I was recently reading about "One Thousand Terrible Things Australian Men Have Said About Women", a compilation of comments that have earned Ernies--a spoof award given to public figures who make cringeworthy sexist comments, the most quoted probably being a minister who wondered why the birth process was so focused on women. One of the main things the book's editors touched on was how professional disagreements between women were dubbed "catfights". This got me to thinking about how often the term crops up when the women disagreeing are dancers. It seems you can't spend two months in the belly dance community without hearing someone being called catty. Honest critiques are often met with charges of jealousy or negativity (apparently being able to attract electrons in the form of an ionic bond is a bad thing?) even if the critic is a dedicated professional. There has been a great deal of work done by a lot of remarkable women and a few men to present belly dance as an art worthy of the respect given to ballet, modern, and jazz. Are we damaging our own cause when we refer to other dancers as catty and motivated primarily by jealousy and territorialism? Is there some latent sexism in the assumption that disagreements in an art form dominated by women must involve some personal grudge? Or is there a dark side to dance that brings out the worst in us?
I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this. My intention isn't to cast blame on anyone or anything, but rather to get different perspectives on a tricky problem.
I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this. My intention isn't to cast blame on anyone or anything, but rather to get different perspectives on a tricky problem.
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Washington
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Thu, November 15, 2007 - 4:26 AM>>>> Is there some latent sexism in the assumption that disagreements in an art form dominated by women must involve some personal grudge? Or is there a dark side to dance that brings out the worst in us?
I think that this comes from the whole Men are From Mars Women are From Venus thing. Men can have a disagreement, get it out, and be done with it. Women are processors and relators. They need to feel all right with the issue and each other. Men don't. Is that sexist? Maybe. We are just wired differently.
However, I don't think that that excludes the possibility that issues arise from personal grudges. Women go with how things feel. If it feels nasty, it probably is. Now, whether the nastiness comes from the other person or within, that's another story....
I think that the dark side and the bright side of belly dance is the same thing. It is a dance form that allows us to feel beautiful and okay with our bodies. That can bring out both the best and worst in people.
Inaras, you pose the most interesting questions.
Taaj
www.taaj.org
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Thu, November 15, 2007 - 8:33 AMI think creative differences are such as are resolved on a professional level. "I agree that Dancer X has good body control, but I can´t bring myself to like her style."
Catfights occur when dancers have personality clashes or one dancer is trying to steal some other dancer´s limelight (or defending her own). The array of weapons available to the catty woman includes gossip, badmouthing, forcing discussions about supposed faults in style or execution out into the public arena, sabotage of events, ... the list ist quite a long one. Women tend to keep their personal conflicts under the surface to protect themselves from direct retaliation, which makes them all the more vicious. It´s akin to mobbing at your place of work.
The difficulty is that catfights are often disguised as creative differences. It´s hard to tell one from the other without being privy to everything (in which case you are hardly impartial anymore).
I don´t think that this problem is only related to dance, but any activity that places someone from a group of women in the limelight has the tendency to create catfights. Think prom queen, or beauty contests. -
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Thu, November 15, 2007 - 2:57 PMI'd like to touch on the comment that catfights come about in any activity that places someone from a group of women in the limelight. The same could easily be said of men. Sir Issac Newton spent as much time trying to ruin Gottfried Leibniz as he did developing calculus. Thomas Edison's jealousy and shoddy treatment of Nikola Tesla is the stuff of legend (and resulted in the electrocution of several animals, including an elephant). James Watson is infamous for his inability to share the limelight with anyone as well as being unable to keep his foot out of his mouth. How come no one ever refers to these men as catty? No one ever talked about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs engaging in catfights, though there was more than enough drama to warrant it. Personal vendettas and high emotions are common in all creative fields, be they art, science, or technology. Why so much attention paid to women in art? Or are the hissy fits of nerdy males considered too boring to remark on? -
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Thu, November 15, 2007 - 3:41 PM"Catfight" is, in my opinion, definitely a sexist term. I am a first-wave feminist, which means I don't think there are many essentialist differences between men and women- the differences we see is a product of culture, not biology. Sure, there *are* differences in biology, but are they ethically significant? Do they warrant so much attention, and do they cause us to behave in such different ways? I don't know, but I think it's silly when you think about it- is liking shoes hardwired into us? I think not!!
And sexual differences are not more important than cultural ones (of course, the two are related), yet we don't often make such a big deal out of it. Why the emphasis on male-female then? Why create a mythology that sets men and women apart (assuming there are only to two genders, anyway, which I think is bunk)? Doesn't that make it all the more difficult to be in healthy relationships with one another? THAT'S the cause of all the confusion, the "I don't understand what he/she means!" Well, if ya don't perceive the situation in those terms, filtering life through a sexual lens, then often those problems of not understanding disappear.
There is a difference, of course, between sex (biology) and gender (cultural). We as a society are obsessed with the latter and confuse it with sex. What's the first thing someone says when a person is pregnant? Why does the sketch "Pat" provoke so much anxiety in us? Bingo.
I've never been stumped by male behavior, it all seems pretty obvious to me... humans express themselves differently individually and culturally, but I never felt mystified by someone's behavior. And no, it's not because I studied psychology and think I know everything about human behavior. It was something I never really had an issue with, and maybe it's because I never felt strongly gendered myself, or grew up in a household where gender was a big deal. I don't actually think of myself and female or male in my mind, only when I think about hwo my culture sees my body and my function as a woman. Otherwise I don't think about it much.
Men are just as "catty" (would people prefer "doggy"?) as women can be. If any of you ever saw the bachelorette, the men behaved exactly like the women, yet people percieved their behavior differently because we are so often told that men and women are so different. Men fight over women, women fight over men... DUH! And they do it often in the same way, we just are programmed to see differences when sometimes, there are none at all.
Women who are critical are called jealous and manipulative sometimes, and I think it's sad. Men can be opinionated but women can't because that's not playing like a good girl, and we all know that in America being nice and pretty are prized highly. We do NOT live in a feminist age, just a post-feminist one. Just ask women if they are feminists... most would say no. Especially women who are in my age group (20s). It is still all about how beautiful we should be, how manageable. The sad thing is women themselves are often the worst supporters of anti-feminism... so many of us are afraid to be strong about it in fear of appearing to strident and obnoxious to boys, never catching a man.
Anyway... Inaras, thanks for touching on this subject, it's an important one. We have all this googily goddess worship in bellydance and glorifying our bodies (hmm... still attaching our primary worth to our bodies??), but I actually find very few thoughtful feminism in the community. :(
Oh, and thanks for all the science refs! :D I heart Tesla too. Tesla coils rule!
-Dani :) -
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Fri, November 16, 2007 - 4:19 AM>>> And sexual differences are not more important than cultural ones (of course, the two are related), yet we don't often make such a big deal out of it. Why the emphasis on male-female then?
There are substantial differences in the way that men and women relate to each other and the world = yes, they are cultural rather than gender based, but that doesn't really change the fact that there are differences. I think the emphasis is on gender because the similarities among men and women cross cultural lines. It's easier to see ways in which we are alike.
Taaj
www.taaj.org
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Sun, November 18, 2007 - 5:59 AMI agree with all that you say. I'd like to add that even if there are differences between men and women that are biological and not cultural, it makes no difference to me. No matter what gender you are, I expect you to be honest and dependable, and if I don't understand you (or vice versa) I expect us to take our INDIVIDUAL differences into account and try a little harder.
Because that's what always seems to get lost in an discussion of sameness and differences: that we're all individuals first. Kindly deal with me on that level (And, yes, I hear Monty Python in the background, too!)
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Wed, November 28, 2007 - 4:57 PMVery intersting topic! I do think that there are levels of whether a person (male of female) is being "catty" in any sense, or having a proffessional dissagreement. The problem is that a lot of times that difference is purely subjective, and depends on whether you are on the giving (in which you are having a disagreement) or receiving (in which Dancer X is a catty bitch for saying anything to/about you) end of it. But I think maybe we should replace "catty" with "petty." As has been mentioned earlier, it gets to be petty when dancers start openly bad-mouthing eachother, sabotaging gigs, and careers, etc. And as far as the "limelight" issue:
I think that It takes a certain type of ego, or strong personality, or whatever you want to call it to "put yourself out there," whether it is dance, music, science, the arts, whatever. When you have a group of people working with and competing with eachother who all have that same drive to put themselves and their ideas/talents/aspirations at the center of attention, conflict is INEVITABLE. We are not going to like every outfit we see on a dancer, and there are times that we are baffled that somebody becomes famous, but I think that it become petty (or catty) when we make it a personal attack on that dancer, and we are unable to see it as a proffessional difference of opinion. There are times when these proffessional differences are very serious to us personally, especially when we perceive another dancer to trespass on issues that are important to us like (and I know this is another hot button issue) over sexualizing their performance.
