10% my Arse

[Minnie M]

.......I thought there was lot of men sitting around in the Blues room and a lot of ladies sitting around upstairs........

Were you there Gav ??????? I spent most of the weekend at reception, didn't see you once and certainly didn't see you for a dance

[Gav]

Were you there Gav ??????? I spent most of the weekend at reception, didn't see you once and certainly didn't see you for a dance

Yeh, I was hiding from you!

Only kidding, no, somehow we got onto my experiences of gender balancing and what effect it had on the freestyles at Bliss.

You wouldn't have got away without a dance if I had been there!

[MartinHarper]

I wonder if that would be lawful?

That made me want to find out more, so I checked out the Equal Opportunities Commission webpages. Sadly I couldn't answer that question, but I did find this:

http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=15265

I have tried to join a Latin dancing class but have been told that all the women's places are full, and there is only room for men. The teacher says this is because they need an equal number of men and women to provide everyone with dancing partners. They are not a charity or a private members club. Is this lawful?

Provided the dance class has the same quota for men and women, it will be difficult to argue direct sex discrimination as the service provider has treated men and women equally. Although you have been refused entry because of your sex, the dancing class would have applied the same quota rule to men if the situation had been reversed and too many men had wanted to join. You may potentially have a claim of indirect sex discrimination if you can show that the quota system adversely affects more women than men and is not justifiable. However, it is likely that the dancing class would be able to offer a justification in this case.

[El Salsero Gringo]

That made me want to find out more, so I checked out the Equal Opportunities Commission webpages. Sadly I couldn't answer that question, but I did find this:

http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=15265

However, see also this (same website):

I am a man and a local nightclub recently charged me £10 to get in, whereas my female friends got in for free. The club manager told me it was because attracting girls is good for business. Is this lawful?

No, this is unlawful direct sex discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA). The service provider cannot justify direct discrimination of this kind. See also Pubs and Nightclubs

[WittyBird]

I could make the assumption that your rude accusation demonstrates a measure of your insecurity

Surely you're not serious?

If you could find a women upstairs at 3am let me know

6ft blonde goes by the name of Fletch

Just to clarify. Stewart actually means a lack of women that he fancied....

If you hadn't noticed S38 aint fussy

However, to clarify for the hard of understanding

Either you're very brave or very stupid

the last weekender I went to was ...

The first weekender you'd done?

How many times is this going to be debated?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Surely you're not serious?

Nah, SilverFox was crying into a latte last time I saw him at Jango - his origami swan got slightly bent on the way in. Bloody fire doors. Inconsolable he was.

Even Cruellas puppies didnt help.

[fletch]

Nah, SilverFox was crying into a latte last time I saw him at Jango -

I hope you lot aren't going to start picking on my mate 'Foxy'

he asked me to dance again


Lovely dance 'foxy'

only thing is, I think I have gone from no eye contact to 'scary bird stare'

.

[frodo]

...the last weekender I went to was gender balanced and in just about every workshop I went to, there were ladies over. In one particular one there were more than 30 ladies over. It seems to me that gender balancing didn't help there, because either a load of men stayed in bed or the concurrently running workshop had at least 30 men over....

Just curious where this was.

Except for workshops are in a different dance style (specifically one that requires footwork), my impression is that even numbers will mean men over in the workshops and probably some women over in the peak Saturday night freestyle times.

[Barry Shnikov]

Thank God I had Spin Dryer to keep me satisfied.

I'd heard about women and spin dryers but this is the first official confirmation I've had...Can't help feeling they're more expensive than, well, you know, the alternative...

[Barry Shnikov]

However I would comment that it is often the case that ladies like to book events like weekenders / dances far in advance of men.

I think that must be right. And that means that gender balancing is a significant 'business risk', since the minute the organiser has sold all his lady tickets, every woman he refuses from that point on is a ticket he may well not be able to sell to a man.

A very sensible business strategy would be to let it sort itself out - there will come a point where all the people who are seriously concerned about gender balance will go elsewhere and you have successfully transferred that business risk to a competitor...

[El Salsero Gringo]

A very sensible business strategy would be to let it sort itself out - there will come a point where all the people who are seriously concerned about gender balance will go elsewhere and you have successfully transferred that business risk to a competitor...

