Burlesque: A Hip Way to Embrace Patriarchy

photo found here 

I have spoken of my disdain for burlesque before, mostly on my video blog. As you can imagine, tons of “liberated and empowered” people told me how prudish I was, how I just could not see how amazing burlesque is. Recently I was browsing through my school’s recreation center and realized that they have now started offering a burlesque class. What could be more liberating?

The reason I thought of this was because I just saw a photograph of Margaret Cho doing burlesque in barley anything. I mean, if Cho does it, it must be cool.

Now the coolness stems from our society pinning dude-friendly-boner inducing activities as ‘hip’. Burlesque re-emerged in the last few years like a plague. It’s drifting around, inducing boners and embracing gender roles. Gross.

So, what’s up my ass anyway? I mean, why am I so bothered by womyn-spaces turning into spaces of womyn learning to please dudes. Well, I’ll go into point form by responding to common things I hear about burlesque enthusiasts because when I go on with writing sentences, I tend to lose my train of rant-thought (yes I just created that term)

Burlesque is about loving your body and embracing being a woman!

The questions I would ask this person are as follows:

1) Why do you need to wear barely there clothes that hurt your body (the corset and high heels) in order to love your body?

2) What does “being a woman” look like? It’s not some universal concept, it’s simply embracing of gender roles, and how womyn should be. Burlesque gives the impression that women should be horny, available and willing to please men.

3) The way in which burlesque dancers dress, or do not dress is a way that men have traditionally deemed attractive. This falls under the idea that womyn are put on earth to sexually stimulate males. Hence why so many dudes go watch these shows.

It’s mostly women who go, not men! So it’s about women being empowered!

1) Burlesque shows often play before bands, at least in my city, and it is usually to draw people in to come to the musician’s show. These music shows are not just for womyn, in fact a lot of men come out just to watch the womyn dance

2) Burlesque has this “tease” element to it, this is about “teasing” men, so rather than full out fucking men, you make them anticipate it but do not do it. If these womyn are supposed to sexually tease men during burlesque, then how is this detached or separate from patriarchal influence?

3) Patriarchy works in mysterious ways – but this isn’t one of them. This is blatantly about inducing boners with this myth of “empowerment” thrown on it. Why must womyn feel they need to be empowered by pleasing a man? Why does our liberation come FROM men?

It’s not like we’re strippers or something, it’s much classier than that!

1) Oh really? I know of a lot of burlesque shows that only cover a womyn’s nipples. But I guess that’s not nude enough to constitute stripping, right?

2) The fact that you are onstage with the purpose of “teasing” men isn’t really much different from the purpose of stripping or giving a lap dance

3) “Classy” is another term given to “good girls”, so there’s this idea that classy womyn do burlesque and whores strip. This is where we get the fun perceptions of mother vs. whore, or a lady vs. whore. As if there are “better”

Burlesque is a choice, and feminism is about choice, therefore burlesque is feminist!

1) A+b doesn’t equal c in this scenario, friends. Why? Because making a choice isn’t in itself feminist, is it? I am so sick of this idea that some aspects of womyn’s experience are above criticism or critique and others aren’t. If a womyn makes a choice to run a brothel that sells other womyn to dangerous men, are they feminist, too?

2) The reason burlesque is critiqued by feminists is because it’s a patriarchal activity that gets wide-spread applause. You don’t see womyn’s academic or political groups in school gaining such recognition, but if you dance in panties and corsets and wear heels that will ruin your back, you’re empowered.

3) Embracing patriarchy isn’t fighting patriarchy, I’m pretty sure this is the goal of feminism.

I’m done for this rant, add more if you like. I’d also like to express my utter hatred for the show called “Re-vamped” in which several divorced womy n learn to wear garter belts and hump chairs to get revenge on their husbands. You know what’s empowering after you get a divorce? Not giving your husband boners so he can re-live his sex fantasies with you. I mean, really. Do you honestly think you are getting revenge by giving into his sexual fantasies? But of course, other men have to find you sexually attractive; this will get that asshole back! By dancing around in panties and licking your lips you will induce many boners of other dudes, which will make your ex husband get all huff and puffy with masculine rage. I mean, getting dudes to fight over us is what is important because male approval is necessary for our liberation…