Swungover’s Response to the Jack & Jill Debate

There are a lot of emotions currently tied to this debate, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This post, however, attempts to approach the discussion from a logical, critical-thinking and respectful perspective. It attempts to avoid emotional language when possible, and highlight some of the issues that arise from relying upon it as a basis for argument. In the spirit of this specific approach, *please follow suit* when posting counter arguments in the comments section.

We here at Swungover (all one of us) officially support any promoters who decide to change the name of the “Jack & Jill” contest to something more inclusive.

Here are our fundamental arguments for why:



Argument 1

In the modern era, we recognize the roles (leading and following) of swing dancing are not tied to any gender or any one type of person (no matter how they identify themselves).

The names “Jack” and “Jill” have for centuries been attributed to specific genders.

In a dance community where anyone, regardless of gender, can dance any role, changing the name of the dance community’s “Jack & Jill” contests to something gender-neutral like “Mix & Match” is making the contest name reflect more accurately the way we dance in its modern form.

Therefore, a name change is an improvement in the accuracy of the language.

Argument 2

Swing dancing brings joy to many people.

Being worthy of experiencing joy is not tied to one’s gender or sexual orientation.

We as a scene want to encourage anyone who is interested to experience that joy.

Because the names Jack and Jill have a long history of being used for specific genders, and because partner dance itself has a long history of primarily having men and women dancing together, the contest name “Jack and Jill” can imply that dancers in the respective roles are preferred to be male/female or of a specific sexual orientation.

Therefore, the use of the term “Jack & Jill” can feel exclusionary to those who are gender or sexually non-conforming.

If we as a scene want people of all identities to feel included, and the name for a contest can be exclusionary, then it is a logical course of action to change the contest name.

Please note: The reason we put the “accuracy” argument first, and the “inclusive” argument second, is to highlight that from a strictly logical perspective we can establish that a name change is an improvement *in and of itself* before adding on a more desire-based argument (the desire for the dance to be inclusive). Obviously, many people are much more personally tied to the second argument, and a name change will have a much bigger impact in the overall community where the second argument is concerned.

Here are additional (less formally presented) arguments and thoughts related to the debate:

Yehoodi put out a collection of people’s arguments about whether to change the name of the Jack & Jill contest or not. Here is Swungover’s response to the logic of those arguments.

Arguments from the Yehoodi Post & Facebook posts

Changing the name is not going to change how people think. We need to educate people to accept all kind of genders, disabilities, characters, etc.

A common thread we see in people’s arguments is the underlying belief that changing the name is not a big change, not even an action. However, we’d argue it’s both of those things. To change the name of a contest format so firmly ensconced in the modern history of the dance with such widespread recognition and saturation in our dance scene makes a powerful statement to the community. It’s saying that it’s important that the names we give things reflect the spirit of the dance scene we want to exist.

In the future, many people will wonder “why did they change the name?” and will look for an answer. When the answer is that we wanted the community to be inclusive to people of all of genders, disabilities, characters, and so forth, then that means that changing the name of the Jack & Jill will have been quite a simple but effective way of starting to do some of that education.



Some non-English-speaking commenters noted that the name meant nothing to them in their native languages and had no connotations beyond being the name of a particular kind of competition.

The fact that the names “Jack & Jill” mean nothing to some communities of non-English-speaking dancers is irrelevant as to whether it should be changed or not for English speakers. For instance, if the name were a racial slur, we’d change it pretty quickly despite the fact that many non-English speakers probably wouldn’t know what the original name meant.

It can be argued changing the name will actually be beneficial to the international community: American and other English-language events making this name change could set an example to the non-English-speaking international scene or at least open a dialogue about why we have chosen to do so.



Some observed that most competitions already allow men to follow and women to lead, so there’s no need to change the name.

If the name does not reflect the rules or spirit of the contest as well as it could, then there *is* a reason to change the name.



Others argued that no one is asking for this change, and it’s just an invented problem.

This is a contradiction. No one would have brought it up if someone wasn’t asking for this change. Even if it is only a small number of people who have hitherto not spoken who were the first to request the change, what matters is whether we as a scene agree with them or not — not their number, even if it was one person.

Furthermore, even if it were an “invented” problem, there is no reason why an invented problem isn’t worthy of being addressed.

“Progress is fine and welcome, but not at the cost of trying to condemn and shut away the history of the dance we all love so much. Lindy without its history, is just about meaningless.”

This argument may lead one to think there was a desire to destroy the contest format itself. There is only an argument to change the name. This is not condemning “the history of the dance,” which is emotionally charged language in an argument giving very little evidence to back it up.

