10% my Arse

[MartinHarper]

It's got to make sense for an event to try and achieve an equal gender balance.

Well, reasonably equal. Once the numbers are even enough that random fluctuations in who's dancing and where make a bigger impact than the overall gender balance, diminishing returns start to kick in.

[JonD]

I'm on Franco's email list and I never received that email

Neither did I.

[scotttwin]

I'm no mathematician, but I take your point. What do you think of the idea of gender balancing the workshops? Putting aside the logistical issues there are some real benefits:

Less time wasted with LENGTHY partner changes.
Everyone would dance more in the workshop and hopefully therefore would achieve a higher standard.
No long queues of people waiting to come on looking very bored.

Maybe it’s no so complicated, perhaps everyone could pre-book the workshops that they wanted to do online before the weekend and pay accordingly. At least this way, people who don’t want to do many workshops or indeed any at all don’t pay as much as someone who wants to do lots.

If this debate is too serious for this thread then I’ll shut up, I just find it quite interesting.

[scotttwin]

Below is the original email from Franco, and beneath that is an email to my friend who booked for our party from Franco which states that there is a form of gender balancing. However, according to my friend she was never asked who was in her party in the first place.

Maybe rather than all this guess work, perhaps Franco could just tell us, or even better mention his policy on his web site. In fact, isn't this something that all organisers should do??


Subject: Jive Weekends Ballot on Gender Balance Control

Dear All,

We have never implemented Gender Balance Control at our Jive Weekends based on the advice received from the Equal Opportunities Commission, EOC, according to which such practice would have been illegal under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Given that Gender Balance Control has been publicly exercised by a number of our competitors, we have asked the EOC to review once again the advice they previously gave us. The EOC has now written back to us stating that having equal number of tickets for men and women would not be direct sex discrimination. However, the EOC states that it might still be possible for a man or woman to bring a claim of indirect sex discrimination if they could show that the practice of withholding tickets (after the half set aside for that sex had been sold) adversely affected significantly more women than men (or vice versa) and if it was not justifiable on objective grounds unrelated to sex.

Our concern is that whatever justification we put in place for or against the implementation of Gender Balance Control, it might not be sufficient at a later date to defend our decision for or against such practice. In view of that we have decided to exercise a democratic process whereby all people within our e-mail database will have an opportunity to vote for or against the implementation of Gender Balance Control. The majority vote will determine which practice we will follow.

To vote, simply reply to this e-mail by close of business on Friday 17th March 2006. State your full name and either "Against Gender Balance Control" or "For Gender Balance Control". Only one vote per person per e-mail address will be accepted, if two or more people share the same e-mail address, only one vote will be accepted for that e-mail address. Please refrain from writing anything other than your name and "For Gender Balance Control" or "Against Gender Balance Control", as we will not have the material time or resources to reply to any of these e-mails, at least at this stage.

You might not vote if you are not the original recipient of this message and if your name and e-mail address is not already in our database. You might not vote if you are a member of staff, or someone in any way linked to the management or implementation of JiveTime, Hipsters and Jive Holiday Club business, or an organiser/owner of Modern Jive events of any denomination. Other than that, all the original recipients of this e-mail may vote.

In view of the above, we will now take no further bookings until close of business on Friday 17th March 2006. Votes will be counted soon after that, we do not expect this to take very long as we will use an electronic system. The result will be published on our web site by 9.00 am on Saturday the 18th of March 2006. We will then resume taking bookings as from 10.00 am on Saturday the 18th of March 2006, using or not using Gender Balance Control, as directed by the majority vote.

All casting vote e-mails will be archived and we will not disclose our archive to any third party unless otherwise requested to do so by law.

Finally, if you have already booked any of our forthcoming 3 jive weekends in May and November 2006 at Camber and in January 2007 at Bognor, please let us have the names of all the people in your party asap. If you have an existing booking, you can have any gender mix you want in your party, as the output of the above ballot will not affect anyone who has already made a booking.

Thank you for your co-operation.

For information on JiveTime, Hipsters and Jive Holiday Club, please visit www.jivetime.co.uk <http://www.jivetime.co.uk> or ring 01494 - 72 73 44.

