Equal difference

Sometimes you hear it said that the traditional etiquette, of men inviting women to dance, and of the invitation being wordless and from a respectful distance, is out of date, that it disempowers women from invitation or at least does not give them the same equality as men. The mirada, the look from the women, signifies desire to dance. Traditionally, it is an invitation for the man to invite her to dance. It is not the same as the cabeceo, the nod from the guy, which is both desire to dance and invitation.

Guy-girl stuff, about difference and compatibility, happens in the milonga, even if only on the floor. Quite what that is or how it works is not that clear. Were it not the case though you would see a far greater mix of same-sex combinations on the floor. I like that in the milongas here in the UK I can dance as the girl or the guy.  I also like that the milonga can powerfully re-establish the difference between men and women, after work where we are all ostensibly equal. You still hear it said that at work women gain equality by sacrificing or denying things to do with being a woman, choices about family, dress, attitude. You especially hear about this in places like the City. On the flip side, it is not a new point that asserting femininity, in advertisements, in magazines, is often done in a degrading or an unrealistic way, not in a way that promotes equal respect for the sexes.  

But this is not necessarily true in the milonga. Women can be very feminine and very equal in the milonga and in the dance, never more so than when sitting opposite men. Sometimes it has happened that we are women, not sitting alone, but chatting together. By chance we are sitting opposite some guys. The previous week we might all have been men and women, friends, sitting, chatting on the same side of the room. This week we are two different yet compatible tribes, watching each other with the tension, the pleasure, the possibility of invitation to dance and the option to accept between us.

Yet women allow themselves to be dubbed "followers" when the dance is about togetherness. Some women allow men, who are not friends, to walk up and invite them, making a real choice about whether they really want to dance now, with this person, difficult. Or they allow men to do things to them that are uncomfortable; to pull awkward moves, do stunts. They let themselves be pushed around on the floor or be treated in a degrading, inelegant way. It is stating the obvious that by dancing with these guys the women who accept them encourage that behaviour that presumably continues off the floor, though perhaps not with them. By the same token it is not encouraging behaviour that is fun but careful, respectful. It is a wonderful thing, too rarely used where I am, that through exercising the feminine choice that the milonga allows, things can be more equal and the standard of dance will also inevitably rise accordingly.

With thanks to Jean Gouders for permission to use his cartoon.