Well she isn't very wise for a 79yr old. Doubt she has spent much (if any) time in the environments of which she speaks.
I worked almost every position in hospitality (sous chef, server, bartender, manager, porter, valet, etc) at almost every possible type of establishment (hotels, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, private clubs, etc) full-time over a period of 15yrs.
Once I started working a full-time office job I needed to balance my pay as I earned significantly more in hospitality ($20-25k/yr more) than I did at a career mid-level professional position (education & licensure required) at big and small companies.
Thus, I bartended for about three more years as my night job while working a highly stressful professional day job. I couldn't get a job in normal hospitality where I was guaranteed night hours (they all required some day work - and wouldn't hire me because I wasn't available before 5pm M-F).
Disclaimer: At the following establishments I was fully clothed (clavicle to toes covered) and ONLY bartended... no dancing, no VIP rooms - just slinging expensive drinks.
So, I started in bikini bars as I thought they would be inoffensive enough until I discovered that they were quiet yet known prostitution fronts. Most of the women that worked there were girls 18-20yrs old with a few in their late 20s - they were all from destitute families and wore their suffering on their faces until a customer was around. Their very existence pained them, these places exploited them to sell alcohol and took a portion of their earnings from each "approved service" (i.e. officially open or private lap dances - actually blow jobs, aided masturbation, full penetrative sex). Once I discovered the truth I tried to speak sense with my dancer co-workers but to no avail so I exited quickly (after trying two different establishments in two different cities close to home).
Because of the aforementioned experience I found a bartending job at a full nude "gentlemen's club" thinking in my naiveté that because alcohol was banned in these places by law that the women would have better experiences and more control (as well as no sex work above dancing). What I discovered there was that the dancers were constantly going to the bathroom to snort cocaine to get them through the humiliation of being objectified and coerced into back VIP room sex acts. So... I didn't make it there either. I left every night angry and finally left when I realized that yet again nothing I said would save these women from their misery or motivate them to find another path. These women did not believe they had any value beyond their bodies... no conjecture, they said the same in their own words. The full nude environment was so brutal that I didn't try a second establishment.
Finally because I needed the income, I decided that topless clubs were the way to go - that all this stuff I had heard about empowerment in exotic dancing had to exist somewhere. That I could go to a topless place, make my bartending money and be ok enough with the environment. Looking back my naiveté was so hilarious, so pitiful - it was desperate rationalization for my own financial survival. Now don't get me wrong out of all of the hospitality jobs I ever worked I made the most in the topless club I reference below. And when I say I made a lot I mean I worked two nights a week 6hrs/night and walked out with $1,500-$2,000 in cash EVERY shift. The dancers kept more distance from customers than other clubs and were "not allowed to drink" due to legal restrictions but the customers bought them drinks and managers turned a blind eye. I thought this place was pretty okay for a few months - they had a couple hundred dancers aged 20-29yrs, it was incredibly busy, the dancers seemed to make a lot and seemed okay with it. But there was one thing that kept fucking me up about the place - the dancers basically worshipped the general manager to his face and one would get called into his office after every staff meeting. One week I got called into the general manager's office because he didn't like that I didn't exhibit total capitulation to his ideas. Standing across from him while he sat at his desk he told me that he would break me and I would be like every other 'whore' in that place by the time he was done with me. He then told me to come around the desk and suck his dick - because I am who I am I told him to fuck himself for which I got fired of course. As I marched out of there I realized why the place seemed okay - because they did a really good job of hiding the exceptionally shady stuff and the general manager had all of female employees sucking his dick. Those dancers were just as abused (possibly moreso) than their counterparts at the other clubs but they hid it better because their incomes depended on it.
After all those experiences and seeing so much money made in those places it was beyond disheartening to realize that my value as a woman in society is held highest when agreeing to degradation. That all of my tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, hours of study, licensure and continuing professional education was less valued than the size of my breasts, waist, and backside. That even as a bartender fully clothed I made more money in a year for a winning smile and being a talented bartender than I made in almost two years at my professional job (that is $45k/yr professional job 40hrs/wk versus $75k/yr bartending in strip clubs 12hrs/wk... YES 12hrs/wk = $75k/yr). I made more than the women selling their bodies, I made A LOT more than they did - there were only a few bartenders skilled enough to work nights (volume, drink complexity, etc) but there were hundreds of dancers.
I only lasted in these environments a total of 18 months - I went from one place to the next as described above and finally realized that I was damaging/abusing/degrading myself psychologically from just being in the environments. After that 18 months I decided that I had to wait until a new night club opened up that was just a dance club that sold alcohol - no exotic dancers/no nudity. I made about $250/night at the dance club but not $1 felt dirty not one penny caused me pain for myself or other women - the money I made there felt right. I didn't save as much money as I anticipated over those three years nor did I care... I walked away from my last bartending job crying because I would miss my co-workers not because I was afraid for them.
What Margaret needs to understand is that those environments are destructive by nature. None of the women I knew that danced or sold sex felt empowered - they felt trapped, they felt invalidated, they saw no value in themselves. The few porn actresses I knew felt the same as the aforementioned. The only dancers or sex workers or porn actresses I ever met that claim they enjoyed what they did and that they felt empowered were women that were from fairly affluent families and were (honestly) just too lazy to make a career choice that required effort beyond taking a dick somewhere in their body OR were doing it merely to piss their families off.
Moral of the story... no female/woman sex work is actually empowering. It is all a facade, a lie told by men to women that internalize men's desires and regurgitate them as female empowerment. Except for the affluent women who make these choices without thinking about them or understanding how it affects the world, the women who do this "work" are ultimately destroyed by the industry.
Even though my experiences were all in the US, I don't believe it is any different in the UK or anywhere else. The method of abuse is similar if not same and damaging to all women and girls.
Believing that any female/women's sex work is empowering IMO is cognitive dissonance to the millionth power.