Normally “How do we get more boys to take ballet dancing classes” is exactly the sort of NPR radio topic that would have me complaining “I can’t change the channel fast enough,” but today it was different. Today it was belly-laugh inspiring.
Driving down the road, this came on the radio:
Ballet Studios Try New Ways To Get Boys To Sign Up
The short form is: boys aren’t signing up for ballet dancing as much as people who care about ballet dancing would like. This, to me, sounds like the absolute embodiment of “first world problems,” but I suppose if ballet is your thing, it might be an issue. They described the incredible cost of ballet classes, pointing out that a girl taking such classes from an early age with the aim of going pro might have $100,000 worth of tuition and fees and such by the time she finishes high school. That… seems like a lot.
Given the social stigma of boys ballet dancing, it should hardly be surprising that the idea of spending $100K *before* high school graduation seems like an unlikely way for a family to spend money on their son, especially when that $100K could be used to put Junior through some sort of trade school to learn a skill that’s actually useful to society, like plumbing or contract assassination or computer repair. So, how do ballet schools entice boys into signing up? One approach: make the classes free for boys.
This approach should sound familiar. “We have an unwelcome imbalance between the sexes in this class. So we’ll adjust tuition (and, presumably entrance requirements) in order to build up the population of the Chosen Identity Group.” But lo and behold, some people who seem like they’d be just fine with this in other contexts somehow have a problem with it here. Interviewed for the piece was Gwen Young, director of the Global Womens Leadership Initiative (“and an expert on gender issues”): “I don’t think it’s fair. It distorts the incentives and it’s not based on skill, it’s not based on qualities and interest. I do not think it’s just and I don’t think it’s the right way to get at the gender balance that these schools are desiring.”
Huh. How about that. Using ballet to make the case *against* affirmative action or gender (and by extension, racial) set-asides, quotas and the like.
And a following piece was on people fighting against meme images. I guess these folks haven’t heard of the Streisand Effect.