Is being a stripper empowering to women?

Question

is it a way of a woman making sure no one tells her what to do with her body?

thanks

Answer 1

To each thier own..

Some people like to strip and be in p**n and if they want to do it I am not gonna stop them.

I wouldnt do it.

It empowers me when I do it for my husband but thats it...I would be too self conscious to do it for money...

and my husband would be pissed too...hee hee

Answer 2

If being a stripper was truly empowering for women, then maybe all women would be equally able to make money doing so... not just skinny white women who conform to traditional beauty standards.

Those few women who do meet beauty standards and strip may experience stripping as empowering, but the money she gets from dancing is always contingent upon men's approval of her body. If men don't approve of her or don't feel like paying, then she just worked without pay. How empowering is that?

See the source below for some social research demonstrating the relationship between stripping and various abuses.

Answer 3

Strippers are feminists too...HAHAHA

Answer 4

no.

Answer 5

Ahahaa!  Nice avatar nickname.  

Anyway, being a stripper is as empowering to women as being a slave is to mankind.

Answer 6

Stripping for your partner is empowering for many reasons! i don't think its empowering otherwise. and definitely its not about saying no one tells you what to do with your body because stripping is getting paid to do s**y things so in a way you are being told what to do with your body anyways. am i right? ;)

Answer 7

The bigger the generalization, the greater the chance for error.  

Every single job requires you to do something with your body you'd probably rather not be doing in exchange for money. We all prostitute ourselves that way.

It depends on whether those individual girls find it empowering.

Answer 8

In most cases, no.  I knew of coworkers who had worked as dancers, and my daughter worked as a dancer for three years (so glad she's not doing that anymore). Anyway, Here is what they told me of what it was like to work as a stripper...and to me it sounds anything but empowering.

When you consider that we were living in an economically depressed area, I can see why some girls are attracted to dancing initially. Compared to working fast food, or in retail, you can make considerably more money.  It seems like easy money.  Yes, it's fast money, but it's not easy:  you literally earn every penny of it, and it's costly to one's soul and spirit at times because of the way you get treated by both the club and the customers.

The theory is that you're doing what you want with your body, but in reality, your having to conform to male fantasies in order to get the tips and what not.  If it were strictly dancing,there'd be no problem, but there's the pressure to do more than just dance in the VIP rooms...even though such things were clearly illegal, and could get the place checked out by the cops or get the girls fired.

Also, sometimes the women woud be ostracized by other women or people in her community if they knew what she did for a living.  It didn't matter if she was dancing to put food on the table, or put herself through college.  In fact, during the tiime my daughter danced, she told me that often times she was the only girl at the club whose mother hadn't turned her back on her...and trust me, there were times when we'd get into disagreements about the dancing...and there was considerable strain in our relationship at that time because I felt very embarrassed that she was doing this...like somehow I had failed as a mother.  The only saving grace was I was 200 miles away and didn't have to see it everyday...but in the end I realized she made her choice, and it was NOT my fault. During that time, I prayed..and cried...a lot, but eventually her eyes were opened and she got out none the worse for wear.

Some of the girls have had problems with managers, djs, male security guards hitting on them or expecting favors, but who are they gonna report to re: sexual harassment? If they are sexually assaulted and go to the police,who's gonna believe them or have any empathy for them because the cops see them as one of "those" kinds of girls?  So they either put up with it or find another club or get out altogether.

I know strippers who tried to see what they were doing as "art" but the men watching them didn't see them as artists, they saw them as pieces of meat and treated them accordingly. In fact, some of the men would get angry if the girl got "too artsy"...they just wanted to cut to the chase.

Know what I always thought was weird? The girls had to pay a "house fee"  basically PAY to dance.  Any tips you made above the "fee" was yours to keep.  Some days you made a lot of money, other days you barely covered the house fee.  To me, it sounds like the club is your pimp. Yet all those girls thought they were better than prostitutes.  The pecking order amongst s*x workers is just unbelievable...but yet the "clients" see all the girls in the same way be they stripper, street hooker or expensive escort, to the men, those women are tramps...and not worthy of respect.

Answer 9

If it were empowering, then strippers would not feel the need to use drugs or alcohol to get their 'courage' to go on stage or to numb the pain from the degradation and shame.  And you can gimme all the flack about not every stripper is on drugs or alcohol, but I was a bondsman.  I saw the fresh faces in the clubs when I went to pick up money to bond out the older strippers.  And within a year more than 75 percent of those women were on something too.  And if you spoke candidly with the ones you made acquaintance with, you would hear of what else the stripping led too.  Like turning tricks in the parking lot or back rooms for extra money to feed their increasing habits.

It is really sad and degrading.  And a shame that any man thinks that this is an okay to treat the daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts and friends of the world.  They should keep their singles and put them in the offering plate and turn away from abusing women.  Because that is what it amounts to.

Answer 10

I'd find it degrading. It doesn't empower men and they're the gender with the most power so why would it empower me.

Answer 11

It's empowering to those that love to show off their body and people worship it.

Answer 12

no it isn't

Answer 13

The only time they feel empowered is when they get paid.  That's all they do it for.

Answer 14

Uh, there is a website called feministstripper.com



There's two sides of this argument, like anything else. s*x-positive feminism is okay with stripping, b/c it's a woman's choice. The job has it's downfalls too.

From what I hear, stripping "looks glamorous and empowering," but really isn't?

Answer 15

Women make their own empowerment. I personally find it repulsive, but my opinion doesn't really matter.

Answer 16

yes, and so is pornography.