Ballet classes

[Awholelotofhot]

I took my two year old to a ballet class today as she loves a dance. I was surprised to find the class was all girls and one of them also had a tutu on! Also it was all very 'graceful' (as I guess ballet is!) however it made me wonder if going to a class like this would start to ingrain in her that ballet is for girls and girls are graceful and pretty etc. Am i over thinking this?

Elisaveta I must be another loon, too!

I find ballet very self-limiting - the aesthetics, the only acceptable body shape, the way the story is told - all are incredibly limited. Yes I know it's complex and requires skills that take years to master. So what? I love classical music and I think it's wasted on ballet. There is so much more to dance than ballet.

Apart from that, as a parent the bad definitely outweighs the good - gender stereotyping, risk of injury and eating disorders against (for most people) discipline, good posture and gracefulness All of that can be got elsewhere.

BTW yes I did ballet a a child I was quite good at it but too young and I can honestly say it traumatised me!

I do call myself a feminist, but we're talking about physical differences in men and women, which actually do exist!

And it's pretty ridiculous to complain about injuries in ballet when your kids do karate, which is in part a combat sport, and as such has a range of injuries associated with it, which differ greatly between male and female competitors, and where competition is divided at higher levels by sex, because of sex differences.

Actually, saying "but boys can do it too" is a pretty baseless argument when it comes to ballet, given that about 95%* of kids taking classes in the UK will be girls. As well as Lass's argument about not needing validation for an activity through male participation

*Guessed stat - but if anything I would reckon that there would be even more girls than that

Good grief I'm not advocating a grey joyless life, or complaining that sports can occasionally entail injury. I'm also not saying that activities aimed at girls are shit, and I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't saying that either. Ballet is an art form that relies largely on stereotypes of men and women, and karate doesn't, regardless of whether my 4 year old will compete against girls or boys when she's older.

Segregating males and females for competitive purposes in a combat sport is based on the stereotype that males are usually larger and stronger than females.

But they do the same sport Sylvia.

The only equivalent I can think of is rhythmic gymnastics, where the girls wear high leg leotards, wave ribbons or throw balls or hoops, and do a lot of prancing and posing to music; for boys there is no music and accessories. High levels of strength and skill needed, but somehow reductive for women - as Elvira says, limiting.

Lacrosse is different for men and women, also discus, hurdles, cycling, gymnastics.

Why is it reductive for women to 'prance' to music, rather than reductive for men not to get to the opportunity to do so?

Floor work for female gymnasts is done to music, not just in rhythmic gymnastics. There has been discussion of men also having music on floor in the future.

By seeing it as an issue with what women doing somehow being 'reductive' it does seem as if you think things are lesser because women do them, unless you somehow think things involving music are somehow less skilled than without?

But it's a thread in the Feminism section, so points about stereotypes are valid here.

Very much so. I know next to nothing about ballet and have never done it so can't comment in any detail, but your points are interesting and as valid as opposite views.

I don't know how much ballet is of more interest to women/girls, or if it's just parents are more likely to send their daughters to ballet than sons. I don't know anyone who does ballet now but know of someone who was sent to it when primary school age. She never had any interest in it but her presence may have added weight to the notion girls are more interested in it.

As a general point, I'm wary of using boys or men enjoying something as validating that pursuit but can also see you'd not want to stereotype children as feeling certain hobbies/sports are appropriate to their sex. It's helping them see they can choose and don't have to conform to particular behaviours rather than saying something can only be worthwhile if boys do it.

Several of dd's teachers have the girls doing the boys excercises & vice versa as choreography today often requires it. I think a few of the boys have tried pointe.

Sylvia how does the discus throw differ between men and women? How is cycling different? I'm not being difficult I genuinely don't understand the point you're making.

I don't think women's activities are 'lesser' and I find it annoying that this attitude is being attributed to me. I don't have any issue with sports being segregated by sex, or some appealing more to women than men. But activities which require women and men to conform to gender stereotypes to perform them are different.

I haven't seen, ime, ballet considered inferior as a hobby choice for children because its more popular with girls. I don't think you can make a case for sexism there. There are a lot of different forms of dance for children to try if ballet doesn't suit.

EE, the weights and lengths are different. Many are under consideration for change. Many in athletics aren't convinced that the discus weight for women actually challenges them, and think the hurdle heights are shorter than they need to be, giving an advantage to shorter women that they should not have. These debates are around stereotypes of what women should be physically capable of, and what the 'ideal' strength and size of a woman is.

If you don't think that women's activities are lesser, why put as a problem that women 'prance' to music in gymnastics rather than the problem being that men do not.

I find it difficult to take that you are criticising an arts based activity like ballet in comparison to karate - partly a combat sport. There has to be some critique there to be made of violence, and the normalisation of it.

