Misogyny in the Dance World: Are We Listening?
By Vangeline
Released Nov 27, 2017 – edited Jan 14, 2019
Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D., wrote that:
“In most cases, misogynists do not even know that they hate women. Misogyny is typically an unconscious hatred that men form early in life” (Brogaard, 2015).
Since 2017, a tidal wave of accusations against men in positions of power has swept across America.
As women know only too well, abuse does not have to be necessarily sexual in nature – misogyny and sexism can manifest in a myriad of ways. Men in power can resort to various tactics to intimidate, belittle and ultimately protect their positions of power.
Our society worships at the altar of patriarchy. Men dominate every area of society, while women learn at an early age to internalize oppression. As a result, even women can be dismissive of the word of other women when they come forward to share their stories.
The dance world is still ripe with misogyny; as a result, a woman teacher, director or choreographer may face serious problems throughout her career. For example, women are still held to an impossible double standard and are often expected by both sexes to “nurture” and not “lead.” A successful female choreographer or teacher may be labeled as “aggressive,” while her male counterpart will be merely perceived as confident. This implicit bias against female leaders makes it extremely challenging for women to navigate the pitfalls of a career in the dance world.
Gender inequality is particularly apparent when it comes to the teacher–student relationship in dance. When a woman starts teaching, her male students will not think twice about asking her out on a date, advising her on how to teach, or making demands on her time. Men seem entirely unaware that they would never treat a male teacher the same way. The male privilege is never more apparent than in this type of situation; for example, male students have called me “lovely” or “pretty,” when they would never dare openly comment on the looks of their male teachers.
Men often cover up their insecurities by engaging in “mansplaining,” aka condescending to the female teacher when in fact their “own knowledge of the subject she teaches is materially incomplete” (Krauss Whitbourne, 2017). One day, an inexperienced male student came up to me right after I had given a public lecture and proceeded to lecture me back (using concepts I had just shared). I have often wondered why it seems so difficult for some men to receive any form of instruction from a woman, or why it is so hard for them to simply listen.
When the roles are reversed, women rising through the ranks can encounter serious problems with male teachers. Young female students can be traumatized, and these early experiences may greatly impact their ability to succeed later in life. A friend of mine was raped by her male dance teacher when she was still in college; when she reported the sexual assault, the woman was blamed, and no action was taken.
Unfortunately, men’s needs are still socially sanctioned. It is not uncommon for female students to be harassed by their teachers, having to ward off unwanted sexual advances. Women go through life with the expectation that this state of affairs cannot be helped, and we learn to endure. This is because there are so few consequences to men’s misconduct and women have such limited options.
I too brushed up against abusive power dynamics while I was studying dance. In the early 2000s, I started to train in a form of dance which originated in Japan. My first teacher in that discipline was a man from Mexico. He came highly recommended in an unconventional, avant-garde field called butoh.
This man, who was very charismatic and charming, was regarded as much as a “guru” as a dance teacher. Yet his methods felt violent and unsafe. Exercises were often punishing. On one occasion, I blacked out after violently hitting my head against another student. Instead of being taken to a doctor, I was told to dance in front of the other students after regaining consciousness. As injuries were common, no one in the student pool batted an eyelid. The degree of violence was proportional to the level of respect these risky exercises commanded.
When I expressed my mixed feelings to older students (including female students), they replied that my feelings were merely a reflection of my lack of commitment or lack of understanding of the practice. For a very long time, I interpreted my resistance to his autocratic and violent teaching practices as my own failing. I was reminded often that if I did not feel comfortable, it was for my own good; according to him, these feelings had to be surmounted to proceed with my training.
Older students often reminded me that this teacher was a “spiritual master who knew best.” In fact, this teacher was not only respected but revered by his older students or “devotees.” As a result, violence in training was rationalized, minimized and normalized.
Psychotherapist Rob Preece, the author of “Our Teachers Are Not Gods,” defined this type of dysfunctional dynamic as “a kind of masochistic intoxication with a teacher’s abusive behavior, with the devotee justifying it as something that is all part of his or her path” (Preece, 2017).
The male teacher in question held absolute authority and was very convincing when he said that he had learned these techniques in Japan. If one wished to attain mastery in this art form, one needed to comply with his demands and “submit” to him. Any dissent or criticism was met with agitated and angry outbursts, and we were told that our egos were in need of “submission.”
