Femininity and Feminism in The

POLES APART? WOMEN NEGOTIATING FEMININITY AND FEMINISM IN THE FITNESSPOLE DANCING CLASS Kerry Louise Allen BA (Hons), MSc, MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2011 Abstract This thesis explores the current trend for pole dancing as an increasingly popular fitness activity for women, taught in health and fitness clubs across the country. With the use of participant observation in classes and in-depth qualitative interviews with women who take these classes, as well as women who teach them, I explore what these types of class mean to these women, how pole dancing classes fit into contemporary feminist debates around the nature of and the future of feminism, and the pressures and expectations placed upon women to look and act in a feminine and sexualised way. Moving beyond what I see as the quite limiting previous accounts of these classes, which have debated whether or not they are empowering or degrading for women, my research suggests that pole dancing classes are complex, may be neither empowering nor degrading, for these concepts are complicated and problematic, and that the pole dancer cannot be seen as one dimensional. Women describe their participation in pole classes in a discourse of choice and control yet I show that their choice to participate is constructed somewhat by the media and the advertising of these classes which presents them as enabling women to create a particular desirable feminine and sexy self, perpetuated throughout our culture as the 'ideal'. Exploring the ways in which women attempt to manage impressions of themselves and present themselves as `respectable, examine how the women in this study wish to dis-identify with both women who work as strippers and women who are feminist, seeing both identities as contradictory to the feminine image that they pursue. I explore the capacity of these classes to offer women feelings of agency, in particular through the fun, fitness and friendships that women gain from classes, but I challenge the idea that participating in pole dancing can offer empowerment, arguing that ultimately we can view these women's participation in terms of both their active engagement and enjoyment of these classes and in terms of the structures and pressures which continue to shape their lives. 2 Acknowledgements This has been more challenging than I ever could have imagined and I could not have done this without the support of a number of people. First of all, thank you to all of the women that i met throughout the course of this research, in participant observations, online discussions and forums, and the 24 women with whom I carried out interviews. Without these women this research would simply not have been possible. Thank you to staff in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham,and in particular my supervisors Dr Nick Stevenson and Dr Esther Bott for all of your advice and guidance. Thank you to my parents, John and Julia Allen, for loving and supporting me every step of the way, not just for the last four years, but for the last 30.1 could never have got this far without you both. A massive thank you to my gorgeous boyfriend Pete, for all of your love, support, patience, for doing all the dishes and for keeping me going during the writing up period. I love you loads. Thanks also to my beautifulcat Ernie, for the many hours spent keeping me company in my office whilst I wrote this thesis. Finally in memory of Oscar, Sofie, and also my grandparents,all of whom sadly never got to see me finish this but who would have been so proud... 3 Contents Page Number Title Page 1 Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Chapter One: Introducing Fitness Pole Dancing 6 Chapter Two: Feminism, Gender and Society: Exploring the Cultural Context for the Mainstreaming of Pole Dancing Classes 22 Introduction 22 What is Feminism? 24 Structure and Agency 33 The Body and the Gaze 45 Girlie Consumption 55 Girlie Feminism 63 Anti-Essentialist Feminism 71 Summary 77 Chapter Three: Researching Pole Dancing: The Research Setting, Methodology and Exploring my Voice as a Feminist Researcher 80 Introduction 80 Developinga Feminist Methodology 81 ResearchTechniques 90 Participant as Observer 90 Interviewing 99 Analysis and Write Up 114 Research Reflections 116 Feeling Guilty 117 Impression Management 122 Developing my Feminist Voice 125 Summary 129 4 Chapter but Four: `I dance around a pole.. I am not a pole dancer... ' Impression Management, Class, Gender and Respectability in the Pole Dancing Class 131 Introduction 131 RespectablePole Dancing 132 Keeping Pole Dancing Secret 140 The MiddleClass Pole Dancer 146 The Enterprising Pole Dancer 152 Pole Dancing for Empowerment 156 am not a Pole Dancer... 166 I am not a Feminist... 