The Tango Embrace

The Tango Embrace: The Influence of Traditional and Non-Traditional Gender Role Attitudes (Taylor, Gebhart, Boggs and Omarova, 2009)

This study examined attitudes toward gender roles and how such views support or conflict with the traditional roles of male as leader and female as follower in Argentine tango. We hypothesized that dancing partners with congruent gender role attitudes would be more likely to have a favorable experience of the tango embrace. The Bem Sex Role Inventory was administered among participants attending a tango festival western North Carolina (N=100) and used to categorize participants into traditional and non-traditional gender role attitudes. Four males and four females scoring as highly traditional and highly nontraditional were randomly selected from the group of participants to dance with each other (N=16); the partner order was also randomized. After each dance, individuals rated the embrace on several factors: comfort, sense of connection, musicality expression, line of dance navigation, and likelihood of partnering again. In addition, tango instructors were asked to observe couples as they danced and rate each couple on the same factors. Analyses controlled for the following factors: height difference, weight difference, race/ethnicity, age, level of overall dance experience, and level of Argentine Tango experience. Results indicated that male gender role attitudes influence the experience of the tango embrace. Couples with a traditional male leader and traditional female follower had the most favorable rating of the dance experience, followed by a traditional male paired with a non-traditional female. A non-traditional male paired with a non-traditional female had the lowest rating. Looking at the dance experience for individuals, females rated dances with traditional males higher than dances with non-traditional males. The dance experience rating for males was not related to the gender role attitudes of their partners. Observed experience of the tango embrace was not related to the congruence of the couple’s gender role attitudes; only the level of Argentine tango experience was positively correlated with tango teacher observations of the tango embrace. Future research should examine whether these findings are generalizable to individuals having androgynous or undifferentiated gender role attitudes and same-sex tango couples.