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| maihri |
on Sun 9 Mar 08, 12:24 PM to maihri's blog.
We had a dance gig yesterday. We had the worst audience we have ever had, but we were totally professional and ploughed on to the end, fixed grins on our faces. Were they lewd, crude and passing comments? No, they almost totally ignored us.
Of the 30 or so women in the room only a couple enjoyed our show, or even had the courtesy to applaud after each dance. Poor R, our drummer, and the only man around, valiantly clapped at the relevant points to conjure up a smatter of applause. We have never danced anywhere that the audience walked through our set!
I am trying to be discreet here, and not mention the ungrateful articles by name, but we were so cross that we refused the offer of the free buffet and went over the road and paid for our meals!
Do they know how long it takes to get ready for a gig? Think 'Belle de Jour' and you have it for me. About one and half to two hours to shower, defuzz, do hair, perfume, makeup and pack up my kit. All those false eyelashes take forever! Then there's the travel time- we car-share and end up driving all over the Black Country to pick-up and drop off.
If it wouldn't have embarrassed my teacher, I'd have given those so-called feminists a piece of my mind. Belly-dancing is the ultimate in women's dance- yes we dance for men- but mostly we dance for ourselves. The self-expression is a delight and a joy and they tarnished it for me, by looking down their noses at us.
You know the women who appeared to enjoy it the most? The ones from a foreign country where oppression rules the day.
And those sour faced prudes- where was their joy in life? Did they not see the single mum next to me who's raised her children single-handedly? The women who have overcome cancer, who have pushed their bodies to recover just so that they can dance again? The women who have gone against their husbands wishes to be free to express themselves in the way that they want to?
I don't think I like their idea of sisterhood. Colourless, joyless, restricted, constricted.
And our troupe has made a solemn vow never to dance for them again.
| 9 Mar 08, 5:51 PM PFLsAgain UK, 7 yrs |
I'm sorry you came up against such a sour caricature of feminism. As a feminist I'm offended that there are people who misrepresent such prejudice as feminism. True freedom includes the right to do those things that Marxist feminists despise otherwise it's not freedom at all. While I'm sorry it was such a stilted and unappreciative audience I feel rather glad and amused that you exercised your very real freedom right under their upturned noses. There's a certain justice in that particularly on International Women's Day. "I learned what every dreaming child needs to know - no horizon is so far that you cannot see above or beyond it." ~ Beryl Markham (first pilot to cross the Atlantic solo the hard way - East to West) |
