474  Tango and Gender

Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 05:24:44 -0800
From: "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: Tango and Gender

The thesis you describe makes sense to me. I have two comments.

One, a technical point that you seem to understand. "Gender" is a
stereotype, or "role" as its called in the fields of sociology and
social psychology. Every culture and subculture puts variations on
the male and female stereotypes.

Feminists (such as myself) object to a simple-minded imposition of
these stereotypes on every person in every circumstance. Yet only a
few (though vocal) radical feminists object to individuals taking on
these roles when they choose to, with the people and in the
circumstances that they choose.

For instance, after a weekend of protests that I was involved in a few
years ago, we had a party. When the rock-and-roll music played the
organizer of the protest followed my lead with every indication of
enthusiasm. (Even perhaps a little too much enthusiasm: "Larry, you
can't quit NOW!")

Two, I believe you are in error in saying that any particular style of
tango modifies the gender roles. In more than a dozen years I have
learned to dance all the major styles of tango and the lead/follow
paradigm is the same in them all.

Incidentally, Argentines define "salon" tango in several different
ways. This last weekend Gloria and Eduardo were here in Los Angeles
under the sponsorship of Linda Valentino. Eduardo gave a lecture at
one point and defined "salon" style as walking WITH NO FIGURES (his
emphasis). Juan Bruno defines "tango de salon" as slow, simple, and
elegant, but with some figures. And so on.

Also, the closeness or otherwise of the embrace does not seem
to have anything to do with the definition of "salon." That seems
to be something that we Americans have come up with.

Larry de Los Angeles
https://home.att.net/~larrydla