Sorry I Don't Dance: Why Men Refuse to Move

ISBN-13: 9780199845293 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 230 str.

Maxine Leeds Craig

Opis

If you want to learn about masculinity, ask a man if he likes to dance. One man in this study answered, "Music is something that goes on inside my head, and is sort of divorced from, to a large extent, the rest of my body." How did this man's head become divorced from his body? To answer this question, Maxine Craig sought out men who love music but hate to dance. Combining interviews, participant observation and archival research, Sorry I Don't Dance uncovers the recent origins of cultural assumptions regarding sex, race, and the capacity to dance. From the beginning of the twentieth century through the Swing Era young men of all races danced. But in the 1960s suburbanization, homophobia, and fragmentation of music cultures drove white men from the dance floor, and feminized, sexualized and racialized dance. Sorry I Don't Dance reveals how changing beliefs concerning gender, race, class, and sexuality over the past half-century have redefined what it means to be a man in America.

Recenzje

For anyone who has tried to get a man to dance, Maxine Craig shows how a man's refusal or acceptance has little to do with his would-be partner and much to do with how he was raised, in what communities and time period, and whether he experiences dance as threatening or enhancing his masculinity. Craig weaves together sophisticated analyses of the race, class, gender and sexual dimensions of embodied performance with evocative and eye-opening stories and interviews.

O autorze

Maxine Leeds Craig is Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the Univeristy of California, Davis. She is the author of Ain't I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race.