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

Watch if, if you suggested a dance with the word "gay" in the name at that school you might cause a riot.

Sorry, I’ll Gay Gordon off into the sunset....

Yeah, kids in Utah are not being taught Scottish country dancing. For Utah think Mormon, which is part of why this was disturbing, because Mormon girls already get more than enough social pressure to be passive.

I find myself in a very awkward position here. I’m a long time lurker and poster on these boards but here I am defending the groping of 11 year old girls by boys.

Or rather trying to describe what Scottish Social dancing is like. As Lass says, the ‘touching is for a minimal amount of time. And the touching in most dances is pretty inoffensive (apart from lazy Gay Gordon dancers).

But something to remember is that kids have been doing this since primary school. They have been taught how to do it properly. It is in front on all their classmates, and more than one teacher. I don’t remember any inappropriate touching. And that was years of learning with hundreds of other kids.

So you have a nation of children. Who have learnt how to perform an important part of their culture. They can do it at any social situation that calls for it, and it is not seen as creepy.

And for those of you that say, “refusals and nastiness should be dealt with by teachers..” dream on. Can you really see the PE teachers coping with sorting our 60 kids squabbling with who to dance with?

If you don’t want your DC to take part, I’m sure they can sit out. They will love you for it, missing out on the most fun PE lessons of the year (I can still remember how much fun it was, even for a very unattractive child like myself). And they will also really enjoy not going to the school dance.

Adults teaching children that they are not allowed to say no. What could possibly go wrong?

It's pretty simple isn't it?

No or should feel obliged to dance with anyone.

Boys and girls need to accept being said no to

Any nasty laughing and sniggering and piss taking should be dealt with. No thank you should be the end of it on both sides.

Who says boys and girls want to dance anyway. Maybe boys want to dance with another boy.

Maybe a girl wants to dance with a girl.

Kindness should never override boundries.

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.

This would have been great if we didn't have to wear our PE kit (basically big pants and t-shirts) and there wasn't a gale blowing through the hall.

Perking

Women during the Regency had the right of refusal, but if they refused a man they couldn't dance for the rest of the night. Hence why Lizzie Bennet has to grin and bear it with Mr Collins - if she doesn't dance with him she can't dance with anyone else!

As well as teaching girls they are allowed to say 'no' and have that be respected, we also need to teach boys that girls are allowed to say 'no'. That this isn't a rejection to be met with anger. That any reason is good enough.

We are failing horribly to teach boundaries, consent and resilience.

I grew up in a Scottish family in England and I managed to learn Scottish dancing without lessons at school so we're teaching that fine!

A teacher at my school told us that it was "rude" to say no when asked to dance back when I was in high school, and promptly got an earful from a bunch of budding feminists. I'm glad this girl's mum was willing to back up her daughter, who'll no doubt be getting the "saying no to a boy isn't nice" message from plenty of other sources already.

We are in Scotland, there is social dancing every year from reception (as described above) and one of my DS classes was told this year that you had to say yes to a partner if asked (he is 9yo). It was same rule for girls and boys asking. I was quite torn - I see the point made by Lass and CallYourDad, and there was definitely an element of teachers asking the kids to 'get on with it' and pick a partner to move on with the lesson. But it made me rather nervous. DC brought it up for discussion at home, as it didn't quite sit right with them either. I said to them that no-one ever HAS to say yes to dancing, but that I also expected them to be getting on with the lessons at school and not messing about or being unkind to classmates. I discussed with them that this situation in a school lesson was somewhat of a distinct case - teacher meant you had to say yes in these lessons, not in your whole life.

My older DS (11) has just got to the age where there seems to be more of 'asking xxx to go to the Christmas party with you' - from what I gathered, it was more boys asking girls and there was plenty of refusal going on :-) Teachers at the actual party organised kids in to pairs when they wanted to dance but were finding the pairing up awkward - that seemed entirely appropriate to me.

Most of the dances were progressive (ie swapping partners). Ceilidh dancing is more akin to a fun PE lesson than a potential intimate/romantic dance event though...

Can a girl or a boy then refuse to do any sport at school which involves any possibility of being touched by another team member?

I didn't like being bashed into by over enthusiastic net ball and hockey players. Thank goodness they didn't make us play rugby.

My 12yo boy is absolutely horrified at the thought of touching a 12yo girl. He thinks it’s gross! He thinks he’ll marry a woman when he’s grown up but is embarrassed in their presence now. I do think 11-12 is different to 13-14. Very much so. I really don’t think this dancing is holding on to each other or chest to chest sort of stuff.

11yos are not touching each other at discos round here! This is about dancing which is very unlikely to involve touching imo.

Myunicornfliessideways

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.

This and:

RJnomore1

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

This.

We live in a society that continuously tells girls and women in covert and overt ways that their bodies are public property and to always put others feelings before their own. This is just another drop in the bucket.

We need to be telling girls that they have the right to say no. And we need to, as a society, back girls up when they say no, not tell them they are being unkind and not inclusive enough.

Boys shouldn't be forced to dance with a girl if they don't want to, either.

Learning to accept rejection is an important skill to learn, too. We live in a society where women and girls are assaulted or killed for saying no to a guy. We do not need to be reinforcing the idea that being rejected is some kind of bigotry.

Girls need to learn to deal with rejection in a healthy way, too.

There are other ways to teach children to be kind and inclusive than to force them to dance with someone they don't want to.

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

This.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Lass do you fancy a Strip the Willow?

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.