[Reader-list] Exploring Gender Stereotypes through Dance

[Chintan Girish Modi]

From
http://www.tolerance.org/blog/exploring-gender-stereotypes-through-dance
 Exploring Gender Stereotypes Through Dance
 Submitted by Jill E. Thomas
<http://www.tolerance.org/author/jill-e-thomas>on June 30, 2011

When I took the opportunity to co-teach a mixed-grade level coed dance
class, I expected some of the boys to be reluctant to participate in the
ballet portion for fear of being seen as gay or at the very least feminine.
To cut this off before it started, I used a Teaching Tolerance
lesson<http://www.tolerance.org/activity/gender-stereotyping-awareness>plan
that allows students to explore gender stereotypes. I put labels on
each student’s back with the name of a profession. I assigned traditionally
male careers to girls and traditionally female careers to boys. Students had
to figure out their profession by asking yes or no questions of their
classmates. Afterwards, they reflected on their reaction to the assigned
profession. This activity set the stage for breaking down stereotypes as we
also introduced ballet as a dance form.

More than a few girls were dissatisfied with their assigned careers in
manual labor. For example, one young woman, assigned to be a plumber said,
“That’s such a gross job because you have to work with toilets.” No one
directly rejected a job because it was associated with a particular gender.
Students unhappy with jobs cited reasons of class. They wanted to do better
for their family than “just wait tables.” After hearing from several
students, I finally asked the young man whose assigned career was ballet
dancer to share his reaction. With unexpected enthusiasm he said, “I’m
excited. I love dancing.” To my surprise, no one snickered.

One of the senior boys chimed in and said, “I know what you are trying to
get us to say. You want us to say we don’t want a job that should be for the
opposite gender, that being a male dancer makes you less male.”

Of course, I didn’t want that to be true, but I was trying to uncover the
assumptions I imagined some of my students held. And with that, the students
brainstormed all of the stereotypes they had heard or thought in regard to
male dancers: weak, feminine, gay, unathletic. There was no shortage of
stereotypes to add to the list. We watched clips of Sokvannara (Sy)
Sar<http://www.dancingacrossborders.net/bios.html>,
a ballet dancer from Cambodia and Mikhail
Baryshnikov<http://www.bacnyc.org/about/baryshnikov>.
After each clip, I asked students to cross off stereotypes from the list
that just didn’t mesh with what we’d seen. They also read an essay
called *Don’t
Judge Me By My Tights<http://www.newsweek.com/2008/03/08/don-t-judge-me-by-my-tights.html>
* and continued to erase the stereotypes from the list. And finally, I asked
them to try dancing ballet. For a group of urban students more comfortable
with hip-hop, punta, and even bhangra, I knew it would be a stretch.

I’m not sure how it would have played out if I had not taken the time to
explore the students’ discomfort with ballet in general and male ballet
dancers in particular. But when our ballet instructor asked them to follow
her in the basic ballet positions, every single boy tried it. In fact, the
only defectors were a few stubborn girls who just couldn’t see the value in
pointing their toes.

I’m left with many questions: Does my students’ openness to male dancers
mean the stereotypes have disappeared? Is this merely a sign that students
know they are supposed to mask or hide stereotypes, and, if so, does
bringing stereotypes to the surface help students remove their biases? Most
importantly, if there is no evidence of bias, should I assume that none
exists? I may not get all these answers right away, but this opportunity was
a way to at least start the conversation.

*Thomas is an English teacher in California.*