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

[stumbledin]

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.'

(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

It empowers women who are unskilled to provide for their families

No it doesn’t, it uses them as they feel they have no other choice. We need to upskill and support women so they have career choices, not validate their desperate choices of stripping or prostitution.
Why aren’t the men who need to support their families gyrating in the nude for money?

I haven't seen the interview but I think that Atwood is saying, in a clumsy way, that it is conceivably possible that some women do find some forms of sex-work empowering. And it could be the money, it could be the feeling in control ("look at all those men looking at me!") or simply the fact that they, like @BogglesGoggles would prefer to do that than be on benefits. That there are some women who go into the business with eyes wide open.

But it cannot be escaped that so many women and girls (and increasingly men and boys, i think) are being tricked and trafficked into it and we can, as feminists, entirely support the former and be bewildered and confused about it as much as we like as long as we aren't bringing them down. And we can entirely be aghast and against the latter and try to bring it down (but: we can't it is as old as time).

Yes wurzle

Courtney
Wow. So other women who are concerned with the treatment of women doing sex work are jealous? Fucking hell, you're mad ** And really quite nasty towards other females according to your contribution to this thread.

Why are you so unwilling to accept that your experience is not the same for ever woman in this industry? Those "ways your job empowers you " listed earlier...you know you can get those in other jobs right? I guess the tonne of cash you make though compensates you for the fact your employer may and customers certainly just view you as a piece of ass. And I guess it could take a bit of the sting out of the likelihood of you being beaten/abused/assaulted by a customer much higher than me by my customers.

And there's something really creepy about the sentence -
If a 6ft guy sits down and I sit on his lap, it's sexy.

I've no idea what Atwood was trying to say.
Apart from, by my reckoning, two pieces of fiction, don't forget this fallacious argument, which would earn her a plateful of arse if she said it on MN:
' 'put their energy somewhere else that's really really important – like with environmental protests.''

It's funny how we never hear from the 'empowered women' stripping in seedy backstreet pubs and having to give 'knee tremblers' behind the bins out back for a tenner a go.

After all, if it's the work that's empowering then they should be just as enthusiastic about their career choice, huh?

Errol I thought that too!

Yes Mutakirorikatum. I am now wondering whether the US's benefit system has darker undertones than I previously thought.

I go out in Brighton and my social group has loads of strippers, they’re all fucked up! Never met a normal one! They all have drug habits and have had kids taken off them etc, all the cliches really, abused as kids.

I love Margaret Atwood books but agree she probably had t spent any time in the environments she’s talking about.

I suspect the real gist of Atwood's (and publishers') message boils down to 'yes I wrote two books about the oppression of women but patriarchy don't punish me, I'm on your side'.

I've heard her speak and she was excellent, don't really understand what was going on here but would like to see the full interview.
There are many people who do think feminism=nastymanhaters.
I listened to Germaine Greer give an erudite and entertaining talk once, questions came at the end - "why do you hate all men?" So I would guess Atwood gets some of the same crap. I thought the Handmaid's Tale was great but my favourite book by her was The Edible Woman. The description of a woman about to marry - and what back then in the 70s that involves her giving up - was so depressing but so inspiring too.

My thoughts on this are as follows:

Some women will find stripping empowering and some will not.

Whether a women feels empowered will depend on multiple factors relating to how well or not she is treated at the club, whether she has to pay to work at the club, whether she is expected / coerced to provide “extra services” or not and, possibly most importantly, whether her choices re making money are limited or not. Being forced to work in a strip club through financial necessity, to keep bailiffs away from the door or feed and clothe children is a different issue entirely to working because you enjoy the physicality of the work out, love dancing, feel wonderful wearing skimpy clothing and love the money.

Stripping and pole dancing can sometimes look beautiful and can, at some advanced levels, demonstrate athletic and dance skills that are impressive.

Men, as well as women, can find working as a strippers for heterosexual women to be empowering, they can also end up being exploited and suffer from mental health problems. It is not only groups of drunken men who behave badly around strippers of the opposite sex.

Even among women who claim to find stripping (and ancillary work such as lap dancing, pole dancing, nude dancing) empowering can be subjected to coercion and brainwashing to the extent that they will claim to be empowered by their work, but may in fact be trafficked and exploited in the most vile manner.