Second of all, regarding its history, the Jack & Jill’s namesake, dancer Jack Carey, welcomed name changes to the format in the past (such as “Luck of the Draw” — this is not the first time the contest has had a name change). He himself wasn’t tied to the name.

The argument under consideration is an example of the reasoning “we should do this because this is the way we’ve always done it.” This is not a sound argument, but unfortunately it is a common one in debates like these. The framework for a valid historical argument is “It has been done this way for a long time because of these reasons, and based on those reasons, the historical way is still a better way to do it than the current suggested change.” This does not hold true for the Jack & Jill contest name or for many other aspects of our dance, which is why we’ve kept swingouts but given up racially segregated ballrooms.

And, for what it’s worth, I make these arguments as a passionate historian who has fought many battles in preserving different aspects of the dance’s history.



There have been several comments along the lines of ‘with all that is happening in our world and in our scene, this is far down the list of priorities of what we should be focusing on.’ For them, it seems misspent energy and time: “As a woman, a lead, and a feminist, the name of this competition doesn’t even make the list of garbage most non-traditional dancers face, or even language that continues to make non-traditional dancers feel alienated in modern dance culture.”

Though it is certainly true that there are many changes the swing dance scene could be focusing on, it is not necessarily true that this shouldn’t be one of them. After all, the name change can stand as a very clear statement, begin a dialogue in the scene that can spread to other issues, and educate people who question why the scene is making this change.

What’s also important about this possible name change is that it is a clear situation (a contest format with a name that doesn’t reflect the scene the way we want it to be seen) with a clear solution (changing the name) that comes at almost no cost whatsoever. Very few other priorities that need to be worked on have such easy-to-solve circumstances.



Some felt this was an effort to introduce “politically correct” politics into the scene.

Regardless of whether the language is “politically correct,” ultimately it is most important that it is correct language, period. In a dance community where anyone, regardless of gender, can dance any role, changing the name of the dance community’s “Jack & Jill” contests to something gender-neutral like “Mix & Match” is making language more accurate.

It can also be argued that “politically correct” as a concept is so fraught with diverse meanings and additional political weight from many different sides that its use in arguments is almost always going to be detrimental because it doesn’t convey a meaning that all in the conversation can agree on (as I myself have recently learned). For instance, let’s say there’s a conversation with many diverse people (like the one we’re having now) and someone drops the words “politically correct.” One of the listeners hears the words “politically correct” and translates it to (1) “language meant to simply give a problem a different name,” while another listener hears (2) “language geared toward being respectful,” whereas another hears (3) “language meant to give in to overly sensitive personalities.” (And, of course, there are others.)

As you can see, those are three different arguments that each bear discussion. Here’s our take:

Is changing the name “Jack & Jill”…

(1) …disguising a problem?

As we have mentioned previously, we think changing the name is actually a pretty interesting and easy way to begin addressing the problem and to start a dialogue that will continue to address an issue that otherwise is not easily addressed on a scene-wide basis.

(2) …being respectful?

We think the name change is being respectful to the members of our community who feel the name is exclusionary to a portion of our community. We also feel it is being respectful to the scene as a whole by trying to be accurate in how we portray ourselves. We even feel it is being respectful to the contest’s namesake, who welcomed name changes and was not tied to “Jack & Jill.”

(3) …just giving in to overly sensitive personalities?

This is a hard one to tackle logically — sensitiveness is largely a matter of opinion. Though, to us, it is not as relevant to the argument as the fact that changing the name is accurate, respectful, and could be an easy and substantial starting point to addressing what many people see as a problem in the scene.





“Why do the names Jack and Jill have to have assigned gender? If we abide by *that* inclusive idea, we wouldn’t have to change the name.” (paraphrased from several arguments)

One could argue that, ideally, we should all come to a point where we do not attribute gender to names. However, one can observe that ideals and how the human brain works are only sometimes compatible.

The classic example where it does work is the name “Pat.” Your brain can hear that name and perhaps not attribute gender to it, because enough people of different genders exist who have that name that your brain honestly could see it going any way. However, hear the name “George” or “Lucy” or “Kyle” or “Elizabeth,” in an English-speaking culture, and your brain attributes gender, because 99% or, if not 100% of the people you have met with those names appear to have a specific gender. It’s not your brain’s fault for not being more open-minded — it’s just really bad at breaking patterns without enough reinforcing evidence.

Specifically, the names “Jack” and “Jill” just so happen to have a *whole* lot of gender history to them. They are centuries old (from a time when everything, even the right to enjoy sex, was gender-assigned) and involve two of the most traditional male and female names of all time. It also happens to exist as a contest name in a dance that is trying to modify a century of its own gender-related dance roles and several centuries of European gender-related dance history. The scene also happens to have at this time clear majorities: a majority of leaders appear to be men, and a majority of followers appear to be women. Again, your brain is just recognizing patterns.