Do you really mean that? What if there aren't enough people who aren't concerned to make an event a going concern (if you follow my concern)? What if even the men & women who aren't overly concerned about a balance still don't want to attend an event where there are 10 men for every woman?

Sounds very risky to me!

[David Bailey]

I think it's mainly irrelevant.

Gender balancing is becoming the norm now at a lot of events and weekenders; Ceroc and Jiveaddiction now both do this for their events. At some point either Franco will bite the bullet and join in, or he will see (I suspect) a loss of revenue.

The other option, for classes at least, for non-balanced events is to run more women-specific events. That doesn't help for freestyles of course.

[Tessalicious]

I think that must be right. And that means that gender balancing is a significant 'business risk', since the minute the organiser has sold all his lady tickets, every woman he refuses from that point on is a ticket he may well not be able to sell to a man.

...which is why an organiser doesn't sell all his lady tickets before refusing to sell any more single lady tickets - instead they reach a critical mass (say 80% lady tickets sold) above which ladies must book with a man. Annoying to us girls, especially the ones who can't make decisions very early due to costs, but sensible and works out better in the long run for everyone who cares about gender balance.

[El Salsero Gringo]

I wonder how it would work if tickets were sold only to man-woman pairs, right from the start? (Leave aside the fact that for some reason, 10% extra women has become the accepted norm)

[MartinHarper]

It is often the case that ladies like to book events like weekenders / dances far in advance of men.

I'd book weekenders far in advance too, if it was a choice between that and not being able to go. Indeed, for a couple of events where I've decided I want a single room, I've booked 12 months in advance. That's not because I'm super-organised, it's just that single rooms tend to get fully booked months in advance.

[robd]

It was clear quite quickly on Friday that there was the usual Jivetime inbalance of gender numbers. I did wonder about the feasibility of not asking a single person to dance all weekend and discovering how frequently and for how long I would be sat out. Then I realised that was a daft idea as it meant I may not get to dance with people that I would like to dance with but who are unwilling to do the asking themselves. I have to say though that, an hour or so on Sunday night excepted, I really didn't circulate much and tended to stay dancing with the same group (or clique if you prefer to think that way). Not sure why this was other than laziness (and the usual weekender taste for )

I am in favour of gender balanced events though I did find just as much pressure to dance at Southport in September as I did at Camber.

Robert

[stewart38]

I think it's mainly irrelevant.

Gender balancing is becoming the norm now at a lot of events and weekenders; Ceroc and Jiveaddiction now both do this for their events. At some point either Franco will bite the bullet and join in, or he will see (I suspect) a loss of revenue.

The other option, for classes at least, for non-balanced events is to run more women-specific events. That doesn't help for freestyles of course.

The only loss of revenue at present is those that do gender balancing

Its not working so I assume something else will be tried

Given camber was a sell out and Bognor looks close to be a sell out I cant see how Franco will ‘suffer’ if 1,000 ladies are refused entrance elsewhere

Price is the way forward but hey ho that’s a hot potato

Im in favour of gender balancing and the option for it not to be there but you cant deal with the issue if you don’t understand ‘market forces’

[Shodan]

Why don't they do 50/50 sex ratio on all weekenders?

I wouldn't mind a 50/50 sex ratio at weekenders..... at the moment I'm having to dance all the time

But being serious though, I agree. You see, even though I love dancing and so forth - I don't love dancing ALL the time. At weekenders I like mooching around, chatting with people and doing some occasional dancing etc. So sometimes I actually find it a tad annoying when tons of ladies keep asking me to dance in every track. Obviously I always dance to my best whenever asked, but like I said I actually don't like dancing ALL the time.

[fletch]

At weekenders I like mooching around, chatting with people etc.

Me too thats one of the reasons I love weekenders

I neaver have a problem with getting a dance if I want one there are always men about, but they might not fit what you are looking for




.

[Dreadful Scathe]

I wouldn't mind a 50/50 sex ratio at weekenders..... at the moment I'm having to dance all the time

hahahahaha...terrible probably went over most peoples head though, they're not that smart