This type of abusive behavior is not uncommon when teachers end up in a position of uncontested power. In his article “Abuse of Power,” Alan McEvoy noted that “almost without exception, offending teachers mask their mistreatment of students as part of a legitimate role function, using the rhetoric of ‘motivation’ or ‘discipline’ to justify their actions” (McEvoy, 2014).
Rob Preece added:
“While there are some extraordinary teachers with great integrity, they are seldom if ever flawless. I am sometimes shocked when I hear students describe the critical, bullying way in which they are treated as a necessary part of the destruction of the ego. So often this reflects the narcissism of the teacher. The status of certain teachers can cause them to become self-centered or narcissistic” (Preece, 2017).
Because this art form was so new to me, it never occurred to me that these exercises had little to do with the dance itself but perhaps satisfied the teacher’s unconscious need to dominate. I had no reason to question this man, who was unanimously respected professionally. Instead, I questioned myself.
We know today that there can be severe consequences to gender imbalances. As expert Mary Crawford points out in her book Talking Difference: On Gender and Language, a lifetime of unequal power relationships conditions women to trust men in positions of authority (and second-guess themselves). When a group of female students is led by one man, more often than not, women may end up disempowered.
It is quite problematic that toxic masculinity should be presented as a tool for female empowerment. Women, who are statistically victims of various forms of violence from men, may initially be seduced by the argument and convince themselves that by engaging with violent partnering exercises, they too can become empowered. In fact, discharging violent impulses can initially be freeing.
However, when such exercises take place in a male-dominated context, with one man in a position of absolute power, women ultimately end up lacking ownership of their own process. Instead of challenging gender roles, such dynamics are often in place to maintain existing power relations.
In her book Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens, feminist writer Christy Adair identified this specific phenomenon as “recuperation”:
“A process by which women are initially portrayed as autonomous and powerful, only to have that independence eroded” (Adair, 1992).
This teacher, for example, presented his work as a form of “liberation” from the chains of social conditioning, spoke of gender inequality and presented himself as the leader of a new generation of female Amazons.
Yet a double standard was often at play. For example, women were often instructed to be more supportive of male students (essentially reinforcing the prevalent message that women should be nurturers), while facing several forms of violence and psychological manipulation in training: verbally, in the form of a constant barrage of criticism, and psychologically and physically, through a continuous violation of their personal boundaries.
To give the reader an example of the type of methods used in these workshops: under the guise of teaching students to loosen inhibitions, students were paired up in dangerous wrestling matches in a sandpit, pressing on each other violently. In another type of exercise, one student was groped and pushed by the entire group, resulting in a violation of personal boundaries. A female student broke her ankle in front of me during this type of exercise.
In a context where students are under the thumb of one autocratic male teacher, pushed to the limit into frenzied states from morning until evening, exhausted and pressured to conform, the question of consent is highly ambiguous.
Further, when a dialogue with teachers is not permitted, and when there is no system of checks and balances in place, over time, ethical boundaries are bound to erode. This erosion, in another instance, manifested as inappropriate sexist comments, which can constitute another form of violence against women.
Female students were, on one occasion, called “angry wombs” and “empty wombs.” This teacher told us that women are “programmed” to have children and that when we failed to fulfill our biological destiny, our wombs were “angry,” which, he claimed, affected the quality of our dance.
Although these comments may seem ridiculous, in the context of a teacher–student relationship, one cannot underestimate the impact of these male-centered messages on the female psyche. On the one hand, women were encouraged to emulate men and engage in forms of normative masculine violence to achieve mastery within the art form, and, on the other hand, they were constantly reminded of the inescapability of their biological destiny.
In fact, this teacher did not just teach dance; he dispensed personal and spiritual advice as though he were an authority on the subject of life itself. Whenever dance teachers pose as spiritual masters and feel justified to publicly put students on the spot, shame them, or criticize aspects of their personal life in front of other students during class, a serious ethical boundary has been breached.
