So You Think You Have a Gender Bias

Dance competition show So You Think You Can Dance is currently in its seventh season, and is turning all of the previous rules upside down in hopes of a more exciting, and more fair, competition. But have the new rules overlooked the apparent gender bias of the show's audience?

This year, instead of 10 female contestants and 10 male contestants, the show began with 5 female contestants and 6 male contestants. In the past, 3 female and 3 male contestants were eligible for elimination each week, with the judges asking one of each group to leave. The balance of male and female contestants was kept equal, all the way up to the finale. This year, there is simply one bottom 3 group each week, made up of the least voted-for contestants of either gender.

Taking away the forced gender balance of the contestants is not a bad idea in theory. The best dancers should move on, regardless of their gender. The problem lies in the voting system, which essentially makes the show a popularity contest, combined with the preferred gender of the voting audience. One look at the live studio audience reveals the show's primary audience demographic: young-to-teenage girls. Dance is a heavily gendered hobby in our society, lovely and encouraged for girls to enjoy, sometimes considered worrisome and odd for boys to enjoy. Add some athletic, handsome, shirtless young men into the mix and an audience mostly made up of young females is almost guaranteed. I hope I don't seem harsh in assuming that these young girls will be more likely to vote for a male contestant than a female one, in addition to being more likely to pick up a phone and vote in the first place than other demographics.

So what happens when an audience with a gender bias decides the fate of a show that already has a gender imbalance? An even greater imbalance. The first elimination group was all girls, and so far three girls have been sent home. There are two female dancers remaining, and all six of the males.

Do I think the worst dancer was sent home Thursday night? Yes. The previous two elimination nights? I'm not sure I do. Other dancers, including male dancers, connected with me much less and performed worse than those who were eliminated. At this point in the competition, each of the dancers have experienced some of the “growing” part of the show and have gotten into the groove of learning and competing. The girls might have a chance now of advancing via their dancing abilities, rather than their appeal to a young female audience, but it kind of feels like they didn't stand a chance up until this point.

I commend the producers for listening to fans and making changes to improve the show each year, and I commend the judges for not compromising what integrity is left in the judging system by trying to force a gender balance through the eliminations, but the competition model seems less than ideal. We may or may not see the gender balance come back in future seasons, and I'm not sure what the optimal solution for this situation is, but I hope that something is done to give female competitors a fighting chance against their hunkier, testosterone-infused competitors.