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Margaret Atwood defends women's right to work in strip clubs because she thinks it's 'empowering'

294 replies

stumbledin · 12/09/2019 23:43

Speaking to Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live's Headliners, the 79-year-old said women who work in strip clubs can 'feel in control of the room' and earn more money than coffee shop staff.

Ms Atwood, whose new book The Testaments was published this week, told BBC Five Live that people protesting against the clubs should 'put their energy somewhere else that's really really important – like with environmental protests.'

The author said it was important to ensure women were not exploited, adding: 'Some of the most empowering women in the American West were the madams who were running the brothels because in that era they were saving up the money up for the girls, they were setting them up after they made that money they were taking care of them and it was much better than having a pimp.'

Ms Atwood also spoke out about different kinds of feminism, adding: 'I don't refuse the label of feminism, I say, 'which kind are you talking about?'

'I am the kind that endorses organisations like Equality Now. I am not the kind that says things like all men should be pushed off a cliff or all that all male babies should be killed at birth.'

Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad

(This is the Daily Mail so not sure if accurate transcript. Did anyone listen to the interview?)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7457063/Margaret-Atwood-defends-womens-right-work-strip-clubs.html

OP posts:
BarbaraStrozzi · 13/09/2019 21:43

Yes, you're right Tinsel - but the Mujahadeen (which later became the Taliban) were the main resistance to the Soviet invasion, and I think women were already being forced into chadors in Mujahadeen controlled areas. I may be wrong on this, but I do seem to remember Atwood making a specific reference to women in chadors as being the inspiration behind the handmaids' clothing (busy looking for a reference for that, and failing).

TinselAngel · 13/09/2019 21:37

Wasn't it written before the Taliban?

BarbaraStrozzi · 13/09/2019 21:30

Tinsel did your ex not realise that it was based on Afghanistan under the Taliban?

Admittedly he might be right about more sex (and rape) - Taliban mark 2 was effectively ISIL, who got round any religious qualms about sex being haram by deciding that raping non-Muslim women was fine. Angry

WomanDaresTo · 13/09/2019 21:28

Let us know what you think! The first book is a (very enjoyable) sausage-fest but the second one on brings in the women

TinselAngel · 13/09/2019 21:26

When I explained the premise of the Handmaid's Tale to my most recent ex, he was of the opinion that it showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how men would set a society up if they had free rein. (ie it was too puritanical and not enough shagging).

I do wonder if he had a point. (But then I've not actually read the book since I was at Uni).

ScrimshawTheSecond · 13/09/2019 21:25

Thanks, all. I don't know much sci-fi, beyond say JG Ballard. I'll get a hold of the Earthsea one and see how it goes.

Creepster · 13/09/2019 21:07

Ursula Guin is a big gap in my reading history. Any recommendations for where to start?
It's all brilliant. If you like short stories her collections are wonderful. IIRC most people discover her through her Earthsea books or "Left Hand Of Darkness" novel.

Winterlife · 13/09/2019 21:07

Winterlife we also read Alice Munro (Lives of Girls and Women is great) and Margaret Laurence smile was your course at Reading Uni by any chance?

No, I am Canadian, and attended university in Canada. The professor for that particular course went on to write several novels, won a Governor General's award for literature, and retired from academia after a 30 year career.

WomanDaresTo · 13/09/2019 21:06

Ursula Guin is a big gap in my reading history. Any recommendations for where to start?

Depends if you like vaguely wizardy/science fiction: I was obsessed by the Earthsea Trilogy as a teen and reading it as an adult it is almost comically feminism-by-stealth.

BarbaraStrozzi · 13/09/2019 21:02

antibles - yes rufus i still think about the bank account thing sometimes when I go to the cashpoint. And when women are banned from Twitter for voicing GC opinions. You realise these institutions and platforms aren't neutral or everlasting things. How fragile our freedoms are.

It's even more scary when you reflect on how connected the high tech firms are getting. Think about the Coop Bank closing an account belonging to a GC women's organisation, or paypal acting at the behest of the US government to pull funding on wikileaks (IIRC - as it turned Assange was not on the side of the angels, but we saw someone having their financial affairs attacked for political actions.) Add in the fact that some of the big tech companies are now talking about getting into finance, and you have the prospect that the same firm that's banning you from a social media also controls your bank account.