It isn't just that the issue of stereotypically male things being seen as better, it's that the stereotypically male things can have harmful social messages within it. Masculinity doesn't appear from nowhere - it's taught to boys (and now with supposed gender neutrality, increasingly to girls).

So while in the real world I'm sure I don't care too much that your kids did karate and mine did dance, theatre etc, because different families do different stuff and such is life, these decisions are in part about values and about attitudes to gendered activities.

I took ballet as a child and teen, and now as an adult I have taken it up again. I love it.

But if I have a DD I will discourage her from ballet. Yes, it teaches incredible control, but it requires unnatural positions, like turnout and hyperextension, which take a terrible toll on the joints. Ballet hurts, often, and dancers are required to push past the pain. There is an unhealthy striving for unattainable perfection in ballet, not to mention the need to be thin in service of "good lines."

A couple of years ago, for six months I worked in the same building as one of the UK's best pre-professional ballet schools. Every day I saw these 15 and 16 year old girls having nervous breakdowns in the hallways and slinking to and from classes looking absolutely miserable.

While I enjoy ballet for myself, I wouldn't enrol a daughter in ballet as I would be afraid that she might really come to like it, and want to pursue it even just semi-seriously. I think there are much better activities which teach co-ordination and physical control.

A member of my family is a professional dancer. Her abs have to be seen to be believed! And in training, these thin but very strong young girls could out-plank pro rugby players.

Baby ballet is a bit pink and princessy, but it can also lead to valuable self-expression, and later on, if she sticks with the training she'll learn that hard work & effort & discipline lead to achievement. The very opposite of the princess/celebrity culture.

I'm biased - I still do loads of dance classes in my mid-50s.

Ballet is an art form that relies largely on stereotypes of men and women

It does. But it's also about the only art form/sport I can think of off the top of my head where the women are the "stars" and it is the men who, to some degree, play second fiddle. The male lead generally partners the female, not the other way round. Most of the "star parts" are for the ballerina. Not always, but more often than not. Look at any published ballet casting for the Royal Ballet/ENB . 9 times out of 10 the leading lady is listed first.

Funny, I don't post much on mn at all, and have never posted in feminism, but I just came on here to air my misgivings about my dd starting ballet classes (her choice). I sat in on the first class and apart from all the references to princesses, which I'm not too keen on, the girls were told to tuck their tummies in, which horrified me... aren't 3yos supposed to have lovely round slightly sticky out tummies??

I was a very keen ballet dancer up to age 12 but I have been wondering how many of the problems I had as a younger woman were reinforced by ideas I had about being graceful, elegant, thin, etc, as a result of my ballet phase... I watched a documentary about the nutcracker with dd, and couldn't help but think how childlike and submissive the dancers were. How focussed on being the best, being right, looking right... I'm all for discipline but I'm wondering if I might be more comfortable taking her to tap or something else.

wetcardboard interesting perspective. What would you choose for your dd instead?

Tucking your tummy in is a posture/strength thing not aesthetic. It's about using & strengthening your core muscles in the movements but very young children won't understand the technical explanation. Later on it becomes very important for balance in things like pirouettes.

So far I've learned some posters have reservations about ballet because it's a girl thing but as boys do it too it can be OK.

Sport is unquestionably a good thing. Only those silly ballerinas risk injury or issues over unhealthy body images or eating. Google pictures of Liz McColgan or Paula Radcliffe. They are skeletal. Ballerinas are slim, elegant and graceful. I've never seen a ballerina who looks as unhealthy as either of them. Being graceful and elegant is also a bad thing.

Sport is unquestionably a good thing even when it is a martial art based on aggressive masculine tendencies.

Female gymnasts prance around when doing floor exercises but apparently male gymnasts just do floor exercises.

Yy, Alexander - holding in tummy muscles = strengthening core = preparing for more difficult moves in the future

Female gymnasts prance around when doing floor exercises but apparently male gymnasts just do floor exercises.

But they do. All that weird dressage pony stuff gets missed out of the men's routines.

Did you ever see the dancer Wayne Sleep doing an imitation of a small girl gymnast?

No! I must watch it at once! If I don't see a man showing sportswomen how ridiculous they are, I may not understand why women should be compared to animals and so would be failing in my duties as a feminist.

It would really be better if a man whose sport involved kicking people in the head showed those stupid female gymnasts how silly their prancing is though. Ballet dancers are a bit suspect, even if they are men.

No-one has said being graceful or elegant is a bad thing, rather that teaching girls alone that to be graceful or elegant is desirable or something they should aspire to due to being female is potentially damaging.

There is nothing masculine about martial arts. They're very popular at my (all girls) school.