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The Susan B. Anthony of Pole Dancing

Jill

Via Jenn, I found this video of Stephen Colbert applauding empowerful feminist women who are taking the movement to the next level — by poledancing. It’s pretty fantastic, and it hits at an issue that always grates on my nerves: The need to sell everything as “feminist.”

I’m sure that poledancing can be a whole lot of fun (although it’s worth noting that at least one woman in the video said that she thinks her husband enjoys watching it more than she enjoys doing it). I’m sure that one of the reasons it’s fun is because, like any other performance, it puts the attention directly on you — and with poledancing it’s positive sexual attention. Ain’t nothing wrong with feeling sexy, or with trying to please your partner. For a lot of women, including “Susan B. Anthony” here, poledancing is a lucrative skill. It looks like a pretty tough work out.

But that doesn’t automatically make it feminist. It’s not necessarily anti-feminist either, but the constant branding of traditionally feminine and/or male-pleasing activities as “empowerful” is getting old. Although I do love the guy who says he likes feminist pole-dancing because it makes him not look like such a pig when he watches. See? Feminism is good for men, too!

25 thoughts on The Susan B. Anthony of Pole Dancing

  3. Poledancing is stupid. If you’re the sort of person who gets off on performing in front of an audience, you should do real gymnastics and not some bowdlerized hackjob version.

  4. ‘S funny. When I was a kid, we had a pole like that supporting our back verandah. I was always climbing and spinning on it, with no sexual aspect to it at all. And I will say this, it was fun as hell to just play and spin on that pole. (in retrospect, it was a great strengthening routine as well)

    If I still had a verandah pole like that, I might well still spin on it. For an audience? Not so much.

  5. It’s funny alright but that note to self: hire more women line at the beginning isn’t REALLY that funny, since one of the things that irks me most about my beloved Daily Show and liked well enough Colbert Report is the serious lack of female staff writers. (According to Wikipedia there’s currently ONE woman writing for The Daily Show and IMDb shows two women on staff between 2005-2006.

  6. Ever tried pole dancing? I did, recently, It’s -not that easy.- And while I agree that, like just about everything else, it’s neither inherently feminist nor anti-feminist, I fail to see why it’s any dumber than “classical” gymnastics. Why is doing tricks on a vertical pole and dumber than doing tricks on a balance beam, for fuck’s sake? Because one’s primarily known for being done in strip clubs and one’s done at the Olympics? Well, fuck that.

    And frankly, you ask me, I’m more worried about the gymnastics from a feminist viewpoint. Ever read “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes?” At least thus far no one’s insisting pole dancers diet down to starvation weight and nearly drive themselves insane at the hands of stage parents and fucked up coaches. And at least they’re a lot more likely to be over eighteen.

    But yeah, being good at -anything- you enjoy and builds muscles is “empowering,” you betcha. And if part of your enjoyment is in sexual exhibitionism: so the fuck what? IF you really hate it and are -only- doing it to placate a spouse, that’s something else; but again, that’s true of -anything-, and frankly i’d rather just get the emphasis off the bloody pole dancing in that case, and suggest some good old fashioned CR and/or assertiveness training.

    “No, I don’t want to.”

    “yes, this is what I want to do.”

    It’s not that complicated, people.

  8. Poledancing is stupid. If you’re the sort of person who gets off on performing in front of an audience, you should do real gymnastics and not some bowdlerized hackjob version.

    Hmmm.

    Do you also berate all open mic night poetry readers as loser hacks and tell them to either be as good as Maya Angelou or get off the damn stage?

    Poledancers are like anyone else doing a job or creating a performance. Some of them perform exquisite, amazingly athletic routines, and some don’t. Dismissing everyone as hacks or stupid is at best inaccurate and at worst clueless and judgmental.

    Unless of course you’re a troll, in which case please disregard my response because the nice sign says DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

  9. I fail to see why it’s any dumber than “classical” gymnastics. Why is doing tricks on a vertical pole and dumber than doing tricks on a balance beam, for fuck’s sake?

    You can do a hell of a lot more with a balance beam (or rings or whatever) than with a stupid pole bolted to the ceiling. If you really like the pole form, do something useful and get a jungle gym.

    I’m more worried about the gymnastics from a feminist viewpoint.

    Gymnastic culture is also stupid, and massively dysfunctional to boot.

    And if part of your enjoyment is in sexual exhibitionism: so the fuck what?

    Exhibition is inherently done for the benefit of others. That’s what’s wrong.

  10. I found this video of Stephen Colbert applauding empowerful feminist women who are taking the movement to the next level — by poledancing.

    I didn’t really see the segment as “applauding” the poledancing. I mean, the constant juxtaposition of the Larry Flynt-associate saying “poledancing is sexual and not feminist in any way” with the woman teaching poledancing as “empowerful and not about sex at all and all about feminism” gave me the very strong impression that the segment was questioning the notion that it was empowering in any way.

    And the interviews with the guys and gals taking or watching the class: The guy who says that it gives him a way to enjoy women poledancing and not look like a pig. The woman who says “[my husband] enjoys it more than I do.”

    I don’t know… it just didn’t come across as promoting the “empowerful” meme. I thought it was much more skeptical.

