Gender and Identity

A few weeks ago there was a discussion about gender and the issue of the ISTD syllabus work which conforms to the gender norms that were in place when I started teaching 35 years ago.
In her blog yesterday Adesola presented a fascinating film which challenged the traditional role of Male and female and got me thinking.
I was taught to be very aware of gender differentiation, when approaching the teaching of boys it was important to emphasise strength and breadth of movement to make sure that the boys did not see dancing as something "girly".
Nothing emphasises this more than the way we were taught Ballroom and Latin dance. In order to take our exams all the girls in the class were made to learn to lead, dance the mans steps, and to follow, dance the woman steps, and we had no problem switching from lead to follow just as Trevor Copp and Jeff Fox demonstrated. There were no boys in my class, but when I was working for my Associate I was asked to work with the first years and there were two boys in the class. They were not made to learn to follow, "be the girl", they took the same exams but only ever did the mans steps.
Watching the film I realised that I need to look at this subject in more depth.
I teach mostly classical ballet and modern theatre dance and over the years I have had a fair number of boys in my classes. I have always allowed them to do the lyrical work if they want to alongside the traditional boys exercises that develop upper body strength and core stability. They have nearly all been late starters and have mostly joined to work with the girls as partners, supporting and lifting and taking the traditionally masculine roles but they still meet with the usual comments at school about dance being for girls.
Norway is a very open and forward thinking society in many ways, same sex marriage is accepted and gender equality is very important in the workplace. Sadly I think that small town mentality where I work means that it may be to soon to challenge the norms too much but I am going to discuss this film and the questions raised by it with my pas de deux class this week and see what the boys and girls think.
I look forward to hearing their response and seeing if it is time to challenge our local community.