Re. stereotypes, more on

[Janet Mertz]

>However I suspect that  the negative reinforcement in the arts is
>largely from society-at-large, and that ballet is less "unfriendly"
>as a subculture to its male participants than science is to its female.
>After all, ballet requires male dancers, and except for some recent
>interesting gender-bending interpretations of the classics,
>generally the women dance women's roles and the men dance
>men's.   Whereas many scientists continue to be unwelcoming to
>women.

Ballet may be open to men from their mid-teens onward, but it is not true 
for boys. I was rather appalled to learn at an activities fair here in 
liberal Madison, WI that there were essentially no boys taking ballet 
classes. My own sons refuse to have anything to do with dancing even though 
I would love to have our family do folk dancing. Where do the adult male 
dancers come from if societal pressures, at least in the US, complete lock 
them out of this area as children? There is a new British film about a boy 
secretly taking ballet lessons - I have yet to see it.

Janet Mertz