Kind Regards

Franco






Dear Karen,
Thank you for booking the May 2006 Jive Spree Weekend. As discussed, I will debit £ 222 (which includes an extra £ 1, on the published price, to take into account card processing charges) for a Mid2 apartment with bath. Please read the following general News Letter, which contain information relating to all our jive weekends. Please ignore any section not applicable to you. Please note that in line with our "Balanced Leaders and Followers dance roles for Modern Jive Partner Dancing" your booking was agreed on the basis of the fixed dance roles of the people booked in your party. You might change the name/s of the people attending, but not their dance roles of Leader/Follower. Our policy and all other terms and conditions applicable to your booking are publicly advertised on our web site www.jivetime.co.uk <http://www.jivetime.co.uk>

Franco

JiveTime - Jive Holiday Club

Jive Weekend Update – News Letter No.1

Dear Jiver,

The News Letter covers all of our forthcoming Jive Weekends. Please ignore information not relevant to the event/s that you booked. This communication has only been sent to you, the lead name. Please copy it to the rest of your party.

[El Salsero Gringo]

In view of that we have decided to exercise a democratic process whereby all people within our e-mail database will have an opportunity to vote for or against the implementation of Gender Balance Control. The majority vote will determine which practice we will follow.<http:><http:>

Bridge to Engine Room: "All engines, full speed reverse."
Engine Room to Bridge: "All engines already in reverse. Suggest you pedal harder."

</http:></http:>

[MartinHarper]

We have a thread talking about the outcome of the quasi-democratic process mentioned here.
http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=8106

I'm no mathematician, but I take your point. What do you think of the idea of gender balancing the workshops?

That's already done, in a non-regimented way. If there's a shortage of one gender, folks of the other gender are encouraged to join in. Also, sometimes folks who are somewhat tired will choose to skip a class based on there already being an excess of their role.

[Minnie M]

Franco (JiveTime) aka MaxBeat has asked me to post the following post as he does not have access to his computer at the moment :-

Given the overwhelming level of +ve feedback that I have received this far, I think it is safe to say that our recent jive weekend at Camber was another great success, albeit I am naturally aware of the need to improve on a number of areas. I am therefore concerned at the inaccuracy of the statements made by certain people, I refer especially to Scotttwin.

For the record, I have never said that the advice I was given in relation to gender balance control was wrong. Scotttwin’s understanding of the English language should be better than mine, but this does not appear to be the case!!! I invite him to re-read all the stuff which I had written and that he has “kindly” re-published on this forum. Therefore, please note that “indirect sex discrimination” is an illegal practice just as it is “direct sex discrimination” even if the latter might not apply.

I have never said at any time that due to the survey’s outcome I would gender control the events. Scotttwin’s fails to understand that “leaders and followers control” is not gender based, as anyone would be free to book either role irrespective of their gender.

More to the point, there was no survey, but a voting process, which, as advertised on my web site at the time was in fact won by only 4 votes by those who did not wish to see gender control implemented (voting returned: 249 against 245 in favor). What I had publicly stated on my web site at the time (in fact I never sent out a general e-mail three weeks later as suggested by scotttwin) was that tickets will be made available to all, albeit one gender if need be would have been allowed to purchase an extra specified amount of tickets. This would counter act any possible claim by any party of “indirect sex discrimination”, where, as it is the case at present, there are more women then men looking to buy tickets.

Nobody is naive enough to believe that in the jive community there is an equal ratio of males/females going to dance; we all know very well that there are more females. Therefore, the likelihood of someone at some stage wishing to bring a claim of indirect sex discrimination for present or past events is substantial, given the large number of people who attend the jive weekends. In view of this, I have to exercise caution and be seen to do so by providing a reasonable number of extra tickets to the gender that clearly represent the majority in the jive business.

This November there were fewer than 10% extra women than men. This fact was also advertised within the last news letter that I sent with tickets for event some 7 weeks prior to the event taking place. Therefore, anyone not happy with this percentage could and should have cancelled their booking there and then.

