Nowhere in this definition does it say that dance solely pertains to women. Although dance has a predominantly feminine stereotype attached to it, due to its expressive nature, it does not imply that men who dance are themselves feminine. "It is also the fact that dancing is about emotions and feelings, which men are not supposed to show, due to their socially constructed gender. Men did not only create it (dance), it was created for men" (McAvoy 2002). Dance allows one to release and express their emotions and feelings. Whether it's ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, modern, or pas de deux, men aren't perceived to have that "natural instinct-, that desire to display their inner most thoughts. The turning point in the social recognition of ballet from 1830 to 1870, male ballet dancers lost their prevalence and preference to the female dancer. Attire becoming shorter, the invention of the pointe shoe, and the large number of ballerinas emerging, were all factors in this change. Sometime close to 1850, dance became female dominated, relegating men to simply assist the female, and no longer being the focus. "Would knowing the realities now, about the founders and origins of ballet, change anything about the stereotype of men which exists today or would people not be able to change the way they have seen something for so long that easily?" (McAvoy, 2002).
Richard Buckle, a well-known dance critic recently died but his name has "influenced the world of dance more so than most people might have noticed- (Barnes, 2002.). A well-educated man, who served in World War II, continued to display his homosexuality even though it was a considered a crime. "In his autobiography The Adventures of a Ballet Critic, 1953, he describes his gay encounters. However, he went to far for Lincoln Kirstein when he wrote about how they went on a gay-pub crawl and Lincoln Kirstein ended up locked in Richard Buckle's bathroom" (Buckle, 2002).
