In the last few months I’ve read many articles from members of the feminist movement about women “enduring” their tango experiences, and the description of those experiences and the suggested ways to deal with them make me feel worried, to say the least.
I’ve bumped into statements such as “the women endure men squishing them too hard and touching their breasts” “men have to stop commanding women what to do on the floor” “Veteran tango dancers say the 15-minute stretches can run into agony when a male partner’s embrace feels suffocating – or when his hands wanders well beneath the waistline”.
While astonished by these posts, I can’t but ask myself a few questions:
Where do these ladies dance?
Through my 16 years of experience dancing in Buenos Aires and hundreds of other places in the world I have never been exposed to such a nasty situation or felt that my integrity was threatened, never has anyone behaved in a disrespectful manner with me.
Of course, there is always the path of seduction, the edgy joke and the ones hitting on you. But the choice of whether to accept or not to play that game, allowing the situation to go elsewhere or simply rejecting it and showing that my intention is not the same has always been 100% mine.
I have always been allowed to choose everything from who I dance with until with whom I flirt or won’t ever do.
Who made some women believe they have to “endure” inappropriate behaviors from the men and that if such a thing happens they don’t have the right to walk away from the floor the minute they feel uncomfortable? May they be putting themselves in the role of “weaker sex”?
The way I see it, things are pretty straight forward: should anything hurt, am I being pulled or pushed, are they leading me to uncomfortable moves, do they smell bad or try to be abusive = I’m out of there the minute I notice regardless of where in the tanda this happens.
I am in a public space, surrounded by people, protected by the hosts and my fellow dancers, no one is forcing me to become a victim of an uncomfortable situation. The only thing I need is to own my decisions.
So ladies: show some gut! Be the ones setting up the rules of engagement, play whatever game you want to play without fear or guilt… that’s what this is all about!
Does anyone really believe that men’s bad behavior can be solved by imposing a new form of tango in which women only dance with other women? Isn’t it true that the dances (since the beginning of the days) have been a resource to find a match if that’s what people are up to? Where does this new wave of people trying to make us believe that the embrace shouldn’t be used as a way to get “physical” connection comes from? Why shouldn’t we enjoy hugging with other human beings and choose how to experience that using of our own free will?
Please ladies, rule your fears out! Choose better! Embrace real men. I (and more than a hundred years of tango history) can assure you the milongas are full of them and they are ready to offer warmth, understanding, comfort, joy, fun, and whatever form of pleasure you want to experience.
Now, if what you like is embracing other women, great! Do it and enjoy 10000%, but stop trying to disguise it! Euphemisms aren’t good for intellectual honesty and emotional growth. Again, be responsible for your choices and own your rights without worrying about the opinion of others.
Excluding men, stigmatizing them all is such a reductionism that I am starting to wonder what the real agenda of these movements is.
Finally, it is true that at milongas there are some known-to-be abusive or violent men. It is also easy to figure out what to do with those: Do not dance with them! Even if you have doubts about the veracity of what people say, it is better to stay away just in case. And even better: TELL OTHERS! Warn your fellow female dancers about them. If we all do this, the predator will soon have no preys to chase.
But if we don’t share the information because we don’t care about the other ladies safety, then we’re feeding meet to the lion. And after we complain…
I will never get tired of believing that empowering ourselves as women has nothing to do with stealing the power the men supposedly own, but it is all about believing we do have a strength that is given to us the minute we’re born. We choose what to “endure” in a public space. If we show self-confidence, own our decisions and know how to set limits men are not only going to respect us, they’re also going to admire us!
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