Three thoughts, or parts thereof:

1. Dancers might benefit from a mention in the beginner workshops that they
should not be too surprised if the person they are to do a move with is of
the unexpected gender, that it's just done for fun and is okay. Forewarned
is forearmed. New dancers might think we're strange, but they won't have to
panic and think they've done something wrong. Maybe they'll even laugh as
they get the joke.

2. All respect to Chris Ricciotti's wonderful treatment of gender-free
calling, I still wish we could find something other than "bands and bares".
If it's the local custom, I'd wear armbands, but I really would rather just
dance the other role without worrying about whether I was dressed right.
Positional dancing really isn't all that hard, so all we really need is
better words to describe the positions. If everyone was bilingual (English
and Contra) we could use the English Country Dance terms "partner, neighbor,
and corner". Those terms pretty much define everyone in the set without
using gender. We'd just have to figure out whether we want "first corners"
to be the *"*position at the time of the call", or the "people who were
first corners when the set was formed", as in English. Either way, the pesky
"ladies chain" would simply be "second (or first ) corners chain."

3. In the meantime, however, I prefer to keep the regular terms, men (or
gents) and ladies. But I sure like the square dance terms "boy" and "girl"
because of the nice plosive consonant at the beginning of the words, making
them easy to distinguish in an echoey hall.

M
E

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Jack Mitchell <jamitch3 at mindspring.com>wrote:

>   One other thing I had thought about doing in a workshop is to have a
>   few people in each line with a red ball cap or a particular shirt or
>   some other identifying mark, and challenge folks in the workshop to
>   make sure that they're not swapping when they get to those particular
>   people in the line.  At regular dances, I have particular local dancers
>   that I know don't react well to switching parts -- mostly because it
>   confuses them -- and I try to switch back when I see them coming.  I
>   also attempt (mostly successfully) to make sure that I don't switch
>   parts when one of the folks in the next couple is a new dancer.  The
>   partner swing is a nice time to look ahead to see who the next couple
>   is and quickly switch back if needed.
>   Jack
>   At 09:36 AM 9/11/2009, you wrote:
>
>     Following up on Mark Galipeau's note:
>     In a workshop, it may be good to offer a little context on when
>     gender-role-swapping is appropriate (or inappropriate). For example,
>     at most
>     dance weekends your neighbors will welcome or at least understand.
>     At many
>     monthly dances, there are neighbors who may become confused either
>     because
>     they are new, rigidly devoted to traditional gender roles, or any
>     number of
>     other reasons. Some may even try to correct us (if they don't know
>     us).
>     Before swapping, I look ahead in the line to be sure that our next
>     neighbors
>     will be part of the "game" and not put off by it.
>     (Mark indicates the idea of there being a time and a place for this,
>     I
>     merely offer an additional tip).
>     --Jerome
>     >
>     > Message: 3
>     > Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 15:27:15 -0700 (PDT)
>     > From: Mark Galipeau <red72impala at yahoo.com>
>     > To: Caller's discussion list <callers at sharedweight.net>
>     > Subject: Re: [Callers] Gender Swapping
>     > Message-ID: <964380.63567.qm at web83604.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
>     > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>     >
>     > If the group is alert, what my dance partners and I occasionally
>     enjoy, is
>     > memorizing both roles in the dance, then each iteration when there
>     is a
>     > swing your partner, we swap gender roles.
>     > ie: first swing I lead, then the next time we come back to swing
>     my partner
>     > immediately takes the lead role and swings me.? Some dances are
>     challenging
>     > and if the grey matter is slow, or it is late in the evening this
>     can really
>     > snafu the line.
>     > ?
>     > Chris Ricciotti has a great web resouce on Gender Free Contra on
>     this web
>     > site.
>     > [1]http://www.lcfd.org/Articles/GFManual/index.html
>     > ?
>     > Mark Galipeau
>     > Queer Contra Dancer
>     > We swing both ways, and then some.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     --
>     Jerome Grisanti
>     660-528-0858
>     [2]http://www.jeromegrisanti.com
>     For the good are always the merry,
>     Save by an evil chance,
>     And the merry love the fiddle
>     And the merry love to dance. ~ William Butler Yeats
>     _______________________________________________
>     Callers mailing list
>     Callers at sharedweight.net
>     [3]http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
>
> References
>
>   1. http://www.lcfd.org/Articles/GFManual/index.html
>   2. http://www.jeromegrisanti.com/
>   3. http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
> _______________________________________________
> Callers mailing list
> Callers at sharedweight.net
> http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
>



-- 
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance. ~ William Butler Yeats