We call them out on 'empowerment' claims
The strip club behind the billboard trailer featuring a naked woman parked less than 500m from a local primary school has claimed to be empowering women in a Facebook post, apparently in response to our campaign.
After we exposed Brisbane strip club Dollhouse Showgirls sexually objectifying sex trade advertising, we heard from the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation in QLD who are investigating the matter and have already taken steps to make sure these signs are not placed in this location.
The Facebook post attempted to frame the strip club an example of female entrepreneurship and encouraged comments and questions- but they deleted most of these, leaving only positive comments mainly from male customers.
But women weren't buying it.
Most of these comments were promptly deleted, with the women blocked from commenting further.
Co-opting feminism to exploit women
The quote that Dollhouse Showgirls appropriated (and butchered) is from Madeleine K. Albright in her Keynote speech at Celebrating Inspiration luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, 2006.
It reads:
“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
Madeleine K. Albright is the first woman to become United States Secretary of State, sworn in on January 23, 1997 under the Clinton administration. Albright has spoken out about the impact of sexual exploitation on women and children.
We are here because we want to strengthen families, the heart and soul of any society. We believe that girls must be valued to the same degree as boys. We believe, with Pope John Paul II, in the "equality of spouses with respect to family rights". We think women and men should be able to make informed judgments as they plan their families. And we want to see forces that weaken families--including pornography, domestic violence and the sexual exploitation of children--condemned and curtailed.
Sex buyer reviews allege horrible reality of Dollhouse Showgirls strip club
We also came across some disturbing reviews of the venue:
Got 2 girls for a lap dance
One I had to send away because her vagina stunk
The other one had toilet paper all over her anus and vagina
Very poor standard
Never again- "Muddy Waters"
And
Took my husband there for his birthday after hearing great reviews.
But it turned out the dance my husband received is a stereotypical bad lap dance.Talking about her life constantly: some very inappropriate things for the scenario. Probably because when she asked what my husband did (the only question she asked about us) he told her he was a psychologist.
Was nothing flirtatious or warm about the dance...the lady seemed like she was simply going through the motions. We were looking for a regular as we love going to strip clubs but this will not be it.
- Sarah Gray
How did the venue respond?
Thank you for your feedback. I will pass the information onto the performers and ensure that they are more aware fo their clients needs. (Sic)
These reviews, while chilling in their misogyny and callousness, are entirely consistent with research on men who buy sex or sexual “services”. These men typically regard women as less than human, and see them in terms of their ability to provide sexual gratification.
As showcased above, they feel an entitlement to get their money’s worth, and they want the women they pay to use to feign enthusiasm. They prioritise their own sexual pleasure above the wellbeing of the women they use, often well aware that women clearly do not want to be there.
In the book Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, edited by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, Caitlin Roper writes:
Sex buyers are more concerned with the quality of the "sexual service" they receive than the fact that women they pay to exploit are not there by choice and are gravely harmed by being prostituted.
In 2015, Dollhouse Showgirls (previously named B Confidential) was issued a warning after officials observed several men within "very close proximity to the genital area" of a female dancer on a table, with controllers not in a position to supervise, including one eating and another serving at the bar. According to Red Light Australia, men are permitted to touch the dancers at Dollhouse Showgirls.
A former hostess at the club has alleged sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
A BRISBANE strip club hostess has sued the new owners of the club where she worked claiming she was not given any shifts shortly before she was due to take maternity leave.
Kelly-Lee Ruwoldt, from Stafford Heights, has sued the company which owns the Confidential Club in Spring Hill, claiming she was discriminated against because of her pregnancy.
Ruwoldt has asked the Federal Circuit Court to award her damages for the club’s alleged failure to give her any shifts after June 29, also claiming she was denied the right to take unpaid parental leave. Read more
So much for treating "the dolls" like family.
The truth about strip clubs
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia (CATWA) documented the abusive treatment of women in strip clubs and other sexual entertainment venues in their 2010 report.