Due to all of this together, “Jack” and “Jill” will most likely have assumed gender in the subconscious thoughts of current American, English, and many European dancers, and, furthermore, are implying those gender assignments based on the majority of the dance floor and the history behind the dance. And to argue with people that they should just live by the ideal that names shouldn’t be attributed gender is, in this case, arguably asking them perform an impossible mental task that even the person making the argument would not be not able to do.



I am truly only comfortable dancing with people of the opposite gender. Doesn’t this change affect me, and exclude me from these contests?

Yes, technically this new name might feel exclusionary to dancers with those values. However, in reality, no Lindy Hop scene Jack & Jill we have known of in years has restricted their dance roles to gender. So the name change debate is not necessarily about that issue but about giving an appropriate name to a contest format that is already accepting of all genders and sexual orientations for all roles, and has been for years.

But we should still address this concern.

Comfort, in and of itself, is a hard thing to logically stand on in an argument. For instance, someone could argue they feel excluded from modern dance contests because they are only comfortable dancing with people of the same race. We are NOT saying the people only comfortable dancing with people of a specific gender are racist ; we are merely mentioning that it is not comfort that matters in an argument, but the values underlying that comfort. If comfort is to be taken into account in this debate, it has to be based on a value the scene as a whole deems worthy of being upheld.

Nothing is perfectly inclusive, as the argument under scrutiny demonstrates. In a world where one type of dancer prefers to dance in contests with people of a specific gender, and another type prefers dancers be allowed to dance whichever role they prefer in a contest, regardless of gender or sexual identity, one is going to feel excluded whenever the other one is given priority.

As you can probably infer from this post, we argue that the value of letting people choose whatever dance roles they prefer, and being able to showcase that in contests, is the value we prefer the scene to champion. Logically speaking, there is no reason other than tradition that a dance role be attributed to a specific gender or sexual orientation (see above for our view on history-based arguments), and even that tradition has plenty of exceptions (such as this one). We argue that barring anyone from doing something based simply on their sexuality or gender is a basic violation of their human rights. All of these are reasons why we argue a swing scene should chose inclusiveness to people of all genders and sexual orientations over the comfort of those who prefer to dance in contests with people of a specific gender or sexual orientation.

Now, we want to be very clear, this does not mean dancers don’t have the right to only social dance with people they feel comfortable dancing with. The right to say “no” is still each social dancer’s right, but by entering a contest like a “Mix & Match” you’re choosing to temporarily give up that right and let the organizers assign you a partner based on role and random chance.

Finally, on a scene-wide level it will still be up to each contest organizer as to whether and how to change the name (Some events already have invented their own names for the Jack & Jill contest, such as “Luck of the Draw” at some Westie events.) And there is no reason why all events have to use the same name for the contest format; having different names at different events could actually lead to more diversity in the kinds of values espoused in dance contests.





If we’re changing every name that’s offensive, shouldn’t we change the name Lindy Hop, since Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer? (paraphrased from several arguments)

This is a worthy question. That name change is arguably a more complex one, however. First off, changing the name of a dance form itself is a shift of a far greater magnitude than changing a contest format name. For that reason alone it deserves its own debate and a very thorough one. Yes, many of the arguments may overlap, but enough other arguments may exist to change the nature of that debate significantly from the nature of this one.

For instance, the dance is technically not named after a person but an accomplishment. How does that change the nature of the debate? The dance was invented and named by a community that was in its essence the antithesis of racist ideas, and if they had known of Lindbergh’s sympathies perhaps they wouldn’t have named it that. How does that change the nature of the debate? When people see the name “Jack & Jill,” it is understandable that people could infer the contest expects male/female pairings, but when someone sees the dance name Lindy Hop, are they inferring it’s a dance that celebrates Nazi ideals? How does that question change the nature of the debate?

Obviously, we are showing how muddy the waters can get rather than trying to make them more clear. But it’s just to argue that the “Lindy Hop” debate should be separate from this one, and ultimately distracts from this debate, which we believe stands on much firmer ground.

(Please note we at Swungover do not have an official stance on the “Lindy Hop” name debate. We have a lot more thinking to do about that one.)

Argument for the name “Mix & Match”

The names we attribute to things in the scene are important. We want them to represent the spirit and beliefs of the things they name. So, basically, if we’re going to change the name, we might as well do it right.

