Feminism and Belly Dance

shiradotnet

Well-known member
I've posted a new article on Shira.net: Feminism and Belly Dance, by Andrea Deagon. The article actually originally appeared in Habibi Magazine several years ago, but it's new to my site. (Posted with Andrea's permission, of course.)

In the article, Andrea offers tools for belly dancers to use in thinking about our dance form from a feminist perspective. See Feminism and Belly Dance

I've always considered myself a feminist, and my career has been in a male-dominated field (high tech), but I've never taken any sort of academic college courses in women's studies or feminism, so I'm not familiar with how the academic world characterizes it. I found Andrea's article to be an interesting starting point in thinking about feminism. I've never really thought about how feminism relates to belly dancing, or at least, I haven't thought about it in depth.

Have any of you experienced encounters such as the one Andrea describes with feminists who view belly dancing in a negative light? How does your activity as a dancer measure up against some of the issues Andrea discusses in the article?
 

Shanazel

Moderator
I look forward to carefully reading the article. A quick glance only whetted my interest and since I am getting ready to leave on a long trip, I haven't the time now to devote proper attention to it now.

I do have to laugh when I recall with what suspicion we viewed Andrea when she first arrived on OD some years ago asking all these questions. We've all been subjected to such curiosity and scrutiny in our dancing lives that many of of suspected another looky-loo was about to use any information we might share to write a ridiculous article about harems and eroticism.

Thanks for sharing the article, Shira, and I'll look forward to reading the thoughts of others.

Just for the record, I'm a feminist who worked for many years in a male-dominated field at a time when very, very few other women in the entire US also worked in that field.
 
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