180 Summary 186 Chapter Five: Muscles, Strength and Risk... but still being Sexy, Feminine and Girlie: Discussions of the Pole Dancing Body 188 Introduction 188 Barbie Dolls: The Image of the Pole Dancer 190 Just Do It: The Ethic of the Fitness Pole Dancer 203 Muscles and Strength: A Strong Pole Dancing Body 212 Bruises, Injury and Pain: Taking Risks in Fitness Pole Dancing 221 Summary 237 Chapter Six: Being 'One of the Girls': Female Friendship, Empowerment and the Pole Dancing Community 240 Introduction 240 Making Friends in Pole Dancing Classes 242 Talking Pole: Conversationsin the Pole DancingCommunity 251 'Girl Power!' through Pole Dancing 260 Conflict in the Pole Dancing Community 274 Summary 280 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 284 References 297 Appendix One: Interviewee Consent to Participate Letter 325 Appendix Two: Interviewee Details 327 5 Chapter One Introducing Fitness Pole Dancing This thesis explores pole dancing classes as increasingly offered within the health and fitness industry and advertised as a class to improve physical fitness. They are also said to increase confidence, in particular sexual confidence, and its' proponents suggest that pole dancing is an 'empowering' experience for women. This type of dancing, however, is also performed in the striptease industry and the main asset and tool used by the female stripper is the vertical dance pole, which is usually used as part of a dance and strip routine performed on the main stage in a lap dancing club. The typical image of a pole dancer in popular culture appears to remain that of a semi-naked young woman, swinging, gyrating and rubbing her body against the dance pole in order to sexually arouse a (typically male) audience. Pole fitness classes take the activity out of the lap dancing club setting and into a health and fitness arena, removing the performance to an audience and the exchange of this act for money. Yet the women who participate in these classes still appear to be young, partially nude, and are taught the techniques of a typical pole dance, they use the same type of dance pole, and they often (although not always) wear the same high heeled glass slipper style shoes (which are referred to as 'stripper shoes'). Clearly this raises some interesting questions around how this type of practice has come to infiltrate not just the sex industry but also, increasingly, the fitness industry, and the highly sexualised and gendered image that these types of class represent. 6 This form of pole dancing as we know it today is said to have originated in lap dancing clubs in Canada in the 1980's (Moody, 2005), yet the origins of using a pole as a dance prop are argued to go back many years prior to this. It is suggested that the roots of pole dancing originate from the Indian gymnastic practice of Mallakhamb (literally translated as 'man of power' and meaning 'gymnasts' pole'), a form of yoga or gymnastics practiced usually by men on a wooden pole, said to date back to the 12th century (Moody, 2005), and another theory is that pole dancing is linked to maypole dancing, which in turn has historically been thought by some to have represented a phallic symbol or a Pagan symbol of fertility, celebrating sexuality and life (Moody, 2005; Lloyd, 2007). Pole dancing is also said to be linked with Chinese pole, seen in the Chinese circus where circus performers climb, slide down and perform gymnastic poses and movements on a rubber coated pole. The most popular suggestion as to the origins of pole dancing, however, is that it began in the early 1900s in America when travelling fairs would have a group of women dance on stage in tents to entertain the male crowds (Stencell, 1999; Lloyd, 2007). These women are said to have been called the 'hoochi coochi dancers' and the term 'hoochi coochi' is said to originate from the gyrating hip movements performed by the dancers. The hoochi coochi dancers were alleged to have begun to use the wooden tent poles as a prop whilst dancing, grinding their bodies against the poles and simulating sex in order to attract the crowds (Stencell, 1999). It is argued that this type of dancing gradually began evolving from tents to bars as burlesque dancing and striptease became more popular in the 1950s and poles began to increasingly be used in these settings, with the dance pole remaining a major prop used in lap dancing clubs today. 7 The UK's first lap dancing club opened in the early 1990s and the numbers of lap dancing clubs have grown since then to the extent that in 2001 lap dancing was described as one of the fastest growing areas in Britain's sex industry' (BBC News, 2001) and in 2004 there were an estimated 150 legally operating clubs in the UK (Bindel, 2004).

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