I went to the theater last night to see a performance that I was very excited about. It claimed to be about female empowerment, the Goddess, and the spiritual journey through the feminine. Not!
I leaned over to my friend and whispered, “In about 2.5 seconds I’m going to get diarrhea and have to leave, so you can meet me outside or you can exit with me but I’m getting out of here.” Luckily she was thinking the same thing I was.
First of all the show claimed to be about female empowerment. Young teen girls wearing shirts that say “Stripper” and “Porn Star” claim to be empowered, too. I think we all should reread Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy.
Where do I begin? Let’s start with the set design. The way the stage was set up put the band, made mostly of men, up on a platform looking down on the women and their poles. The “dancing Goddesses” were scantily clad in little white negligees with tight hot pants underneath. We got full view of their crotches as they swung around the various stripper poles placed around the stage. The show claimed, “To remind people of their emotional and intuitive strength in a society that considers emotions a weakness.” I think putting women on poles dressed as strippers and saying they are Goddesses is nowhere near strength. My intuition said that diarrhea was coming and I had to get out of there. I went to see the show because I’m working on a dance show that is about the eternal return and the rise of the Phoenix. I thought by chance there was something out there that was similar to my piece but, yet again, I’m breaking all the rules on my next project, too. If I am not standing with the other women claiming that being objectified by men is empowering then I don’t mind standing alone. I’ve spoken to quite a few prostitutes who said they got power out of being paid. I say we’re getting screwed.
Why do we have to open our legs and show our waxed crotches to be sexy? Why is it about “reclaiming the pole?” I have nothing against dancing or women being sexy. I think that women really owning their power, beauty, and strength are the sexiest. And of course the dancing Goddesses in this show were not singing or speaking. They were silently twisting and turning around the idealized poles.
Am I just an uptight an feminist on a rant? I could be. I am open to being wrong about this but my idea of reclaiming the pole is ripping it out of the ground and turning it horizontal instead of vertical and then really do some acrobatic moves! Women having their asses up in the air and bent over to receive “the pole” is not empowerment in my book.
