Utah school bans students from saying “no” when asked to dance [Edited by MNHQ]

[UpstartCrow]

This is being shared on Twitter.

www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/family-relationships/schools-decision-to-refuse-girls-right-to-say-no-if-boys-ask-them-to-dance-challenged-by-pupils-parent/ar-BBIZdka?ocid=st

''teachers had told the students, aged between 11 and 12, that they had to say “yes” when someone asked them dance.

Shocked by the policy, the mother took her concerns to the school principal but was simply told that that’s just how they organise their dances.

Lane Findlay with the Weber School District confirmed that it is in fact a rule, but added that it’s meant to teach students how to be inclusive.''

This isn't how you teach kids to be inclusive.

[UpstartCrow]

Ugh, I've asked MN to fix the title

[LornaMumsnet]

@UpstartCrow

Ugh, I've asked MN to fix the title

Is that any better, OP?

[lunamoth581]

Girls aren't allowed to say no to boys but there is no such thing as rape culture. /s

Happily, the school seems to have listened and are walking it back:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/13/health/utah-school-children-dance-trnd/index.html

[UpstartCrow]

Yes thank you very much

[LengendofThePneumonites]

I'd have got together with all the other mums then and decided not to bother with the dance. The boys can dance all by themselves.

[LengendofThePneumonites]

Goodness me! i've jus read their dance rules. That is so much hard work, whatever happened to just spontaneously dancing with whoever you like, however many times you like?

[GoodyMog]

I'd be raging

[OvaHere]

Ugh. Reminds me of line dancing at school. Boys one side girls the other side. Both sexes hated it with a passion.

[Melamin]

We had these rules at school when I was in the first year at grammar school The teachers must have gone to my school

TBH disco had been the rage for many years so why we were doing the Military Twostep and the Gay Gordons was beyond us at the time and I have never worked it out. We had to learn it for the afternoon 'Christmas Party' we had to partake in.

I kept getting asked by this short fat boy called Christopher. He was very sweet, not very verbal but an adequate dancer. I would have preferred a better dancer.

A lesson in humiliation.

[Valentinesfart]

The girls have to be inclusive with their actual bodies?

Even at 12 and 13 there were boys who were inappropriate, that's given them a free pass to harrass girls they've already been hassling.

The girls aren't going to be demanding boys dance with them are they?

What actually would they do to a girl who refused a boy?

[PerkingFaintly]

Goodness. That school was trying to give its female students less power than Jane Austen ascribes women 200 years ago.

Henry Tilney explaining gender politics in Northanger Abbey:
You will allow, that in both [marriage and dancing], man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal.

Or apparently not even that in Utah. Very glad the school have now caught up with, er, 1803.

[Valentinesfart]

They haven't changed the policy. So they haven't even caught up with 1803.

I suppose as it's Utah the girl should be happy that she hasn't got to dance with the boy and a few sister wives too,.

[CallYourDadYoureInACult]

We had this in school for ‘social dancing’. I grew up in Scotland.

Tbh I don’t really have a problem with it (and I’m pretty keen on ideas of consent).

It was turn about boys asking and girls asking. All it meant was that you did not have the humiliation of asking someone to dance and them
Laughing in your face and saying no.

And yes, you did have to dance with the smelly boys and the weird boys. But the boys also had to dance with girls like me. (Spots, braces, glasses, swot). When the teacher announced “girls’ choice” there was a scramble to get a boy you kind of liked. But if you had the balls to ask them, they had to say yes.

It was a two minute formal dance in a brightly lit room.

[powershowerforanhour]

Are boys allowed to refuse the dance request of another boy? 😉

[CallYourDadYoureInACult]

Sorry - meant to say - I did not have a problem with it back then. Obviously this context is different.

[TerfsForWomen]

My children would not be attending, frankly.

[Melamin]

It was turn about boys asking and girls asking. All it meant was that you did not have the humiliation of asking someone to dance and them
Laughing in your face and saying no.

It was boys ask, girls accept, for us. No turnaround. (Not Scotland either).

[LassWiADelicateAir]

We had this in school for ‘social dancing’. I grew up in Scotland

Tbh I don’t really have a problem with it (and I’m pretty keen on ideas of consent)

It was turn about boys asking and girls asking. All it meant was that you did not have the humiliation of asking someone to dance and them
Laughing in your face and saying no

Same here. And Scottish county dancing is a valuable life skill.

[CallYourDadYoureInACult]

Lass do you fancy a Strip the Willow?

[LassWiADelicateAir]

That's my favourite one ! Preferably the proper one with sets of 4 couples not the Orcadian version

[Myunicornfliessideways]

I can kind of see what you're saying Lass but to me suggesting that 'no' is unkind, or refusing a request because you feel uncomfortable is unkind is a very dangerous place to go with girls. 'Kindness' is beginning to get confused with 'no boundaries allowed' for women and girls in particular, and that is bastardising the word beyond it's meaning.

[ScattyCharly]

No physical contact is mandated is it? You can just dance opposite the person? It’s probably to combat someone being afraid to ask someone to dance and also to combat very nasty replies/put downs.

Plenty of stuff in schools is like this. My kids have to attend 1x drama lesson per week at school and actual physical contact is often mandated there.

[LassWiADelicateAir]

I can kind of see what you're saying Lass but to me suggesting that 'no' is unkind, or refusing a request because you feel uncomfortable is unkind is a very dangerous place to go with girls

CallYourDadYoureInACult and I are talking about how dancing was taught in Scottish schools. Every year for a brief (blissful) period before Christmas we were spared PE and taught Scottish country dancing instead. This is in a school PE hall, in school hours with at least one PE teacher present (we usually had a mixed couple there) trying to get through as much as possible. The no refusing applied to both sexes.

If anyone felt strongly enough about it I suppose they could ask to opt out of the class entirely - but no one, boy or girl, got the option of saying you're too ugly or fat or uncool for me to dance with. You didn't get to pick the same person twice.

Many of these dances progress- meaning you move to a new partner after each set piece usually no more than 24 bars of music; or you are in sets of 8 where you progress through the set and dance with all the other opposite sex members of the set during the dance.

I disagree this is dangerous - I think it is more dangerous to set up the idea that girls are so delicate that, exceptional circumstances perhaps aside, they can't learn about something which features at almost every Scottish wedding and is an important part of Scottish culture.

[RJnomore1]

Actually I totally disagree and yes I was that parent who went to the school about it.

Scottish social dancing that is. My child has the right to refuse to be touched by anyone she doesn't want touching her. She was sent to the headmistress for refusing to dance with the boys.

I guess there is indeed an important life skill in girls being told to shut up and put up so as not to hurt the boys feelings eh. Cf today's thread re choking in sex. Ffs.

[TheButterflyOfTheStorms]

My child has the right to refuse to be touched by anyone she doesn't want touching her.

This.