3, 2, 1… Commence Rant ‘Cause Some Men Are Stupid!

*inhale and slow exhale*

Ok, so there is this Girls With Short Hair Are Damaged post flying around on the internet that is making many idiotic misogynistic statements about women with short hair. Statements like:

The cowardly and deluded among us perpetuate the myth that “some girls can pull it off.” Pulling something off, I often respond, is the equivalent of “passing” a class. Just because you have enough left-over attractiveness to remain bangable after cutting off your hair doesn’t mean you wouldn’t look better with it back on.

As if a woman’s identity as being a woman/feminine/attractive is directly correlated to having long hair. This whole post, and further more the website, seems to be on a one-track agenda to putting down women out of fear of women being actually equal to men. Which they are! It’s an irrefutable fact.

But the worst part of this post is not this man’s opinion on what is beautiful, because we all have our opinions and are entitled to it, it is how many other people agree with what this man is saying. Agreeing with not only is the short hair on a woman unattractive but the woman must be damaged beforehand to cause her to want to style it in such way. The comment section of the post is mostly overwhelmed with people arguing against the points, but there a still a good handful of men and women saying that short hair is neither feminine nor attractive. Let alone the amount of people I have seen posting this one their Twitter and Facebook pages agreeing and captioning, “Finally someone said it”.

What!? I don’t understand how people could say a hairstyle makes a woman damaged and that a breakup can cause so much damage to person, resulting in a hair style, and that style must be the sign for men to stay away from such women because they are, “damaged beyond repair”. There are even further statements like:

The bitchiest work colleagues, the most difficult cashier, the most confrontational, aggressive cunts in bars have all shared one trait—short-ass hair.

I cant… And as a man in a room with other men speaking about women, this kind of viewpoint is all too common. Men, listen… if a woman wants to chop off her hair, get tons of tattoos, piercings, wear loads of makeup, dress in sweats, a t-shirt, and flats 9 times out of 10 it’s because she wants to! Not because she wants/doesn’t want attention from men, some man hurt her, or men were even a part of the equation! She has a mind of her own and probably wouldn’t give a damn if you even notice what she’s doing with her beat and outer looks.

*sigh*

I hope for two things:

1). That this man never has children because his boys will grow into misogynistic men if they listen to their father’s every word and abide by his opinions.

2) He get’s over being turned down by that hot super model-esque woman with a cute pixie cut he hit on. I’m ninety-five percent sure she said a polite “no” because he looked unclean and/or had bad breath… straight boys often have bad breath haha

Dance Like A Man?

When I first began dancing in ballet based styles, I was never really told to “Dance Like A Man”. It might have been because I have a larger and more muscular build from my background playing football and running track. Yet, I’ve heard dancers, teachers, choreographers, and viewers alike yell “Dance Like A Man!” to male dancers, and I find it to be a very destructive phrase to aspiring male dancers.

My first question is what does a man dance like? Better yet, what does masculinity in dance look like (since that is the main insinuated factor)? What most people argue when saying this phrase or agreeing with the statement is that male dancers should move in a stronger and more percussive way than female dancers should, as well as eliminating certain stances like a hand on the hip or the oh so feminine hair flip; because men never stand with a hand on their hip or flips their hair out of their face in real life. And those characteristics solely for the purpose of femininity. Some could also argue that the intent behind a boy/man dancing should be masculine because if it is meant to be sassy or feminine it will read and men should try to be masculine. That’s such a complex thing to get male dancers to do because we can hardly differentiate between feminism and masculinity.

Some dancers strive to perform in the entertainment industry, and there is a clear divide between male and female dancers in that world. For example, male backup dancers normally do hip-hop or urban based dance styles, have a completely view-able six pack and a chiseled chest minus a shirt. While female dancers have whip their hair, wear tight fitting clothes and do lots of sultry hip focused movement that call on jazz and ballet dance a bit more than the choreography set for male dancers. So, because these roles in this community dancers I can see why this phrase would have a bit of validity from a teacher’s point of view so that he or she prepares their male dancers to succeed in this industry; yet I argue that we should change the worlds selected.

A lot of my current awareness of this phenomenon was sparked by this video trailer for the film The Mask You Live In

Instead of “Dance Like A Man” or insinuating to dance more masculine, try using world like “heavy”, “percussive/sharp”, show more physical “strength” in movement. In this way the young male dancers would have a better chance of understanding what it is that is asked of them as well as not making them feel bad for not being seen as masculine in your eyes. It’s already hard enough to be a male dancer in the eyes of many men, brothers, and fathers who wouldn’t dare put their sons in a ballet class, we should make it easier for them once they’ve stepped up to the barre.

This idea is just a start and a bit of a rant from a place of frustration with the term. When engaging in conversation about this with people who would normally say “Dance Like A Man” or agree with the term, I find it hard to have my viewpoint heard. Well I guess this is why I made a blog.