Regarding this last point I would like to ask Courtney555 about her experiences of encountering women who are yoga and “tantra" enthusiasts working in strip clubs. I am asking this as women I have spoken to who work in such establishments tell me that a significant number of women working in such establishments are involved in tantric / kundalini yoga cults., not just in the UK but all over the world.

Stripping and pole dancing can sometimes look beautiful and can, at some advanced levels, demonstrate athletic and dance skills that are impressive.

proof

OK, the above is not one of the stripping scenes in the film, but it demonstrates an athlete and dancer who has worked as a stripper demonstrating a sexually charged performance as part of a film Magic Mike XXL, which I think we need to analyse anyway, bit of a derail, I just love this video as he moves so beautifully

I suspect that there really is a small cabal of men haters who call themselves feminists. We see a lot of people call themselves feminists and one thing I think that we all agree on (possibly the only thing) is that feminism is nuanced and can mean different things to different people at different times. But in essence it is about equality.

It is a shame to see Atwood reduced to being the "author of 2 books" when she has written so much and neither of the books referred to (assuming Handmaid's Tale & the new one) is her best, really. (Blind Assassin anyone?) and someone with so much output over the years shouldn't be written off for a clumsy sentence.

sillage

“The first time I was in a strip club ......”

Clearly didn’t prevent you from returning.

Is there a sort of klaxon that sounds somewhere every time this topic comes up to summon a degree educated Happy Dancer/Stripper?

Yes. And it is very effective.

So basically

I appreciate the beauty of the human body in its athletic and varied forms when involved in gymnastics, dance and even, as displayed in the above clip, utilising crude Freudian symbolism to create cinematic frisson.

This does not mean that I think that stripping is good or bad, I think the issue is nuanced and complex.

I have never worked as a stripper and am too old to do so now, however I can imagine elements of it that I might enjoy - the pyhsicallity, athleticism, the showing off.

I think that many women and a fair few men night also enjoy the idea of stripping.

The reality is however different to the fantasy, as in so many aspects of life.

When it's men dancing for women, it's a completely different sort of thing though. Women do it for a laugh, it's comedy and almost roleplaying the reverse in a non-threatening way.

Anyway, I'm sure there are men who say they are just lonely and want a chat. And some of them may even be telling the truth. I'm not sure what difference that makes.

When it's men dancing for women, it's a completely different sort of thing though.

Of course it is

Power, patriarchy, money etc

There are similarities though

This scene is intersting insmuch as it can be interpreted in so many different ways depending on the POV

One one level it can be perceived as a group of men are supporting their friend who is suffering from anxiety and self doubt about his ability to make women happy - because al they want is to make women happy

On another it's "cheer up love might never happen"

On another is is a maniac wrecking a shop an indulging in antisocial behaviour

Well, after 5 pages of discussion, the one thing I can say with certainty is I’m very glad indeed Courtney isn’t my accountant.

Anyway, I'm sure there are men who say they are just lonely and want a chat. And some of them may even be telling the truth. I'm not sure what difference that makes.

Fortunately for men who are just lonely and want a chat we have these people called therapists. You pay them some money and chat away, no need for anyone to get naked if you just want to pay for a chat.

Fortunately for men who are just lonely and want a chat we have these people called therapists. You pay them some money and chat away, no need for anyone to get naked if you just want to pay for a chat.

There is a massive industry of sex worker / therapists. See "sexological bodyworkers", "intimacy coaches", "love coaches" and "tantric therapists". Some of them also work as strippers

Of course what both industries combine is that clients tell them their secrets.

Fortunately for men who are just lonely and want a chat we have these people called therapists. You pay them some money and chat away, no need for anyone to get naked if you just want to pay for a chat.

Yep 😂.
Or they could volunteer to befriend elderly people living alone, they’d get to have nice cup of tea and a lovely chinwag. Oh hold on, that doesn’t involve them getting their sexual kicks though does it?
Lonely and wanting a chat my arse, sleazy and too cowardly to admit what they really want is probably closer to the truth.

in a decade I have never met a trafficked [girl]

[Not addressing this to PP, just a PSA:] You cannot know someone is trafficked by looking at them. Or necessarily by talking to them. They may not have a haunted expression or a brand.

The stereotypes around trafficked women can make it harder for them to access help.

Anyone dancing their way through college is a myth

Eh? I know women who danced and others who escorted while at uni.