Perhaps the most confounding aspect of this phenomenon is that, in many cases, once a power structure has been established in a group context, it is unlikely to be challenged. Psychologists call this propensity for denial “cognitive dissonance.” When we experience conflicted thoughts, we tend to eliminate the most troubling thought to protect the integrity of our experience. Rationalizing and justifying aberrant behavior is less stressful than facing conflict.
Rob Preece described the enormous emotional investment we make in our teachers that comes with massive psychological projections. Once we idealize a teacher and place them on a pedestal, it is difficult for anyone to dislodge them. We are invested, attached; any crack on the surface and an entire body of meaningful experiences might come tumbling down. As a result, allegations of misconduct are collectively pushed under the rug as they threaten to tear at the very fabric of our emotional investments.
Unfortunately, collective denial tends to lead to a general lack of accountability, which can translate into a further breaking down of ethical boundaries. The misogyny and sexism so embedded in the teachings I received also led to inappropriate behavior from fellow male students, who modeled after the male teacher. It was not uncommon to see in these workshops male students who used the physical proximity to their advantage and abused the situation, further violating women’s personal boundaries.
At the root of this problem, it is clear that the phenomenon of psychological and cultural projections is widespread in the butoh world. The archetype of the “wise elder” can be extremely appealing to young people in search of guidance, particularly in a cross-cultural context. However, in the process of giving in to these projections, we may reinforce the patriarchy and patterns of oppression. As Preece pointed out: “it is, therefore, necessary for us to wake up and not be beguiled by charismatic teachers and our own need to idealize” (Preece, 2017).
The adoring female student enthralled by a male teacher may seem like a cliché, but it is nonetheless commonplace. In violent educational settings, female students may, without realizing it, form a deep attachment to their teachers, in the exact same way that victims of intimate partner violence form a bond with their abusers, a phenomenon more commonly known as traumatic bonding.
Additionally, abuse, for many students, is difficult to identify – since abusive people are not abusive all the time. A student may have a difficult time separating positive experiences from inappropriate ones, especially when it is reinforced over and over again to them that the teacher knows best.
For a long time, I rationalized that I could endure the many violations of boundaries. I only realized later on that there were serious consequences to these repetitive boundary violations and put-downs. As long as I stayed embroiled in the dynamic, I was not able to acknowledge the severity of the problem – it took a clean break for me to begin to come to terms with the issue.
When testimonials of abuse, sexism and misogyny come out, they elicit strong emotional reactions and are very divisive, proportional to the level of cognitive dissonance and attachment to the male mystique. Unfortunately, this problem is very difficult to confront, because patterns of denial are not individual, but collective patterns embedded in the very fabric of our society.
Today, after the first wave of the #metoo movement, it is easier to see a link between gender-based violence and the lack of advancement of women in the world. It has become evident that misogyny is deeply embedded in our economic structures.
Therefore it is important to acknowledge that the consequences of this phenomenon for women are not merely psychological. In this case, adding insult to injury, female organizers were expected to perform unpaid labor for this teacher, who was adamant that a student who took on the role of producer should not get paid.
Under the guise of receiving “private teaching,” I spent hours working with no remuneration, either building his student base or facilitating his work in the United States. I supported his green card application. Built his press kits. Counted his money. Recruited students. Produced events.
I never received any private teaching. I was told that money was not important and that it was a great honor to support him. Yet while money was not deemed “important” for the women in this equation, the male teacher made sure that he was paid in full. This is emblematic of the gender divide: at a time when men and women still have no equal pay, women’s work is routinely devalued, and women are expected to pave the way for “great” men.
Unfortunately, men’s great achievements often come at significant cost to women. If men in positions of power put down women, it is to ensure that the same women will lack the confidence to compete with them later. In the end, this is an ethical issue masking a grim economic reality. More often than not, men will consciously or unconsciously misuse their power to protect their status and livelihood.
The exploitation of women is not a rare occurrence in the dance world. In her article for Dance Magazine, “Can We All Please Acknowledge Ballet’s Sexism Problem Already?”, Courtney Escoyne points out the fact that men dominate the dance world and that, more often than not, they have built their work on the shoulders of their lower-paid female counterparts. Three male choreographers dominate ballet today, yet they use almost only female dancers, who are paid a fraction of the men’s salaries.