Women in strip clubs frequently reported being ‘spat on’ and ‘sprayed with beer’, they report having cigarettes flicked at them as well as trash, condoms, golf balls and even dead animals (Holsopple, 1998). Men reportedly ‘pull...women’s hair’, ‘yank...them by the arms and ankles, rip... their costumes and attempt...to pull their clothes off’. Women are ‘bitten, licked, slapped, punched, and pinched’ whilst male buyers attempt to penetrate them vaginally and anally with ‘fingers, dollar bills, and bottles’, according to the testimony of Kelly Holsopple who worked in a strip club for a number of years, and then went back to research the venues (Holsopple, 1998). In her research she found that 100 per cent of strippers she interviewed reported being abused within the clubs.
These dangers of the strip industry have been acknowledged by the Victorian State Government’s Prostitution Control Act Advisory Committee, which in 1997 found that ‘incidents of physical and sexual violence, sexual harassment and stalking were common’ in strip clubs (Sullivan, 2008, p. 200).
Sexploitation venues create an environment that is unsafe for women, placing them at increased risk of sexual harassment, abuse and violence. Women report increased incidents of sexual harassment, abuse and violence in areas in close proximity to strip clubs.
Research found an increased violence in strip club zones and found that threatening treatment was not merely limited to employees, but extended to female members of the community who described sexual harassment and feeling unsafe:
A Geelong woman testified at the tribunal hearing that she was ‘afraid to walk home at night alone after a number of incidents involving the Alleycat strip club’ in Geelong. She testified that she had come to expect a certain amount of drunken behaviour after living in the CBD for five years but the number of incidents had sharply increased since the opening of the club (Craven, 2006)The connection between the strip industry and violence is one that has long been acknowledged. The King St 1994: Enough is Enough report drew a link between sexually explicit entertainment, alcohol and violence.
The Victorian Prostitution Control Act Advisory Committee report of 1997 also noted that the environment created by strip clubs is conducive to the harassment of women (PCAAC, 1997). Strip club zones effectively create no-go areas for women because they create an environment that is ‘unsafe for women and may be conducive to danger’ (PCAAC, 1997, p. 11). Pauline Burgess, who was on the committee, noted evidence of club patrons abusing and harassing women outside clubs, with comments such as ‘show us your tits’ (quoted in Sullivan, 2007, p. 188).” (p. 11) [Read more]
In the book Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry edited by Abigail Bray and Melinda Tankard Reist, Stella described the abuse and trauma she experienced working in a strip club:
Every day was long. Every day was hard. Every day someone forced me in some way- either licked, bit or poked me, sometimes even penetrated me, held me down, hurt me. Then there was the verbal degradation, by the customers and even ourselves. ‘Come here bitch and dance on this’, ‘oh yeah, let me be your little whore’. They cut in, those words, they get inside you. That internalisation of slut slut slut.
People seem to think that strippers work in some kind of protected and controlled environment. That they call the shots, backed up by the authority of the establishment and security staff. That the punters are the underdogs, the manipulated victims of those money-grabbing women who flaunt their sex appeal for cash and never have to pay out.
The ugliest and most sexually violent crowds were those men who were there for each other rather than the women, seeking moments to prove their masculinity, their virility, to themselves and each other, fuelled by alcohol, fear and testosterone.
This is not what empowerment looks like
Reducing women to sexual object status, to commodities to be bought and sold, does not empower women- it harms them immeasurably. Using a woman as a "front" to justify the sexual exploitation of other women in the sex trade is a common tactic.
"Surprise"
While trading in the bodies of women might be profitable for business owners this is all at the expense of women like Stella and women as a whole.
Likewise, exposing children to pornified sex trade advertising harms them.
See also:
Just 500m from a public Primary School: strip club's public porn
What we know about men who buy sex
The Men Who Buy Women for Sex- ABC Religion and Ethics
Tavern submits application to exploit women
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