an article by Kate Hardy and Teela Sanders (University of Leeds, UK) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 29 Number 1 (February 2015)
Abstract
The visibility of striptease (‘lap dancing’) as a workplace and site of consumption has grown significantly over the past 15 years in the UK.
This article draws on the first large scale study of stripping work in the UK, exploring original empirical data to examine why women continue to seek work in an industry that is profoundly precarious and often highly exploitative. It suggests that rather than either a ‘career’ or a ‘dead end’ job, many women use lap dancing strategically to create alternative futures of work, employment and education.
It is argued that precarious forms of employment such as lap dancing can be instrumentalised through agentic strategies by some workers, in order to achieve longer term security and to develop opportunities outside the sex industry.
As such, it is averred that engagement in the industry should instead be understood in a wider political economy of work and employment and the social wage.
Showing posts with label stripping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stripping. Show all posts
Monday, 24 August 2015
Friday, 21 September 2012
Devalued, deskilled and diversified: explaining the proliferation of the strip industry in the UK
an article by Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy (School of Sociology, University of Leeds) published in The British Journal of Sociology Volume 63 Issue 3 (September 2012)
Abstract
This paper looks beyond the debates that focus on the objectification of the female body to examine the question as to why strip clubs have proliferated and found a permanent place in the night-time economy in the UK.
Using empirical qualitative and quantitative data from the largest study into the strip industry in the UK to date, we challenge the common assumption that ‘demand’ is responsible for the rise in erotic dance.
Instead, we argue that the proliferation of strip clubs is largely due to the internal economic structures of the industry which have developed partly in response to the financial crisis beginning in 2008.
First, we argue that clubs profit from individual dancers through an exploitative system of fees and fines, rendering a strip club business a low cost investment with high returns and little risk to club owners.
Second, we note that the last decade has seen diversification of the industry accompanied by deskilling and devaluing of dancing and dancers’ labour.
Third, we demonstrate that despite the negative effects of these changes on workers, there has been an expansion of the industry as the ability to make profit, even during a financial crisis, was ensured through the transferral of risk to workers.
Overall, we suggest that far from proliferating as a response to demand, the industry has maintained its market presence due to its ability to establish highly financially exploitation employment relationships with dancers at a time of economic fragility.
Abstract
This paper looks beyond the debates that focus on the objectification of the female body to examine the question as to why strip clubs have proliferated and found a permanent place in the night-time economy in the UK.
Using empirical qualitative and quantitative data from the largest study into the strip industry in the UK to date, we challenge the common assumption that ‘demand’ is responsible for the rise in erotic dance.
Instead, we argue that the proliferation of strip clubs is largely due to the internal economic structures of the industry which have developed partly in response to the financial crisis beginning in 2008.
First, we argue that clubs profit from individual dancers through an exploitative system of fees and fines, rendering a strip club business a low cost investment with high returns and little risk to club owners.
Second, we note that the last decade has seen diversification of the industry accompanied by deskilling and devaluing of dancing and dancers’ labour.
Third, we demonstrate that despite the negative effects of these changes on workers, there has been an expansion of the industry as the ability to make profit, even during a financial crisis, was ensured through the transferral of risk to workers.
Overall, we suggest that far from proliferating as a response to demand, the industry has maintained its market presence due to its ability to establish highly financially exploitation employment relationships with dancers at a time of economic fragility.
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