JF, you don’t have to want to go to shul to watch the men dance. It does not make you a better or worse Jew, whether or not you want to go to shul to watch the men dance.
I don’t go because it makes me feel like an spectator to Judaism. This day is supposed to be the happiest day in a Jew’s life and being stuck on the ‘other’ side, makes me feel like an afterthought at best.
If it was the learning itself that we are trying to show the chashivus of, then the day would be spent like Shavuos with people learning until all hours of the morning. However, apparently dancing is a way to express happiness in kedusha (eg. the men dance) so everyone should dance. I believe that if simchas torah is a day that we’re celebrating that we have the torah or that we get to learn Torah then everyone should be dancing, the men who do learn as well as the women who give everything to their husbands and children so that they can learn.
If it is the ‘wanting to be like the men’ that bothers people, there should be a kumzitz on Simchas Torah or something so at least we feel part of it. But staring at other people express their happiness while people tell us we are feminists (it’s a dirty word in yeshivisha shprach) because we also want to express our happiness, kind of makes the day less happy.
Lior, I think a better thing to ask would be if hypothetically there was a shul that legislates that only men over 40 were able to dance on simchas torah and the rest have to stand squished together on the other side of a curtain, how many men/boys under 40 do you think would be there? I would then ask the same question about a shul that doesn’t allow any men over 40 to dance.