What a nice article to read, considering I'm a 27 year old male who just started ballet about four months ago. I had originally been looking for a school to learn breakdancing, but couldn't find one and started thinking about ballet.
I've got quite a set of challenges to overcome!
I found most of the article applicable even to myself.
I don't know why this country seems to be getting so repressed, so afraid to do or be anything. I am not only the oldest dancer at my studio, but the only male ballet dancer as well. The girls have been relatively accepting of my presence, and I haven't gotten any negative comments from them, but there were a few parents who REALLY had a problem with my dancing at the studio. First off, let me tell you a bit about myself... I've always been relatively thin, flexable, coordinated, and good with balance. I have the fastest metabolism of anyone I've ever seen. (I look quite young for 27) I consider myself relatively eccentric, as I'm "into" quite a broad spectrum of hobbies and activities. I've never really been able to cultivate a very muscular look, but I definetely don't look effeminate or skinny, just very fit. So after realizing that I'd probably be pretty successful at ballet, I decided to give it a shot. I wanted to discipline myself and learn and do something I would have never expected myself to do. So it DEEPLY hurt me when I found out that there were three parents that didn't want their daughters around me. I believe they thought that I might have ill-intent, and I had done absolutely nothing to solicit such a response from these people. I really believe it was a case of stupid people fearing what they don't understand. Long story short, two parents pulled their girls from the studio and enrolled elsewhere, and one girl's classes were rescheduled around my classes. I've never felt so personally insulted. Not one of these parents ever took the time to get to know me a bit, to ask about my motivations or anything...just wrote me off as some sort of child-molestor or something and left. I cried for two days. The studio could not have been more supportive to me. They absolutely took my side and told me not to worry one bit or to let it affect my dancing. The manager herself told me that I actually helped them weed out some people that nobody liked anyway, and that one of them owed something like $750 in unpaid tuition. It kind of sounds like I was the scapegoat for all this drama that was bound to manifest itself in one regard or another. What did my instructor's husband have to say about this?... "Stupid Americans~" (He's originally from Italy) I can't help but agree. If you can't wrap your ignorant little mind around the fact that a guy would want to dance ballet, then that's YOUR problem, not mine, you freakin' homophobic idiot...(shouldn't you be somewhere watching football, spilling beer and yelling at a tv?)
So to all the boys and men out there who want to dance, just do it! We need to end this repressive B.S., one person at a time.