My dance group switched from gendered terms for the roles to non-gendered (blog post) and from calling one of the dance moves “Gypsy” to “right shoulder round” (blog post). This didn’t involve strife in our specific community, though other dance communities had serious rifts over these two issues.
In the gendered terms case, our transition was the outcome of a long process with the community, including talking about various term options, trial dances, and then polling. We needed to do it this way because role terms are very visible.
In the “Gypsy” case the board and callers did it much more quietly. The caller booker told callers individually that we’d prefer “right shoulder round” if they were comfortable with it, then later that we strongly preferred it, and then eventually started asking callers not to use “Gypsy”.
Communities where these two issues went poorly often had the people who were pushing for change taking a confrontational attitude, and accusing people who disagreed with them of being prejudiced. I think they typically also involved advocates pushing hard on this before the community was ready, not building support, and not getting buy-in from respected members.
My dance group switched from gendered terms for the roles to non-gendered (blog post) and from calling one of the dance moves “Gypsy” to “right shoulder round” (blog post). This didn’t involve strife in our specific community, though other dance communities had serious rifts over these two issues.
In the gendered terms case, our transition was the outcome of a long process with the community, including talking about various term options, trial dances, and then polling. We needed to do it this way because role terms are very visible.
In the “Gypsy” case the board and callers did it much more quietly. The caller booker told callers individually that we’d prefer “right shoulder round” if they were comfortable with it, then later that we strongly preferred it, and then eventually started asking callers not to use “Gypsy”.
Communities where these two issues went poorly often had the people who were pushing for change taking a confrontational attitude, and accusing people who disagreed with them of being prejudiced. I think they typically also involved advocates pushing hard on this before the community was ready, not building support, and not getting buy-in from respected members.
Thanks for the great examples!