Abuse of women, whether sexual or not, is always about power, and power held by men represents economic opportunities denied to women. Yet disrespect and abuse of women are so commonplace, so prevalent, that we are desensitized and do not see it anymore. Without an outside voice calling out impropriety, we do not dare to speak up and we accept the situation as the status quo.
Today, we need to acknowledge that the dance world has its fair share of male “gurus” or untouchable men who often cross ethical lines. This phenomenon, by the way, is hardly unique to the dance world. Stephen Batchelor, author of “Why I Quit Guru Yoga,” asks the very relevant question:
“Does elevating the guru to the same status as the teachings themselves set the stage for teacher–student abuse?” (Batchelor, 2017).
It just might.
It is our undiscerning deference which contributes to these teachers’ narcissism. Without room for criticism or oversight, we end up creating monsters instead of teachers.
Learning from this experience, I have developed a system of checks and balances for my work. My work with the community is evaluated by separate organizations. I seek professional feedback to ensure that I work within ethical boundaries.
Since breaking from oppressive educational models, I have educated myself on the scope of trauma research. As a result, I have learned to identify risky pedagogical practices. Like many dance professionals today, I now advocate a trauma-informed approach to learning.
In the end, an important lesson that I have learned is to identify the harmful patterns surrounding the abuse of power. No matter how great the contribution, or outstanding the achievement, there is no excuse for disrespecting women and misusing one’s power. Female students have a right to study any art form without being used, belittled and disrespected.
Misogynists are not aware that they hate women. But many of us, women included, need to confront our tendency to put men first. Women need to reckon with the harmful consequences of their own misogyny.
In our dance communities, we had better learn to cultivate appropriate boundaries and set guidelines that protect women who are consistently the victims of abusive power dynamics. We also need to learn to confront dangerous power imbalances.
It is important to point out that dancers may be particularly vulnerable to abuse. From an early age, we are taught to follow discipline. Like brave little soldiers, we obey our teachers, whatever the cost may be. This is why I believe that male teachers should be under scrutiny while working with female students. Ongoing psychological and ethical evaluations should be normal requirements for male dance teachers aspiring to find work. As long as we trust men to self-examine and be beyond reproach, we leave the door wide open to an endemic and self-perpetuating abuse of women.
While motivating students is a normal part of teaching dance, physical violence, verbal abuse and economic exploitation are not acceptable. But they certainly all go hand in hand with the patriarchy. A normalized, hegemonic masculine culture of violence has infiltrated every aspect of our societies, and the sad legacy of abuse often cycles from one generation to the next. If we want things to change, we had better give women a voice and a platform to share their experiences. Tell your story today. Or better yet, when a woman comes forward with her story, learn to listen.
Glossary
abuse: treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly. (Merriam-Webster)
economic exploitation: a relationship in the distribution of economic wealth wherein a worker does not receive the proper amount of income or entitlement. (Oxford)
misogyny: the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. (Merriam-Webster)
paternalism: the policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ supposed best interest. (Merriam-Webster)
Bibliography
Adair, Christy. 1992. Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens. New York University Press.
Batchelor, Stephen. 2017. “Why I Quit Guru Yoga.” Tricycle. https://tricycle.org/magazine/quit-guru-yoga/
Brogaard, Berit. Feb 18, 2015. “12 Ways to Spot a Misogynist.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mysteries-love/201502/12-ways-spot-misogynist
Escoyne, Courtney. Apr 24, 2017. “Can We All Please Acknowledge Ballet’s Sexism Problem Already?” Dance Magazine. https://www.dancemagazine.com/can-we-all-please-acknowledge-ballets-sexism-problem-already-2376775181.html
Koblin, John, and Grynbaum, Michael M. Nov 21, 2017. “Charlie Rose Fired by CBS and PBS After Harassment Allegations.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/business/media/charlie-rose-fired-cbs.html
Krauss Whitbourne, Susan. Apr 4, 2017. “This Is How Men Irritate Women the Most.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201704/is-how-men-irritate-women-the-most
McEvoy, Alan. 2014. “Abuse of Power.” Teaching Tolerance. Issue 48, Fall 2014. https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2014/abuse-of-power
Preece, Robert. July 20, 2017. “Our Teachers Are Not Gods.” Lion’s Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/teachers-not-gods/
Tierney, John. Nov 6, 2007. “Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/science/06tier.html