  12. I got in trouble for pole-dancing in elementary school.

    I was pretending to waltz with one of the poles holding up the swingset. Guess what, it got back to the playground lady that “[slythwolf] was dancing with a pole on the playground” and my parents got called in for a conference.

  13. Jill, I am really disappointed in your take here.

    Not that you or anyone should or will care, but I’m delinking Feministe.

    I blogged about the Colbert Report piece at my site, not that anyone, again, would or should care.

  14. Exhibition is inherently done for the benefit of others. That’s what’s wrong.

    I don’t understand why this is necessarily a problem.

  15. “Exhibition is inherently done for the benefit of others. That’s what’s wrong. ”

    1) Pole dancing is not necessarily about exhibition.

    2) Exhibition is NOT necessarily done for the benefit of others. Ever hear of an exhibitionist?

  16. When I was a kid, we had a pole like that supporting our back verandah. I was always climbing and spinning on it, with no sexual aspect to it at all. And I will say this, it was fun as hell to just play and spin on that pole. (in retrospect, it was a great strengthening routine as well)

    Wow I’m not the only one who did that! I was always crying to climb poles and trees when I was little, the verandah poles were a fun challenge to get to the top of when I didn’t get caught and told to get down before a break something heheh

  17. I have mixed feelings.

    If it’s so empowering, why aren’t men signing up for the class?

    A man picturing himself doing that sees his own privilege bonus points disappear if he were looked at the way men look at those women (the arousal level of the men in the audience is irrelevant to the power loss).

    Even as a radical feminist, I suppose I could see pole dancing as a fun form of exercise in an egalitarian society that does not commodify female body parts. I can’t decontextualize this activity from present realities, and neither can the vast majority of their audience.

    The reality is that even when I reached the upper echelons of advanced ballet in my youth, many of the fathers of the younger kids didn’t even bother to hide that they sexualized me at the studio and at recitals. The dancing and costumes were non-sexual, yet they didn’t see my athleticism anyway. So, perhaps pole dancing just removes the pretense since the men are going to degrade any display of female athleticism–whether they are “asking for it” or not.

  18. P.S. Just goes to show that goofing on a pole dancer from Jersey is the only way you’ll ever hear the word “feminism” mentioned in the MSM.

  19. I don’t know that I’d sign up for a pole dancing class (not into the sexual exhibitionism aspect) but playing on poles is fun. Harder now because I’m older and fatter, but I did it all the time when I was a kid.

    “Classical” gymnastics as a superior sport is sort of silly. I mean hell, what makes the parallel bars so “male” while the uneven bars (which are way, way, WAY more fun to play on if you’re a kid) so “female?” Is there a penis hiding somewhere in the equipment that I’ve missed over all these years?

    All that gymnastics really is, is a way to improve health, balance, etc. I can do that on an “official male gymnastics implement” like a pommel horse, or I can do it on a snowboard (even a ‘girls’ model’.) Or a mat. Or a pole.

    [shrug] Not a huge fan though. As a parent of 2 girls, I’m hoping that I can encourage them to feel empowered by being smart, skilled, happy, powerful, knowledgeable, athletic, etc. Getting positive sexual attention seems pleasant enough, but also seems ‘second class.’ Mostly because it relies on ANOTHER person’s judgment, and not on your own internal power.

  20. It really upsets me that people continue to see it as commodification, all about nothing but sexuality (not that there’s anything WRONG with experssing our sexuality however we choose, either), and framing it in terms of men having power over women. I feel like I can describe and explain until I’m blue in the face, and people STILL cling to those preconceptions – which are very patriarchal in nature.

    As for why aren’t there men signing up? Well, at the studio I go to, the classes are all specifically women-only, because it is NOT FOR MEN to watch. It is not about men, and it’s not done for men. It’s about us, the women participating.

    People seem to LOVE that belly-dancing is traditionally done for and by women, and classes are all woman. I cannot understand why it is different with thsi type of dance. A HUGE part of the point is to create a safe, nurturing, supportive all-woman environment. To be honest, my pole dancing classes are the most supportive, non-judgmental woman-only environment I have EVER experienced.

    I feel sad because I keep saying things like this all oevr the place, explaining my experiences, explaining why it’s short-sighted to insist that it’s about objectification adn such. I feel very angry and just… well, sad.

  21. Pingback: Being Amber Rhea » Blog Archive » Same old, same old

  22. There -are- men signing up for the classes. There’s even a professional male pole dancing team i know of. There’d probably be more if they weren’t, like, women-only, the classes I know of. You know, to make it a -safe space.-

  23. >Exhibition is inherently done for the benefit of others. That’s what’s wrong.>

    Oh for fuck’s sake. You do know some people -get off- on exhibiting themselves? Women, too, yeah? Voyeurism, too, yes IN deed, we do have The Gaze, as in eyes and gonads and a voice. Better to do it in a way that provides pleasure for everyone than, o i don’t know, making a public spectacle and giant ass of oneself online under the guise of nannying.

  25. Yeah, there are classes in other cities that allow men, and even some that are men-only. As far as I know though, the majority are women-only. Personally I like it that way, in my class. But there definitely *are* male pole dancers. (Which is kind of irrelevant, in my opinion… do there have to be male participants in an activity in order to legitimize it? THAT’S not patriarchal…)

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