To think burlesque IS empowering?

[Neverknowing]

Following on from the 'burlesque' thread, I want to ask peoples opinion on burlesque I think if a woman is getting paid to do something they enjoy and they feel empowered by it then there's nothing wrong? I have a friend who did burlesque for years and said men and women who went to the shows were always respectful and she loved doing it!
Does anyone have any reasons they think burlesque isn't empowering?

If you think burlesque shows in general are conforming to every male defined concept of female beauty, I have to assume you've not seen any. The diversity and inclusivity of burlesque is one of its attractions.

Wrong on both counts, I've seen quite a number of burlesque shows and..
A. They were almost exclusively white middle class women
and
B. The thin women did the serious, arty, "sexy" routines and the larger women did the "OH MATRON" comedy class clown routines. Literally. One of them was actually doing a stripping clown routine!

Diversity my arse!

Thousands and thousands of men and women pole dance for fun and Fitness. You can't just say "well they don't matter because a few people have chosen to do it for money". The majority of pole dancers dance at showcases and competitions, or they do it for fun in hundreds of studios up and down the country. Even in clubs not all pole dancers are strippers and not all strippers are pole dancers.

Still that's the way these threads go every single time.

"However I do tire of the argument that stripping has improved someone's body confidence, because it completely overlooks the fact that the entire activity is predicated on the basis of gaining public approval. So you've taken your clothes off and received applause and praise and improved your confidence, ignoring the fact it's based on the fact that strangers decided that your naked body passed muster. Would stripping have built your confidence if you'd been booed off the stage?"

Yup.

It a recreation of its origins and the standards of its time. If anything it's a sex show by 1940/50s bearly passible standards. It seems a bit of a white wash by middle classes to dress it up as wholesome art form to be enjoyed by enlightened people. Yes there is art, skill and preformance and we should not take that away from it. The preformers are often vary talented. But just remember it's origins and the function that the act is ment to preform. Plus I bet men did enjoy the entertainment factor and jokes back in the day too.

Do you think in 40 years from now the middle classes will be flocking to by tickets to a pole dance show in the name of art and enlightened entertainment?

I don't think burlesque looks empowering.......it just looks chilly!

If an amateur burlesque performer saw their boss, or a member of an interview panel, in the audience would she:-

A) feel empowered and positive and a bastion of progress for women?

Or

B) shit herself and think I'll never get promoted/get the job now.

I'm willing to bet on B. So how is that empowering? Any hobby where you constantly have to correct perceptions of it being sleazy, means that others saw you as sleazy until you explained. That's if the explanations wash.

Women voluntarily putting themselves into the chains of being valued primarily in terms of looks, are still wearing the chains. They are just trying to look coy whilst they wear them.

I have worked at a few burlesque shows as a stage manager. Just did one last night, actually!

I enjoy the performances, and a burlesque class can be fun. And it's most definitely not just fat white women. There's thin women, men, trans, black, young, gay, straight, whatever. There's so many different genres of burlesque, too- grotesque, musical, classical, geek...there really is something for everyone.

If that's what you're into.

And many of the best performers I know are indeed very confident. Empowered? Maybe personally. I don't know. I know I sure don't have the guts to dance naked in front of strangers.

Financially? No, they don't get paid. Or if they do, very very little. So yes, I'd agree, there's better ways to empower yourself in that regard.

It's been mentioned a few times on this thread that it is almost entirely heterosexual women going to watch burlesque, which is performed mostly by women.

Why do straight women want to go and watch another woman strip?

Genuine question.

almond- my best guess would be the fashion and pageantry that burlesque entails that seemingly "ordinary, everyday" women can attain, and that, literally stripped away, they look just like them.

Again, only speculation on my part.

If the empowerment part comes from the sense of the audience following your moves, i would expect ballet dancers, panto villains and Mark Rylance to be described as empowered every time they came near a stage.

But they are not!

Do you think in 40 years from now the middle classes will be flocking to by tickets to a pole dance show in the name of art and enlightened entertainment?

Well...yes, since such shows and showcases already exist. The pole dance community is pretty massive and continues to grow so I'd hope it's still around in 40 years!

Women like to watch confident women as it makes them feel more confident.

Women like to watch confident women as it makes them feel more confident.

Does it? If I were to watch a woman writhing about to try to gain sexual approval, I'd just feel terrible for her. It smacks of low self-confidence to me, someone wanting external validation.

I hate burlesque. As others have said eloquently above, it's a con. It's not empowering at all.

Tricking women into thinking that being half naked (or fully naked) is an expression of their individualism is one of the most disgusting tricks of Western institutionalised sexism. At least with the institutional sexism of the Middle East you cover up.

Well that may be. It would make me feel more confident I think...
the route to confidence isn't always the healthiest but then nor are many traits of life.

Faraway she shouldn't have to feel like her boss wouldn't respect her though? I feel like it's a massive step back for women to be judging each other on what they chose to do with their bodies? C'mon guys we get that enough from men !!

Women like to watch confident women as it makes them feel more confident

Research shows otherwise. So does logic.

C'mon guys we get that enough from men !!

So why seek male sexual approval by stripping?

The pole dance community is pretty massive and continues to grow so I'd hope it's still around in 40 years!

It is not, by any known usage of the words, "pretty massive". It is niche, it is tacky, it is not popular at all.
People are not so easily fooled. If you take "art" from strip clubs and pretend its an olympic sport, you're fooling no-one.

Thousands and thousands of men and women pole dance for fun and Fitness. You can't just say "well they don't matter because a few people have chosen to do it for money

You have GOT to be kidding me. You can't seriously be this deluded? A FEW people have chosen to do it for money? You mean the people who invented it and make up the vast majority of those who do it? Who you stole it from and then demean?

Neverknowing - it's not about judging what people do with their bodies. It's questioning the mindset of someone who thinks the way to confidence is getting their kit off.

And yes we do get this enough from men. So it's ludicrous to subscribe to it ourselves, when women have fought long and hard against being defined as sex objects.

Women that do burlesque are defining themselves as sex objects. Bypassing the middleman is not empowerment.

Interesting discussion but I couldn't help sniggering at 'the pole community'. Sorry. It's like talking about ballet dancers as 'the floor community' to me.

Never - it's also pretty hard NOT to judge women, who seem to be taking us backwards again by 30 years in how we are perceived.

We fought long and hard to be recognised as people first, irrespective of our bodies.

There is a thread about women in 90s Britpop at the moment. Back then, women in bands did not perform in underwear and women were finally reaching the point where they could just be themselves.

There was no expectation to wear makeup, and it really felt that men and women were relating to each other as people. And women were seen as sexy without having to be a particular body shape or take our clothes off.

Then the more easily available magazines with women in sexual poses emerged. Zoo, Nuts etc. Simultaneously, women became seen as sex objects again.

Getting confidence via burlesque, is simply women looking for approval that they are sexy. Whether that approval comes from men in a strip joint or women in a burlesque club is irrelevant.

They are still defining their sexual worth in terms of their body, rather than themselves.

Whoever said that feminism is about not judging each other? It's not. Not every choice is a good one just because a woman made it. Not every choice is equal, not every female choice is feminist. We can judge all we want.

I wouldn't call it empowering but what burlesque started of as and what it has more often become is different

It was performed in front on men and women and was meant to be amusing

most cultures have dance performance along these lines

they certainly do in many parts of the middle east with dancing as this is more often performed for women and is very sexual and often amusing (as are some of the songs but not explicit)

Is there something wrong with a woman feeling confident with her sexual attractiveness? My body is part of me so of course it forms a key part of how confident and attractive I feel. It doesn't define me but it does matter.