DON’T LIKE IT

I have a problem with men on ballet’s artistic staffs telling women dancers to lose weight. Whether the man is gay or straight, it rankles me because it takes the objectification and abstraction of the female form just a bit too far. All over the world, ballet dancers are now too thin–probably one reason why their torsos no longer read with the eloquence of old. It’s true for men as well as women, although it’s far less frequent for a man to be told to shed some pounds. Of course it’s often women artistic staff telling women dancers to lose. But when a man does it it’s just so redolent of a particular type of power asymmetry that’s prevailed over centuries.