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?

Well you learn something horrific every day. Blitz parties eh?

Yes, I think when people look back on history, they always imagine themselves as (say) Elizabeth Bennett, rather than life as a pauper born into a world of child labour and early death thanks to no penicillin.

Oops, so sorry that my post offended anyone!! It came out a bit stronger than I intended, apologies!

I am a large sized, rotund woman who is pretty pasty and has lots of cellulite. I can assure you no one wants to see me naked prancing around! :)

It's all the ooooh am I sexy, maybe I am, care to take a look, maybe a peek at me, I'm so shy! No I'm not etc etc that screams naffness to me.

Re the retro outfit advice, there are so many other beautiful clothes that women of all shapes and sizes can wear, it i just personally hate all that lindy bop stuff and that whenever a woman over a size 12 comes on and asks for a recommendation for a dress it's that. Sometimes accompanied by victory rolls etc for a look which I personally just think looks so naff.

Sorry again, am suitably chastised!

When you think of the REAL empowerment of women in the war it makes me really angry.
Women managing households single handed whilst building tanks and driving buses. Women saving lives. Women in science and communications.
Women keeping the home front going.

What is it boiled down to in 'Vintage Life'? Sappy twenty somethings striking coquettish poses in their best tea frocks.

QueenMortificado

No problem

I get annoyed by the association of burlesque with empowerment of women. It supports the idea that s woman's value is based on her body. You have a PhD in astrophysics, who cares. You run a successful business, so what. You have raised 4 children who have grown into rounded and awesome human beings, who gives a fuck. None of that mstters because you are a woman and the only thing that makes you important, the only thing that you will be judged on, the only thing that can give you any power is your body. So you better learn to flaunt it if you want to feel good about yourself.

Burlesque does not challenge the prevailing narrative of a woman's place and worth, it wraps in up in a nice sudofeminist bow and sells it back to women as empowerment. It is bollocks.

I read that very differently - I didn't think Queen was saying "all overweight women are unsexy" - she was talking about the "desperate and fake" element to their performance which makes it feel unsexy to her.

That's exactly it, worded more eloquently than I did!

YABU

Queen I get it.
There is this weird thing where women put on a Lindy Bop (I have loads) dress or a Vivienne of Holloway one and immediately do this awful kittenish posing thing.
I would love to see what they look like in their frocks. I can't tell from all that gurning.

It doesn't matter how much they weigh. Its still bloody annoying.
But I think that bigger women are pushed into the retro thing now. Fine if thats what you like but why always suggest a very particular look to someone just because they are over a size 16?

Queen in your defense I agree with some of your points

YES at generic lindybob being the only clothes that "work really well with your shape hun"

Also, apart from a select few professionals who have to be better at dancing than their thiner professional colleagues, a lot of the larger lady acts in the shows have a jokey/close to the freak-show line aspect to the routines! Class clown type of stuff! Much more so than the routines the thinner ones do. It's can be very "ooo matron!!" and its not really all that flattering to the larger woman in question

Great post namechange

I love yellow formica in a kitchen, my great aunt had it. I would like a kitchen like hers, I wouldn't want to have had to lived her life in that time

Aahhh so that's where the suffragettes went wrong. They should have dressed up in corsets and feather boas and twerked their way to the vote. If only the Pankhursts' had known, they could have used their chains for something else.

Empowering - my unexposed arse! I agree with Jeepers it belittles all the other important achievements a woman has made.

Do what you want in private, but doing this in public makes me think desperate, under confident and lacking in self esteem. I never think 'wow that woman is so empowered right now'!

Another great delusion swallowed by women as a form of feminism.

I don't care what women wear, if you want to walk around like an extra from call the midwife then great! I love the retro look. But do it because you like it and not because you think it's all you can wear now you're over 40 & a size 14.
Our PM wears leather trousers

Burlesque is not empowering, it's stripping and it's really tacky. It's not an art form and it's not a form of dance. It's stripping. I find the coquettish'ness and faux shyness really cringe'y.

I've no issue at all to people doing burlesque classes or doing burlesque for their partners in private if that's what rocks your boat but stripping in public is really tacky and seedy however you retro dress it up.

Nah, it's never empowering to get your tits out for twenty quid.

Jesus.

You know when we'll know that women have achieved actual, real life equality?

When people stop suggesting that taking their clothes for the entertainment of others is empowering.

When activities that commercialise women's bodies aren't a thing, or if they are a thing, they aren't dressed up as empowering.

When women's worth is no longer tied up with a particular way of looking.

I mean OBVS there's a load of other stuff that needs to happen, but it's just boring stuff like having wage equality, non discriminatory employment practice, autonomy over our bodies and shit. Empowering stuff like that.

Flora - I hadn't thought of it that way, and you are right. But whether we like it or not, we live in a world where we are judged on our appearance, and I think anything that gives someone the confidence to say "I like me as I am" is a good thing.

"Nah, it's never empowering to get your tits out for twenty quid."

Yup.

I'm a curvy size 16 and those 50s style shapes and dresses look awful on me, I cannot think of anything I'd less rather wear (there's also the fact that I can't wear the sort of shoes they need to complete the look), but they do look great on some people. However I think they need to be fairly confident in their body/appearance without the costume, putting those very eye-catching clothes on someone who doesn't have that confidence already is likely to push them into that uncomfortable, slightly desperate for approval-seeming territory.

If someone finds it empowering though ( I personally dont think it particularly is ) then who has the right to say to them that it isn't? They'd be wrong.

Can someone please explain to me why this is empowering? She pulls her pants up all the time. Let's all go to meetings and stand there and pull our pants up all the time.

Hah! Never been called articulate before, so thank you queen

Or this. Why are they all dressed up in Victorian clothing to begin with and then undress to reveal a 1920s dress? It's bizarre!

I watched that clip. I still don't get it

More cringe worthy than empowering.

This is a video I would have though Fred West asked of his wife Rosemary as she 'entertained' her 'guests.