Week 13 Blogging Assignment

On Saturday night, my friend convinced me to go this free salsa night in the Philosophy building that only happens about once a month. Intrigued, I agreed and was astounded to find these wonderful dancers just moving and creating this wonderfully intricate and sexy dance right in front of me. It was just what I had imagined would be a latin night club, with everybody dancing just for fun. Interested in learning, I had a man teach me the three basic steps. Although I learned a lot from him, there was just one very last piece of advice he told me that really stuck with me that night, "You only need to know these three steps. After that, you just let the man lead you. Simple as that." Now, taken at first glance this is true for all ballroom dances. Yet, when I thought about it, it really awed me at how little influence or control the woman has. She only has three moves to work with and the rest of the time she is blindly following the man in whatever moves he decides to use. This is a clear example of the strict gender divisions and only reinforces the belief today that men are the ones that control the relationship. It also reinstates the fact that women are subordinate and must obey a man's command. Although today there are various types of dances that do promote gender equality (ex:// jazz), it is still widely apparent that ballroom dances fulfill specific gender roles. Grace Huang.