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Notes -
On the one hand I agree totally that asking a girl to dance shouldn't be anything like slaying a dragon... but they're still not doing it according to Michael Foster.
On the other hand, I think this is precisely the wrong idea. Young men go through their consent training in school and/or have the message sink in culturally, don't be creepy or whatever... Then they're to be gossiped about if they don't approach - 'don't be such a pussy loser, man up and ask her to dance'? There's already lots of that. I imagine that this room was full of immense awkward tension. Didn't work.
The logical conclusion from this mixed messaging is just not to attend dances.
Yep, as they say: Out of sight, out of mind. Just don't attend one of these dances and nobody will even think about you enough to gossip. Instead the right way of doing things is to hold a meeting with both the boys and girls present some days beforehand telling them of expected etiquette and warning the girls in full view of the boys that it is expected that any boy might approach them during the dance and to not attend if they don't feel comfortable with that happening (rejecting a dance with a boy is fine, but each girl must at least be open to being approached by anyone). That way all the boys will know at the very start of the dance that any girl present will be open to a request to dance and won't be so scared of breaking norms.
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