Even though ultimately the decision is up to each promoter, and a diversity of contest names and formats can be a positive thing for the scene, we would like to take a moment to argue “Mix & Match” as a great replacement name for “Jack & Jill” in its standard format. It is not only completely gender-neutral; it’s also a more precise description of the dance — you mix up partners and then match them together. It is even good advice to competitors to match their dancing to their partners in order to create a successful dance between two random dancers. It’s also catchy and confers a spirit of playfulness to the contest, similar to the way the name “Jack & Jill” does with its evocation of the classic nursery rhyme.

We do want to say, we do not think “Mix & Match” is perfect. However, as we will argue, we think it is the best option currently on the table.

Here are the other main name options on the table, some of which we present here with our thoughts:

“Luck Of the Draw”: Even though it is one way of describing what happens in the contest, and was given the blessing of the late Jack Carey when it was used as a replacement name for the Jack & Jill name, it emphasizes the luck of the partner drawn, rather than the skill of dancing with one another. For this reason, we do not think it is near as good as Mix & Match. (Yes, there is a lot of luck in the random partner format contest, but there is also skill. Since the primary goal of contests in general is to reward skill, we argue the name should emphasize the latter.)

“Lead & Follow”: We would argue that partnered dance competitions are also based on leading and following, so this name creates a false dichotomy.

“The Social Division”: Again, we would argue partnered dance competitions involve “social dancing,” or alternatively, that any contest could be considered not social dancing by definition, so this name creates a couple of false dichotomies depending on where you stand. We’d also like to note that “The Social Division” sounds like a 1990s band. That could be a plus or a minus; just throwing it out there.

“Jess & Jo”: This name is a clear sign of us intentionally changing it for gender inclusiveness. However, it’s not as good of a shortcut for explaining what the contest format is about as something like “Mix & Match.” Also, “Jack & Jill’s” name was both an homage to Jack Carey and allusion to a familiar nursery rhyme, and without those specific names there is a lot less reason why two names should define a contest.

“J&J”: This term is technically gender-neutral, and it would be the easiest transition for the current scene, but may we argue against it on a few grounds: First off, many in the scene already refer to “Jack & Jills” as “J&J,” so making the change to this might come across like surrendering to the idea of inclusiveness rather than embracing it.

Secondly, when we make a name change, it’s always important to think about how people will explain or discuss that name change. In this case, imagine a new dancer coming into the scene. The very random-sounding “J&J” name change will require people to explain that it was once “Jack & Jill,” the reasons for change of which can then pretty easily dismissed — “Oh, well, it was changed when a bunch of people got upset.” To the new dancer, explaining a name like “Mix & Match” requires no reason to explain the history of Jack & Jill and the name change, and yet is inherently inclusive. Additionally, see “Jess & Jo” arguments above.

“The Jack Carey Contest”: Though this option honors the contest’s namesake, it has a formality to it that takes away part of the fun spirit of the comp for us. Additionally, it does not have the face-value level of explanation to it that “Mix & Match” does, which could be a barrier for new dancers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s important to realize the “Jack & Jill” conversation is not *just* about a name change. It is powerfully symbolic of a problem with inclusiveness in the scene to those of non-majority identities. If you are a person in the majority, it’s very easy to see the scene as inclusive. Many of us have never considered having a debate about changing the name of the contest, probably because its implications were not strong enough against our identities to feel exclusionary. However, if I put myself in someone else’s shoes, I can see how it’d be a pretty clear example of a problem in the scene (and the modern world in general).

Solving problems of inclusiveness and educating people about them is not an easy task. Yet someone suggested changing the name of “Jack & Jill” and look how much people are thinking and talking about it now. While we might not yet know how to best address and solve the thousands of small, often subconscious exclusive/inclusive problems of the scene, a bunch of organizers choosing to update the name of “Jack & Jill” contests is one change that has an obvious and scene-wide result.

Organizers and promoters have the opportunity to make a simple change that, though it will not solve all problems of inclusion, will show our desire to be inclusive as well as initiate education in inclusiveness. An opportunity like this is rare. Let’s use it.







Several readers helped dramatically shape this essay. Special thanks to Irena Spassova, Jessica Miltenberger, Shana Worel, and, as always, Swungover’s editor Chelsea Lee.

Unlike other Swungover comment sections, where anarchy reigns, we ask that in this post’s comments, all arguments be made in clear, critical-thinking, and respectful ways without relying on emotionally driven language or attacking others personally. If you are not able to do so, please do not comment.

Due to a busy schedule we will not be able to manage the comments section closely, so we ask commenters to police themselves and others. We stress the former so that hopefully the latter will not be needed. (We can dream, right?)