POPPA MIA: Abba, Dancing Queen, and the Self-Respecting Male
I attended a banquet last night honoring students in Wisconsin who have been active in promoting Gay-Straight Alliances in their schools. The GSAs help LGBTQ students feel safer and less discriminated against in the schools by educating staff & students in things like hateful speech patterns (“That’s so gay!”) and other issues.
My daughter received the “Community Activist of the Year” award. I’m quite the proud poppa, hearing her acceptance speech: “Education is my passion, activism is my medium, and I can do anything.”
Less enjoyable was the intro, given by a teacher, for another student. She was relating an anecdote about his effusive and ccongenial nature, and it involved being in a car with him when ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” came on. “Any self-respecting male,” she said, “would have cowered and hidden…” The student, apparently, didn’t, which she was incredibly impressed by.
Problem is, I’m a self-respecting male, who happens to primarily identify as straight, and I’ve been dancing to ABBA all my life. At a party afterwards, I was able to earnestly tell a friend of mine (also straight) “You can dance. You can jive, having the time of your life…” and he didn’t cower either.
Guess gender stereotypes need to be fought on all fronts. kind of sad, though. What gives me hope, though, is that while the adults there were oblivious, my daughter and her friends caught it right away, “WTF?” crossing their faces with discomfort and disappointment.
So maybe when they’re doing the intros, all genders and sexualities will be treated with respect.
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