321  Women Who Lead too Much (And The People Who Hate Them)

Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 14:35:30 -0800
From: Suzanne Gamble <gigi1898@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: Women Who Lead too Much (And The People Who Hate Them)

Hi Ingrid and Listeros,

(My subject line is a reference to an old U.S. pop-psychology book, and
intended as a joke).

I prefer to follow, but I do lead some times, and I like it with some women
and men very much.

It really seems to help in your leading if you can follow, and vice versa.
But if you're a woman leading and you don't have skills, people can really
grind their axes on you. If peoople don't like it - well, they don't have
to. The rudeness subsides over time as people relax and see that their
worlds don't end when you take a partner. Nor does tango.
There's the floor and the music and your bodies - as RuPaul says, "we're
born naked--the rest is drag." drag queens and tangueras dress a lot alike
on the average night out.

Often women leaders take a few extra hits on the dance floor (see
ax-grinding comment above), so floor craft is really important. My
experience is that if a woman has rhythm & floorcraft, she'll have a better
experience at the milongas and eventually earn respect, interest, partners
or benign indifference. When I'm leading, I stay in the line of dance, I
try to stay in the rhythm, stay with my partner. I can't do more than that
at this point, but if we don't bump into anyone, I've at least protected my
partner. I don't dance in the center of the circle when I'm leading. I stay
on the circles edge - its a little more orderly--everyone going in the same
direction, everybody more or less civil, and traffic only moving around my
left most times.

re:>but that should not include shutting people out because they are
trying even HARDER to learn more about such a wonderful dance.
When a gender cop gives me a bad time, that person is too busy watching me
to pay attention to their own tango, their own partner. Like a monkey up a
pole, they've shown their *ss. Just shine it on, it goes away over time.

Gigi (aka Suzanne)