I think it's good to point out that using terms like "catty" specifically for bellydance can (and do) hurt bellydance because it does sound sexist, but the issues themselves are not going to go away. I work with a drummer who also has dance and music background in Flamenco, African, Modern, and other forms, and he says that often times there are a lot of the same issues. My aunt even does ceramic artwork, and yet we still have very similar stories of "professional differences" conflicts!
This is a really good post. Thanks for starting such a discussion!
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Thu, January 10, 2008 - 11:25 PMI have thought EVERYTHING you just said since childhood...you're the first person I've ever seen say all of this except myself! I didn't even know there was a term for that kind of attitude. Sad, isn't it? First wave feminism. Thanks!
By the way- I am new to tribe, I am Brea, hello everyone!
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Catfights
Mon, December 17, 2007 - 4:57 AMMaybe called catfights because women's voices are higher pitched than men's and we tend to talk faster when agitated. The guys are more like two bucks with antlers down trying to get the other one cornered. But there's no really ripping term for the way they defend their turf, is there -- that's because they are the norm, IMO. They seem to need to spend an hour testing each other's antlers before they can get an hour's work done. On occasion, I will tell male co-workers not to expect me to attempt to prove that my dick is longer than other people's because I haven't got one. They always understand and start laughing.
It's 'normal' to feel driven to protect one's territory and family. I mean, here we are on 'TRIBE', right? The word implies an us-vs-them stance. The trick seems to be to move one's benchmarks of successful protection of territory away from things that are just plain harmful to all because they make the 'dance community' seem like a bunch of crazies on hormones (successfully reserving all the seats via phone at someone's dance gala with no intention of filling them is one 'benchmark' from Tribe that sticks in my memory - will that restaurant EVER be willing to let ANY dancer hold a gala there again?) to benchmarks that are personal and push your boundaries: are you improving performance quality, is your publicity appropriate, are you hanging with people you respect.
As far as what is catty - I take the stance that when you go public in any capacity you then have customers, which means many people will now have opinions about your services which they will share amongst themselves. If they tell you how they feel, it is a bonus, but often they won't -- that's why my favorite car repair shop has a sign that says 'If you like what we do, tell friends - if you don't like what we do, tell us.' It is human nature to share opinions among the tribe, which might not necessarily include you. Part of that is because many people freak when they hear criticisms of their performance, and then they gossip among THEIR tribe, which might not necessarily include you :) I've come to the conclusion that expressing criticism to a performer who you have paid money to see is the equivalent of a performance (although usually performed to one person), which means you have gone public and have customers, which means many people will now have opinions about your critiques which they will share amongst themselves.... :P
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Re: Catfight or Creative Differences?
Wed, March 19, 2008 - 6:24 AMI've always wondered that this so-called "female catty" behavior is biological or cultural and in my experience it seems to be mostly cultural. A lot of girls in this country are raised to be feminine (read: pretty, slim, and interesting to the male population) but it seems to me that most women seem to have a pretty warped idea of what feminine really is. Men are different from each other and what is interesting to one may be a complete snore to another. So why the "standard" of femininity? Why do people dismiss disagreements between women as being "catty" or "bitchy"? Differences between men don't seem to have a specific term like that, they're often just called a "disagreement" or "fight". One of the things that absolutely drives me bananas (both in the dance community and in the rest of life) is when someone dismisses another person's heartfelt difference as irrelevent by saying things like "women are just like that" and "it must be her time of the month". Even other women do this and it absolutely baffles me! The dance community should be a supportive enviroment and while I realize that people aren't going to always agree and get along, why is it necessary to "shoot down" another dancer for being different?
It almost seems like girls are TRAINED by society/parents/peers etc. to behave this way because they're taught that the sort of sniping passive-aggressive behavior is the way girls are SUPPOSED to be. Even after we're grown up and out on our own, it seems like this sort of behavior is reinforced by a bunch of other brainwashed women and a woman who doesn't behave this way is looked on with askance and a lack of understanding. I've had this discussion many times with my husband and it took a long time for him to realize that just because I have a set of ovaries, doesn't mean I'm going to behave like a stuck-up princess who throws temper tantrums and guilt trips to get what she wants. Nothing drives me crazier than when people assume my honest-to-god different opinion isn't relevant because I'm female!
I have noticed that there seems to be a lot more of this "catty" behavior in groups of women than in mixed company or a group that's predominantly male but I have to wonder, are we women biologically wired this way? Or is it just a product of our upbringing?
This is a great topic! Thanks for letting me put in my two cents!