As for scotttwin’s friend Karen, who apparently was never asked what gender balance was in her party, scotttwin should note that there was only one lead name at the event in May06 by the name of Karen R and whose partner was Roy C who paid £ 222 (to include the £ 1 card fee). Therefore Karen R did provided the name of the other person. Within the e-mail to Karen R there is no question of “some form of gender balance” as scotttwin puts it, given that in the e-mail to Karen R she was given the choice to change the name of her guest but not his role. Therefore, Karen R was entitled to drop Roy C and to bring on board either a new male or female providing that the new person would take up only the leader role previously held by Roy C. This is not gender balancing and it is in my view much better than to say to someone, “sorry you are not accepted because you are a woman”. This is also the very principle of “indirect sex discrimination”, given that if a woman is happy to come along as a dance leader, than it would be discriminatory to prevent her from doing so on the basis of her gender.

I have no wish to operate outside the law irrespective of what anyone thinks or irrespective of what any other organization does. Naturally anyone would like to see equal gender balance, but how exactly am I suppose to achieve this? At the event just gone there were certain workshops where we had men over (see for example Nelson Rose “drops and seducer” workshop at the prime time of 12.30 on Sunday), then on freestyle we had more women over, albeit much less than in the past. At certain times during the freestyle, especially later on, there were more men than women available. As such there is no easy answer.

Contrary to what it is stated by scotttwin, in a “perfect world” there would be no need to gender balance, even numbers would be the norm. Indeed scotttwin’s persistence for control leads me to think of a particular individual who might be responsible for writing these e-mails. The perfect world is what the law aims to achieve and the law is not in favour of practices where people are restricted by their genders. The dance scene is not different, especially when we all see same gender people dancing together, leaders and followers being undertaken by either gender and people who just come for the social aspect and dance little or nothing.

To state that it is acceptable to find an imbalance when one goes dancing for an evening but is not acceptable to give up the whole weekend for the same reason, is questionable. The total number of hours spent during any jive weekend has to be miniscule compared to the total hours arising from all the evening dances a person attend evening after evening. Why should a female find acceptable to find an imbalance evening after evening? In truth, there is no difference, except for the fact that certain organizations would like to convince us all that the imbalances are acceptable in one instance but not in the other, as they have to somehow defend their double standard given that if they were to implement gender control at all their events they would be hard hit in the pocket.

I have made it clear to all that I am Franco (JiveTime) aka MaxBeat. Perhaps scotttwin would be good enough to tell us all who he/she is, it would then become abundantly clear as to why despite being so anti Franco he is so keen to keep a record of everything I write in the public domain and to obtain and keep e-mails not directly sent to him, as it was the case for Karen R.

MaxBeat

[Lory]

Franco (JiveTime) aka MaxBeat has asked me to post the following post as he does not have access to his computer at the moment :-

Did he send this to you in a letter or a text message?

[David Bailey]

Did he send this to you in a letter or a text message?

Great, I've now got the All Saints' "Never Never" running through my mind...

[mikeyr]

Franco (JiveTime) aka MaxBeat has asked me to post the following post

Well I for one agree with Franco, generally speaking there are more women than men that dance and why should it be any different at a weekender than it is on a class night, freestyle etc.

The other thing about gender balancing is who!! Lets face the facts here, if the opposite gender are not those you would normally seek out on the dance floor for whatever reason, you are not gonna be a happy weekender!!

It was my own personal experience at Bliss (supposed gender balance) that I met a number of females that had either very limited dance experience or absolutely no prior dance experience at all. This reduced the overall number of ladies available in real terms. Having said that I thoroughly enjoyed the event but in real terms I had to be selective.

Now if you want to pillory me for the above statement, go ahead I really dont give a fcuk. I dance because I enjoy dancing, that joy is affected by my dance partner, I will seek out those I feel will enhance that joy. But then saying that if I am asked I will generally dance with anyone.

So to summarise, Gender Balancing - Not in the real world!

[Lory]

It was my own personal experience at Bliss (supposed gender balance) that I met a number of females that had either very limited dance experience or absolutely no prior dance experience at all. This reduced the overall number of ladies available in real terms. Having said that I thoroughly enjoyed the event but in real terms I had to be selective.

Isolating this paragraph.... I, as a women am not going to pillor (sp? I do know what it means though) you for it, quite the reverse, I can fully relate to it, as I'm sure most women can!

But, I have this to add, as a general observation, IMO 'good women,' out number 'good men' anyway, so, times that by the fact there are less to start with on any one evening, I think you might be able to see our plight?

I totally agree, there should be some weekenders that don't 'gender balance' and some that do, it's up to us, the punters, to decide which we choose to go to. I mean, no one can argue there isn't enough of them.

[bigdjiver]

Speaking as an unbalanced male ....

I suspect that most of you ladies have introduced more ladies than men to MJ, and probably significantly more, and I suspect that the same goes for men.

[Twirly]

Speaking as an unbalanced male ....

I suspect that most of you ladies have introduced more ladies than men to MJ, and probably significantly more, and I suspect that the same goes for men.

Not me - I have introduced one of each, and I was introduced by a man too. Oh, and I seem to have inspired one man to carry on recently too!

[mikeyr]

But, I have this to add, as a general observation, IMO 'good women,' out number 'good men' anyway, so, times that by the fact there are less to start with on any one evening, I think you might be able to see our plight?

I totally agree with you and thats my point, whilst gender balancing, is in theory the ideal, its not just equal numbers but other things such as dancer experience, dance styles, who's DJ ing/teaching and even "how many of your friends are going" need to be taken in to account, Thus all of a sudden the issue of gender balancing is totally subjective which can be illustrated:
P(0) = B(alpha B = 1, alpha W=1) = Theta(alpha B + alpha W) / Theta(alpha B) Theta(alpha W)0alpha B-1(1-0)alpha W-1 ......cant be bothered anymore, Franck wheres the bl**dy scientific calculater option on here

[Minnie M]

Did he send this to you in a letter or a text message?

sorry I should have said internet connection

[stewart38]

sorry I should have said internet connection

Thanks for that anyway scottswin does seem to be posting from ceroc HQ

[Barry Shnikov]

Isolating this paragraph.... I, as a women am not going to pillor (sp?)

Not sure whether you mean 'pillow', as in clasp him to your ample bosom, or 'pillory', as in put him in a device not dissimilar to the stocks called the pillory and expose him to public ridicule.

I know wot I prefers!

[killingtime]

I'm no mathematician, but I take your point. What do you think of the idea of gender balancing the workshops? Putting aside the logistical issues there are some real benefits:

Often when you are paying for just workshops (rather than a complete package) they will be gender balanced. Saying that I've still seen these unbalanced (and that's, perhaps, because people who signed up didn't attend).

Less time wasted with LENGTHY partner changes.

Well there will still be partner changes, you'd expect, unless it was fixed partners. I get that "1 on" would take less time than "25 on" though.

No long queues of people waiting to come on looking very bored.

But 25 women sitting around outside instead because they couldn't get in? I've certainly withdrawn from a class or two at weekenders and that would, presumably mean that a woman would need to leave too.

Maybe it’s no so complicated, perhaps everyone could pre-book the workshops that they wanted to do online before the weekend and pay accordingly.

If we are talking about weekenders like Southport I know that I tend to star a big bunch of workshops that I'll probably never attend as I would have danced until the wee hours the previous night and will sleep through that class. Smaller events, like the Beach Ballroom work just like that though. Sometimes people do turn up late or cancel though still resulting in number differences.

If this debate is too serious for this thread then I’ll shut up, I just find it quite interesting.

I do too.

[stewart38]

Speaking as an unbalanced male ....

I suspect that most of you ladies have introduced more ladies than men to MJ, and probably significantly more, and I suspect that the same goes for men.

Ive introduced 1 guy and at least 7 women of which 4 i know of have stayed. so guess havent done my bit

worthy of another thread

[El Salsero Gringo]

Franco (JiveTime) aka MaxBeat has asked me to post the following post as he does not have access to his computer at the moment :-

I'm now completely confused about Franco's balancing policy now - for my peace of mind could someone summarise it accurately for me?

Does he / doesn't he?

If he does, is that based on men/women or self-avowed leader/follower roles?