patriarchal society influences the way traditional gender roles map on to leading and following. My concern is that many in the swing and blues communities do not recognize the agency inherent in following or the flexibility and openness required for leading, which contributes to a continuing devaluation of the role of women in the dance, as well as a more restricted role for men. Sexism hurts everybody.
I realize that the dynamic today is probably much better than it has been in the past, especially since there were a number of women leading and men following at Heartland (outside of the same-gender strictly competition), and I am increasingly seeing blog posts about queer-friendly scenes and events. However, as a resident of the midwest, and a person who grew up in a rural area, I know how easy it is to just accept the status quo. I would like to challenge any and all who teach, organize, or are otherwise prominent in their scene to take a minute (or twenty, or an hour…you get the idea) to think about their conception of leading and following, how they talk about it, and how the two roles are expressed by others in the scene. In order to keep the dance scene on a track toward equality, we all need to think and talk about how gender roles fit into and are perpetuated by the structure of the dance.
I want to reiterate quickly that I absolutely loved Heartland, it was an extremely well-organized and well-run event, and I highly recommend it to anyone reading this. It just happened to be the place where all of these thoughts swirling around in my head came together.
I’d love to hear what other people think about this.
Laney Barhaugh 