Decentering Men, Centering Ourselves

What happens when we stop making men and their whims, ideas, and impulses the center of everything?In this episode, we’re talking about a pattern that shows up everywhere: from small dance communities to the highest levels of power. Men are often given the benefit of the doubt, the spotlight, the leadership, and the attention, while women, femmes, and queer people are conditioned to provide the care, emotional labor, support, and forgiveness around them.Partner dance has its own version of this. We’ve been taught to look up to men as leaders, teachers, studio owners, and authorities and too often charisma and success get mistaken for character. The harm of centering men exists on a spectrum: from women and femmes providing endless unpaid labor that allows men to thrive, all the way to grooming, harassment, sexual violence, and communities protecting men instead of the people they harm.These patterns are a part of a larger culture that has allowed men from local community figures to powerful people like Trump and Epstein to accumulate influence, avoid accountability, and keep being centered.Decentering men isn’t about hating men. It’s about questioning why so much of our energy gets organized around men’s approval, attention, and “success.” What could we create if we stopped orbiting around men and started investing that energy back into ourselves, our communities, and each other?Come hang out with us as we talk about taking up space, trusting ourselves, and building dance communities where we don’t have to shrink, perform, or carry the burden of making men comfortable.