The expansion of lap-dancing clubs has brought a new debate involving the women's movement, trade unionists and socialists. While most are agreed that such clubs promote sexual oppression and that new clubs should be opposed, there may be room for different approaches to the situation after a new club has opened Should the campaign be to get it closed again - or to get the women worong there unionised and fighting to improve their pay and conditions! MANDY BAKER gives her view. W ith the opening of a new
Spearmint Rhino lap-dancing club in Sheffield, a debate has emerged about whether or not to call for its closure or to encourage women working there to organise themselves.
But maybe we can call for both? It may not sit comfortably to argue both for the unionisation of a workplace and for its closure - not least to those whose jobs are threatened but maybe there is no neat way of packaging the arguments up.
Clubs like Spearmint Rhino aim to reinforce the idea that women are sexual objects, and sex for sale is acceptable. They legitimise the sex industry, a highly exploitative and dangerous profession for many, often vulnerable, young women and sometimes men.
There is no real argument against closure. Spearmint Rhino is a super exploitative, new and very big business trying to newly establish itself and increase its popularity by dressing up as mainstream entertainment.
Furthermore, although it sells itself as a lap-dancing club, there are reports of private areas available within Spearmint Rhino venues where sex is sold.
Campaigning against the existence of clubs like Spearmint Rhino is fair enough. Although there are smaller, independent and maybe worse places, which we can equally oppose, Spearmint Rhino is an understandable target for protest.
That said, it would be wrong to ignore the views of the women who work in these clubs and the wider sex industry. And any campaign around closure would need to be directed at dub owners, licensing authorities, etc. not the workers themselves
t would also be wrong to line up with
any NIMBY type arguments around
relocation, which wouldn't tackle the real issues faced by women in the sex industry: or with the venomous moral right.
But, what about clubs that don't close down? Asking women not to work at Spearmint Rhino isn't realistic, especially when wages and working hours are such a pull.
And what about other, more sinister, aspects of sex work? Conditions for the majority of women in prostitution are appalling - a brutal underground world of sex slavery, illegal trafficking, violence and abuse. Working in saunas with access to safer conditions is probably better than working on the streets.
Women are better off organising collectively as opposed to being run by a pimp. Prostitution should end, but in the here and now, fighting for the safest possible working environment and economically viable alternatives to prostitution is important.
Surely workers in the sex industry have as much right as any other worker to join a union, to unite with others and fight for better working conditions. In any case, sex workers are already organised. Wouldn't we want to work with them?
The real anchoring point is around the wider issues relating to women's inequality. Women are still treated like second class citizens. We still earn less than men, are underrepresented in positions of power and are generally expected to bear the brunt of unpaid roles like housework and bringing up children. French prostitutes' union protest targets hypocritical politicians who 'sleep with us, but vote against us"
Spearmint Rhino, like other lap-dancing clubs, like saunas, brothels and street prostitution are symptoms of women's oppression. It's no accident that the vast majority of workers in the sex industry are women.
Or that the tabloid, music and advertising industries pump out provocative, submissive images of women. Women are still discriminated against economically, professionally and sexually.
And while we should take up campaigns against the more blatant aspects of sexism, we still have to challenge the others issues -equality of pay, access to decent, affordable childcare and equal representation - and fight for measures to raise aspirations and lift women out of poverty.
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nce February 2003 2l
... Chinese Communist troops march into Nangking 1949: