The ultimate insult for rugby players: "Take up Ballet" Options

[papeetepatrick]

It's the same sort of mentality that uses insults like, "You run like a girl" or "You do (some manly activity) like a girl."

Right. Ballet is perceived as unmanly not because it is seen as non-athletic or easy but because it is commonly identified with women, the inferior sex. It is something girls do. The qualities of ballet in the popular mind (in the US, anyway) – grace, beauty, delicacy, – are traditionally associated with femininity.

Yes, it's exactly that sort of mentality, pure ignorance and redneckery, it's just that it doesn't mean anything at all if you consider the source, which is light-years away from ballet and doesn't care a fig for it. Probably has no effect beyond this thread. I'm surprised they even knew what it was. But those people don't have any real effect on ballet, which does have real problems continuing to propagate itself; I just don't think that the problem is with the omnipresent rednecks, unless perhaps it is some budding dancer who gets thwarted by them, as in the sticks, a boy who might become a dancer if trained early might as well forget it. This article is just another document of the same old backwoods mentality, what Marx (not one of my heroes, God knows) might refer to as 'the idiocy of rural life'. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Oh well, yes, at first I 'threw like a girl', so I had to fix that, but my sister was told by our father that she 'threw like a boy', and she didn't like that either, because she was a beauty queen. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[SandyMcKean]

femininity = inferior

I don't buy that at all. Did someone say that or is this just an interpretation of a different set of words that someone else said? Frankly, I doubt this rugby coach, and certainly most his players, would agree to "femininity = inferior".

I agree with the sentiments expressed above that dismiss this rugby coach's remark as......my words now.......essentially ignorable,even somewhat humorous, common enough type of remark made in the male sports world that means little, and is certainly said in ignorance of ballet dancers, attenders, or anything else ballet. It's nuts to take seriously such off hand comments by rednecks, uber-liberals, or anyone else who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.

[cubanmiamiboy]

femininity = inferior

I don't buy that at all. Did someone say that or is this just an interpretation of a different set of words that someone else said? Frankly, I doubt this rugby coach, and certainly most his players, would agree to "femininity = inferior".

I, on the other side, think that yes, the prevalent feeling regarding toughness, speed, power, strength and the like is commonly identified, CONSCIOUSLY AND/OR UNCOUNSCIOUSLY, with the male gender as matters of its supremacy/superiority. Not that everyone agrees with that, IMO...

[kfw]

femininity = inferior

I don't buy that at all. Did someone say that or is this just an interpretation of a different set of words that someone else said? Frankly, I doubt this rugby coach, and certainly most his players, would agree to "femininity = inferior".

I agree with the sentiments expressed above that dismiss this rugby coach's remark as......my words now.......essentially ignorable,even somewhat humorous, common enough type of remark made in the male sports world that means little, and is certainly said in ignorance of ballet dancers, attenders, or anything else ballet. It's nuts to take seriously such off hand comments by rednecks, uber-liberals, or anyone else who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about.

Thank you, Sandy. And the thing is that rednecks (who whatever the limits of their cultural education are as likely as the rest of us to be perfectly decent people) and uber-liberals (by which I take it you refer to people who object to ballet because its old world manners reflect pre-feminist attitudes) are hardly the only people with no idea of how physically demanding ballet is.

I don't think it's so bad that a lot of people stereotype ballet as a girl's thing, a woman's thing. How many ballet dancers would know that, say, hunting, appeals to a lot of women as well as men? I don't think ignorance is always prejudice.

[papeetepatrick]

femininity = inferior

I don't buy that at all. Did someone say that or is this just an interpretation of a different set of words that someone else said? Frankly, I doubt this rugby coach, and certainly most his players, would agree to "femininity = inferior".

I, on the other side, think that yes, the prevalent feeling regarding toughness, speed, power, strength and the like is commonly identified, CONSCIOUSLY AND/OR UNCOUNSCIOUSLY, with the male gender as matters of its supremacy/superiority. Not that everyone agrees with that, IMO...

Ashley Montague, way back in the 60s, wrote a book called 'The Natural Superiority of Women'. He said even physically, in every way but MUSCULARLY, that women were stronger than men. But men ARE muscularly stronger. I don't necessarily agree with any of this except that distinguishing muscular strength, which does have its own kind of power, is not the same as many other kinds of physical strength. The rest is probably caca, but I thought that was pretty good. And it doesn't even mean that women cannot use their OWN muscles as effectively as men do, with ballet being the perfect proof, among many other things. It DOES, however, mean, that at this stage of evolution, that men are by far the more important football players...and RUGBY players..and BOXERS. It is not really a feminist issue at all.

[cubanmiamiboy]

The rest is probably caca...

(IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/rofl.GIF)

(How did you get that word...? (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) )

[dirac]

What a strange notion, really.

Yes, indeed, diane. In this particular instance, as sejacko says earlier in the thread, one must consider the source.

[papeetepatrick]

As an expat South African, that is exactly the kind of ignorant remark one can expect from the uber-manly Rugby fraternity. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/wallbash.gif)

Yes, it's exactly that sort of mentality, pure ignorance and redneckery, it's just that it doesn't mean anything at all if you consider the source.

What a strange notion, really.

Yes, indeed, diane. In this particular instance, as sejacko says earlier in the thread, one must consider the source.

Just for the record, I had nothing against 'uber-manly' in and of itself, prior to its violent impingement on the ballet consciousness, nor do I intend doing so in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, we are just going to have to start using 'uber-womanly', and it's unlikely that that will be tolerated exclusively. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[cubanmiamiboy]

Just for the record, I had nothing against 'uber-manly' in and of itself, prior to its violent impingement on the ballet consciousness, nor do I intend doing so in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, we are just going to have to start using 'uber-womanly', and it's unlikely that that will be tolerated exclusively. (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

(IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[Paul Parish]

I like Christian's "despective glance."

I've been practicing, and i think I'm getting good at it. Next time this guy says something like this, let me know, I;'ll give it to him. You stick with me, don't worry about him.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Go for it!!...and don't worry...I'll be backing you up...
and BTW, now that I remember, I've always found the perpetual story-telling of the boy-raised-in-tough-Queens-turned-boxer-turned-dancer-so-there-you-see-that-not-all-of-us-are-part-of-the-bunch-of-sissies kind of...-(hum-how should I say it so it doesn't sound politically incorrect...)-way too forced...(or worn off...?..)

[papeetepatrick]

I was making clear who said 'consider the source'. Is that what you are talking about? That's why I put the quotes down and played with it, just like one of the commenters had played with the quotes. That is legitimate, I'm fairly sure. Maybe you weren't referring to what I said, but I wasn't talking about 'boxers', et alia, 'who aren't sissies' (I'm certain some of them are.). Just wanted to make that clear, although the other part of the partial quote of my own ought to by itself. What's a 'despective glance'? Anyway, this isn't really the kind of board where someone else's quotes ought to be taken out of context and attributed to someone slse, unless subsequent commenters can do it as well. If there is some perception i was trying to make it 'not too politically incorrect', that is not the case. I don't care if it was politically incorrect.

Next time this guy says something like this, let me know,

You can also just say 'consider the sourec', that's cool...ho ho ho...

[cubanmiamiboy]

I was making clear who said 'consider the source'. Is that what you are talking about? That's why I put the quotes down and played with it, just like one of the commenters had played with the quotes. That is legitimate, I'm fairly sure. Maybe you weren't referring to what I said, but I wasn't talking about 'boxers', et alia, 'who aren't sissies' (I'm certain some of them are.). Just wanted to make that clear, although the other part of the partial quote of my own ought to by itself. What's a 'despective glance'? Anyway, this isn't really the kind of board where someone else's quotes ought to be taken out of context and attributed to someone slse, unless subsequent commenters can do it as well. If there is some perception i was trying to make it 'not too politically incorrect', that is not the case. I don't care if it was politically incorrect.

Next time this guy says something like this, let me know,

You can also just say 'consider the sourec', that's cool...ho ho ho...

No, no, no, Patrick...I wasn't referring at all to your post... (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif) I just suddenly remembered that too often told story of the boxer/dancer-(which I'm sure you know pretty well, as well as the rest of the ballet fans in America), and I was just not sure that it would be correct for me even to mention it here-(hence sounding "politically incorrect", as this is a frequently used phrase within this board)- due to the likeness of the subject within the ballet world...(me included...)
Oh, and a despective glance to the bad guys would be-(just be imaginative, because I don't have the right emoticon, ok...?)-sort of (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) plus (IMG:http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/style_emoticons/default/angry.gif)

[papeetepatrick]

Okay.

[Mashinka]

This comment got a lot of air time in the UK, not because of what this guy said, but why he said it. He was defending one of his players who was guilty of gouging. In other words, defending the indefensible and for that reason he is beneath contempt. Rugby can be an extremely dangerous sport and the injury rates are high, including the occasional death, but deliberately injuring a player is another matter and had this happened in Britain it could have resulted in a criminal charge of assault.

Is Rugby such a manly game? A gay American dancer who used to live in London was fascinated by it and I can remember him exclaiming to me whilst watching a scrum on TV, “just look where he put his hand!” He was quite right and when things like that go on, forgive the rest of us when we find this talk of tutus and cissies a matter of people in glass house throwing stones.