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Question for the female posters here
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Being an child of the 80s and remembering the days of protests against porn, page 3 etc I struggle to understand sometimes the differing modern attitudes the 'exploitation' of women.
For example burlesque has really taken off in recent years amongst the alt cabaret set and is viewed as an empowering and subversive forgotten act that was ripe for revival.
Compare this to how people view pole dancing clubs or the outcry in recent days over the chain Hooters coming to Britain. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145365&command=displayContent&sourceNode=145191&contentPK=20389520&folderPk=83726&pNodeId=144922
I don't know about you but there's little difference in them for me apart from one being more acceptable amongst the chattering classees than the other.
Your thoughts..
For example burlesque has really taken off in recent years amongst the alt cabaret set and is viewed as an empowering and subversive forgotten act that was ripe for revival.
Compare this to how people view pole dancing clubs or the outcry in recent days over the chain Hooters coming to Britain. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145365&command=displayContent&sourceNode=145191&contentPK=20389520&folderPk=83726&pNodeId=144922
I don't know about you but there's little difference in them for me apart from one being more acceptable amongst the chattering classees than the other.
Your thoughts..
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Comments
I think it depends on the perspective that you take. What is empowerment? What is empowering about burlesque? What is not empowering about acting in porn or being a stripper?
Why is Hugh Hefner a 'stud' and Paris Hilton a 'slut'?
Yadda yadda
(random ramblings... will reply in full when I have time)
A very slim degree judging by the pic top right.
http://www.ministryofburlesque.com/learning-burlesque/2903-bristol-burlesque-intensive-workshop-keda-breeze.html
Maybe as man I see it differently but is that more acceptable than this?
http://www.hooters-uk.com/
I've never quite understood the empowering argument to be honest, it just seems to be commonly used by female performers when discussing their trade.
Fair enough, so you don't think its exploitation then?
Didnt realise the notts one was the UK's only.
Not at all. Think its a brilliant idea, im female but I really couldn't give a shit about pole dancing/lapdancing/tasteful porn. Obviously theres a line drawn at prostitution! thats where the exploitation starts :chin:
I don't think that exposing one's body is disempowering, that sex work is degrading, that Burlesque is hugely different in concept really, apart from the clientele (though admittedly I am no expert on Burlesque)... And even then, empowerment and disempowerment are subjective.
I've got mates who have worked in stripping, plus mates who have worked in the sex industry. They have reported different things, although my mate who was a stripper said that it wasn't as bad as people think it would be.
It gets a bit annoying really, how sometimes people view some women who decide to be strippers as disempowered or in some way victimised. How condescending, to judge a woman's descision like that. :rolleyes: (not aimed at anyone here).
Now the problem I reckon is not the act of nudity itself, nobody should be ashamed of his/her/hir body, but more the stereotypes which go with the women. People tend to still see just the body and not the fact that hey, that woman may enjoy stripping and be funding her Oxbridge degree.
Another problem is how some women seem to believe that now they are 'liberated' sexually, that is the end. For example with the whole raunch culture.
Meh... 'tis such a long and complicated argument.
How far do you define prostitution? And what makes it any more exploitative than working minimum wage cleaning for stupid hours (if at all)?
I think that prostitution should be decriminalised.
I think your average punter in a strip club couldn't care less if a stripper is funding her Oxbridge degree or not. Looking at the body is what it is about...?
It is isnt it? I dont think its an offence to actually sell yourself for sex, I just dont think you can pay tax on the earnings therefore its a grey area. That and advertising is illegal if I remember correctly.
I'd call him something slightly less enamourous, 'dirty old man' comes to mind
I agree with Namaste that a woman should feel completely able to make her own decisions about what she does - I think though that some of the people who see strippers as victims may be genuinely concerned as a lot of the sex trade is women who are forced to do it to pay off loans or whatever. I don't know if stripping is completely different, or the same but to a much lesser degree. But even if the concern is patronising, I think in most cases it's out of sympathy for what the situation may be, not snobbery. Just my opinion.
There are a lot of things that have double standards though, depending on how they're dressed up, not just burlesque and stripping. What about escort vs. prostitute. I agree that maybe it's the clientelle or the expectations that makes them seem very different, one something a 'strong' woman does, one something a 'weak' woman does...
Sorry should have made it clearer, I put brackets around the word because exploitation in this case has lot to do with how individuals perceive it.
I'm just interested in finding out how young women view these activities these days in comparison to how a lot of women especially feminists viewed them 20 years ago.
Thanks for your replies so far, there's a great dissertation idea in this thread if someone is struggling for a topic. :thumb:
I totally understand where you're coming from. I worked in call centres to fund uni for about £80 a week. A friend who worked in lap dancing club earned 4 x that as student. Who was being exploited more.
As a random aside (but mildly relevent), I was watching the apprentice once and the girls team were giving out kisses and flirting and dressing seductively to win. Some would argue this is using what they have and not being ashamed of it, but Alan was a bit pissed off at them because he felt it demeaned women - the implication of the girls actions that they can't compete with men unless they show off their sexy bits. Again, it comes down to whether a woman using her body a good thing or not. This is physically making my brain hurt
As for Hooters potentially coming to Bristol, I'm not remotely fussed. Waitresses wearing next to nothing is hardly a brand new concept, but if there's a market for it, you'd be stupid not to take advantage of it. Mind you, that still wouldn't persuade me to visit Bristol.
