Stuff Female People Like - No. 6: Dancing

This series is inspired by the blog/book Stuff White People Like.

6. Dancing

Female People like to dance. When they are past the constant embarassment and self-consciousness of teenagedom, and haven't yet reached the arthritic immobility of old age, they dance whenever they can.

The best years are at college/university, when the yoke of the family home has been shed, the personality, entrenched at High School, has been reinvented, deep bonds are formed with other Female People, alcohol is discovered, music takes on iconic associations with memorable events, admiring Male People are prolific and the Female Person is free to dance, dance, dance!

Here dancing is:

• A sexual display to attract Male People


• A fun and bonding activity with other Female People.

It can be one or the other, or both. Sometimes it can look like the first thing but actually be the second.

Back in University we'd dance together and, if someone got broken off from the main herd by a randy young guy, we'd reach over, grab her hand, pull her into the middle of the circle and close ranks. Yes, we were uppity little bitches.

As the years progress and life is more settled, the Female Person maximizes the dancing opportunity at weddings and New Year's Eve parties. Witness the hapless Male Person, often not as fond of dancing as his partner, dragged unwillingly out in public to step-together-step-apart watching his Female Person twirl around him.

Here, dancing is:

• A recapturing of youth


• The product of excessive alcohol consumption.

Some Female People manage to bribe their partners into dance classes - Salsa being the lastest fashion just before we left London - where they can jiggle their hips while their partners are counting silently and sweating profusely.

Here, dancing is:

• Just good fun


• A creative form of exercise


• Quality time spent with her Male Person.

When privacy allows, alone in her living room, the Female Person can put something she loves on her iPod and flail her arms, shake her booty and jiggle her patootie. This phenomenon is ably portrayed by the female characters in Grey's Anatomy.

Here, dancing is:

• Destressing, a release


• Freedom, a catharsis.

And so, you see, dancing is so much more than a co-ordinated (or unco-ordinated) movement of the limbs. It's many things to the Female Person. It's her youth, her freedom, her sexuality, her meditation, her expression of joy.

And so the Female Person, even if it's just in aerobics class, dances on.