Belly dancing

[JessinAvalon]

I don't want to start a raging debate about this but I am hoping that some on here may be able to settle a difference in opinion between me and a friend.

She thinks (after seeing a belly dancer perform at a feminist arts event in Bristol) that it's anything but feminist and thinks it's not that different to lapdancing (titillating, revealing costumes etc).

I don't see it like that. I do Bollywood dancing (which is very hard!) and have come across belly dancers through my dancing but they were all older, larger ladies (am I allowed to say that?!) and, to me, the belly dancers I saw were celebrating their form, celebrating the dance and generally having fun.

Admittedly though I don't know much about it. Does anyone have any views/experience/knowledge that would help the debate?

and i didn't say you weren't a feminist full stop, i said that your viewsd on bellydancing weren't feminist.

SGM - it wasn't that i didn't think through what i was saying - it was more that i didn't think through how to word it in the sense that I didn't mean to offend or insult anyone - i don't like war or fighting in a violent sense.
I felt that dittany thought this was the only way to win true feminism.

see, told you that SGM should be my interpreter.

i'm always nice to people.

but i do think it's important to hear people out and debate at a controlled level, without hurling insults around. even people i disagree with. the tone of posts can actually detract from the content in many cases. if someone (anyone) is ranting, there's a good chance i'm not going to learn anything, as i will have been put off by the tone of the post.

i'd like to say i'm surprised with the direction the thread has taken, but i'm not.

it's very sad.

this may be to do with an inherent dislike of conflict but i really don't think it is. i like to be able to work out why people think the way they do, and try to ask them questions to determine properly their real pov, and then ask them questions which might make them think a little bit deeper about why they feel that way, and whether they might need to alter their opinion a little.

and sometimes a learn quite a lot myself along the way, and change my own opinion.

i do realise that the nice safe feminist board can be more argumentative than aibu, but i don't have to like it.

people should be able to post forthright opinions. but there is no such thing as an identikit feminist. there just isn't. the louder and more strident the voices on the feminist board, the more 'the feminists are all a bunch of shouty nutters' opinion infiltrates the main boards. i hate the fact that it seems as though i want feminists to lower their voices - i don't really, i want them to moderate their tone so that more women are able to identify as 'feminists' instead of running screaming in the opposite direction.

it's not 'come to feminism and learn something', it's 'avoid feminism because unless you go in knowing what the party line is, they will slash and burn you'.

i am sad about it.

i know that makes me lame, and not a fighter, and plays totally into the 'conflict avoidance' model, but it's not really what i mean.

I did say that, dittany.
i wasn't referring to a real perosn, in the sense that I truly don't believe that someone could hold that opinion.

Sorry to have missed all this - what a wide-ranging discussion this has generated. I was too busy trying to overthrowing the patriarchy down on Embankment.

What SGM said at 15:09.

quite right. no argument from me there. but sometimes i think it might be wise to double check the content of the post, and understanding of it, instead of treating it as a 'light the blue touch paper and stand back'.

on both sides.

i don't like it. but i can see how it looks from Outside.

'Reclaiming it as a women -only activity would be feminist. There is nothing feminist about young women dancing in see -through clothing for fat, old men in dirty clubs at 3 in the morning.'

So it looks like I'm a feminist belly dancer then?
Reclaiming it as a women-only activity, and not dancing in clubs at any hour.

i've owned what i said.
i used your words because they were good words.

i still think it's all about the audience. but i don't feel that way about lapdancing or poledancing.

why?

someone help me out.

is it back to the mc discussion, as supposed, then?

have i just been successfully socialised as a stereotypical mc woman?

goblin - but that's the argument used by women who only pole dance in their basement, and never in front of an audience.

and i Do Not Like That.

why?

why can you not re-claim pole dancing>

(omg, i can't believe i just typed that)

i don't think you can. but why?

Tondelayo - did you overthrow it then? We're all done??

i agree with madwoman.

hear hear Goblin - it appears to be only the ones who do it semi-nkaed/in semi-see-through clothes in sleazy night clubs that are not feminist.
I believe it's a women-only activity too, and i believe it's an important dance form, from both a heritage and a physical point of view.

but poledancing was invented by men to be a sleazy dance in order to make money for men in their clubs.

it never started as something for women, therefore you can't claim it to be so!
you can't take something that started out for sexual gratification and turn it into a feminist dance.

you can keep belly dancing as a feminist dance, because it began life to help women.

Yep Alice. That's why I'm back early. No pikestaffs required.