So far as I know, parts of it are still illegal in this country... Hence the call for reforms.
With the Million Women Rise the sex workers from Ipswich wanted it all to be decriminalised, but their rights for free speech was suddenly took away on the day.
One example of feminist inner conflict. Tut
ETA: Soliciting, streetwalking, kerb crawling are illegal, but I don't think the sex acts are? Still, it makes it incredibly difficult for prostitutes to do business safely and makes women in that industry incredibly vulnerable.
Plus, burlesque performers often invest a lot of money in expensive costumes, corsets etc for their performances.
Hooters staff are quite well covered up anyway. They're hardly prancing around in just thongs...
:yes:
I find Burlesque is much more about the show/costumes/tease as opposed to just getting the clothes off in a 3 minute routine.
There is a very well known UK Burlesque dancer who claims, quite rightly, that she could own a very nice house with the money she has spent on her wardrobe for performing.
http://www.bearlesque.com/
I'm not sure anyone was being exploited, I hadn't really considered that they were until now.
Of course not. The average person who walks in to Mcdonalds doesn't think what they're using the cash to fund either.
At the end of the day, if a woman wants to remove her cash for clothes, why not? So long as it's a safe environment.
It's difficult, as most people who go to see that kind of thing don't go because they want to appreciate a woman's mind, artistic skills, her wit... They do it to appreciate her body. The problem is that outside the clubs women (and increasingly, men) are objectified too, this is out forward through the media, our obsession with not aging, Playboy Tshirts for eleven year olds... How is it any different?
There is so much pressure on women to look a certain way (and again, increasingly men) and this needs to be tackled outside the clubs surely? The problem is not women selling sex, or taking their clothes off, it is people who define women by sex and the mentality which still says that if a women is dressed in revealing clothes she is partially responsible for being raped.
Women should not be controlling themselves to fit with ideas of what is and what isn't degrading, women and men should be working together so that no occupation is degrading and objectifying...
If that makes sense.
Just my view.
Yes, women ARE under pressure to look certain ways, do certain things - and they happily feed the monster which gives out those messages.
Agreed.
But men will always sexually objectify women, so long as men want to have sex with women? Regardless of whether women strip, or do photo shoots for FHM - men will want good looking women for sex.
Playboy t-shirts for eleven year olds is sick though, I'd agree with you on that.
Rape has nothing to do with this. Women will always be defined by sex and beauty by men, and by themselves as well. Stargalaxy is right, and the reason why women happily feed the monster is because appearance is, and always be, woman's chief concern.
There's a book called Female Chauvanist Pigs which talks about something like this....
Yes, these magazines are often owned by women and written by women... But is a woman's idea of sexy the same as a male idea of what is sexy?
Also, these magazines would not be published if they did not contribute to raunch culture and re-inforce the fears women are supposed to have about not finding a mate. Think of how much cash would not be coming in from advertising.
It's all part of a bigger machine isn't it? And tbh, how many fashion designers are women and how many are men? Who still sets the standards as to how a woman should look?
There is a difference between appreciating physical beauty and between objectifying.
Only because women are pretty much force-fed to feel insecure. Kinda like the Beauty Myth (i.e. another way to control and keep women subordinate to a degree).
I kind of agree. But then you have to look deeper into it. Who funds magazines? Advertisers. And who therefore has an interest in making women insecure about their appearance in order to sell cosmetics, clothes, and so on? Similarly for men with the latest gadgets, cars and so on. Appearance just happens to be women's achilles heel. Men's is percieved social status.
I think it's wrong to point to any particular group as being the perpetrator of all this. The problem is the overall system. Magazine editors don't turn up to work in the morning with a vision of what sort of moral message they want to send out to the readers. They want exciting features that will sell their magazine, and more importantly, sell advertising space. They're going to go to any lengths not to piss advertisers off. And the advertisers themselves aren't to blame. They're only doing their job of attempting to sell as many of their products as they can. And you're not going to advertise in a magazine that has nothing to do with what your product is about. And it's not the women's fault. Advertising just happens to be created in a way that responds to their particular desires or needs, so they're a susceptible to it as men are to advertising playing on other desires. The problem is that the whole system of capitalism is set up to attempt to sell people things that they neither need or want. And the only way to do that is to convince people that there is something missing in their life because they don't have a particular product. It's one of those horrible self-perpetuating cycles.
On the main question, I think the shift comes as a result of the miscalculation of some early feminism that women dressing attractively is entirely for the pleasure of men. Possibly a necessery phase in the movement, but not an accurate description of the psychology of dressing in a way that is attractive to the opposite sex. Now that we've moved on from that, we recognise that dressing and feeling attractive can be empowering to the individual, rather than just eye candy for the opposite sex. Not only that, but not a human being on the planet doesn't feel better when they feel that the opposite sex finds them attractive.