BarbaraStrozzi · 13/09/2019 20:56

Asfiac any author who portrays women realistically is a feminist whether they say they are or not.

Yes to this, a hundred times over. Any writer who writes women decently is a great step forward compared to most.

Talking of which, has anyone else seen this wonderful twitter thread by an editor for a publishing house?

twitter.com/katherine_may/status/1169928790220443649?s=12

twelvecolourfulbirds · 13/09/2019 20:49

Courtney, does your day job know about your dancing? Do you ever worry that someone from your office will bring in clients while you're on duty at the club?

ScrimshawTheSecond · 13/09/2019 20:44

*Le Guin, ffs.

ScrimshawTheSecond · 13/09/2019 20:44

Ursula Guin is a big gap in my reading history. Any recommendations for where to start?

AmericanSlang · 13/09/2019 20:43

Winterlife we also read Alice Munro (Lives of Girls and Women is great) and Margaret Laurence Smile was your course at Reading Uni by any chance?

WomanDaresTo · 13/09/2019 20:41

ANYWAY Margaret A does tend to the liberal/libertarian in her public statements. I think she's wrong but I like her books.

Not as much as Ursula Le Guin mark you - I luffs her and have yet to read loads of her stuff. And I believe she was v feminist.

RufusthebewiIderedreindeer · 13/09/2019 20:39

IT WAS A FAY WELDON BOOK

Puffball

Oops 😳

IfNot · 13/09/2019 20:38

Writing as a feminist isn't about imagining the world as a big sorority though is it? It's about accurately reflecting the power balance between men and women and the constraints of that.
Yeah that! That's what I meant!

WomanDaresTo · 13/09/2019 20:38

we saggy titted women are all too stupid to know how concepts such as money laundering work.

I may be a woman hurtling towards the "40-50" age bracket of ancient crone shame, but I am also a finance professional by day, and i'd highly recommend Courtney focuses their CPD this year on anti-money laundering and courtney's responsibilities - nay legal obligations - as a chartered accountant.

IfNot · 13/09/2019 20:37

Yes but that's not the point of a novel is it?To portray characters you 100% like, or be sisterly ?
Not read a lot of Margaret Atwood but I remember reading the Robber Bride and thinking it was very good.

Someone mentioned Fay Weldon as not being a "good " feminist -well I think Fay Weldon is a fantastic feminist writer if only because she write about the lives of women as they really are. They are not always morally right or supportive of each other but her stories are really about women and you feel like you know the characters already. Asfiac any author who portrays women realistically is a feminist whether they say they are or not.

AmericanSlang · 13/09/2019 20:33

I agree Barbara, I don't think any kind of polemic makes for good fiction, I think it may be one reason Atwood resists attempts to pigeonhole her as a "feminist writer"

Winterlife · 13/09/2019 20:31

I had to read Atwood for a Canadian lit course (also in the 1980's). But I also read Alice Munro (a much more compelling novelist, IMHO), Margaret Laurence, and Gabrielle Roy.

My personal favourite is Robertson Davies, although feminist themes are non existent in his works.

ShesDressedInBlackAgain · 13/09/2019 20:31

Writing as a feminist isn't about imagining the world as a big sorority though is it? It's about accurately reflecting the power balance between men and women and the constraints of that.

BarbaraStrozzi · 13/09/2019 20:29

I'm not sure though that it's fair to ask an author's characters pass some sort of test before counting the author as feminist. I dabble a bit in writing myself, and characters, if they're to be successful, come in good, bad and indifferent varieties, with (one hopes) all sorts of nuances, shades of grey, internal tensions and conflicts. Insisting one's female characters display sisterly solidarity would end in writing polemic, and I find polemic is the death of good fiction.

(Or, as I once tried to explain to one of my readers, I'm not writing self-insert fiction here, my protagonists are not mini-me-s, and not all their beliefs are mine.)