Sitting behind a Tim Hortons* on campus today, I overheard a conversation involving two women and two men. They were loudly speaking at the table next to me, so it was difficult not to overhear. To my horror, the young woman, probably about 19 years old told her female friend (who had a boyfriend sitting with her) that she had gone to many strip clubs. The other woman said she hadn't been to any, so the first woman said she should take her. What came next was the real shock - she informed her friends that while she was at the strip club they played the loonie* game but the stripper was ugly anyway, she said. For those of you not familiar, the loonie game or sometimes even, the penny game, is where onlookers throw coins at the strippers on stage, hoping to hit them in certain parts of the body. This is apparently a good way to spend a Friday night. Oh, and to continue the trend, the woman also added that the stripper was "a total dog."
It really disgusted me to hear women talking about other women like "the other", like a piece of meat unworthy of respect or dignity without thinking about a society that upholds such hatred of women.
I have heard of women going to strip clubs just to say they went, or to degrade other women. Maybe it gets them more points with their pornsick boyfriends, who knows?
It is commonplace in my city to throw coins at strippers as a form of entertainment. This way, doods (and clearly some women) can go out with their pals and have "fun" at the expense of a woman being paid to take her clothes off for a bunch of scumbag pimps and misogynists.
To add to the already offensive conversation - the women also talked about up-and-coming female authors and how the only authors anyone could think of was "that Twilight bitch" or "that Harry Potter bitch"
What the hell is going on?
* Tim Hortons is a coffee chain in Canada (the best damn coffee around!)
* A loonie is a one dollar coin in Canada. It is a large gold-coloured coin with a loon on it. It's not small nor particularly light.
Aged Canadian here.
ReplyDeleteKiller, I had no idea that that is going on in strip clubs. Stoning-lite, eh? Someone should call the cops so that we can have an official *ahem* law enforcement agent watch this mass assault on a female. And then see what if any action he takes. Get his badge number with your phone camera. Best of all, record a video of the whole phenomenon with the assaults, the cop, his excuses.
Then send it in to the Toronto Star. They'll embed the video in their site, and raise a kerfuffle.
'Twould be interesting. :-)
That is terrible! I don't understand how a woman can be so hateful to other women.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing surprising about women having extreme women-hating behaviours towards women and girls inside the sex trade.
ReplyDeleteAs long as there has been a sex trade, some women have disassociated themselves from the prostituted class by viewing them as sub-human.
There been degrading of women and girls inside sex clubs or their many varieties of places since at least Roman and ancient Greeks. Throughout a very long history, women have separated themselves from the bad whore. This is usually done by appearing eager to push her into the dirt.
Throwing coins to injure the whore is just part of that long history.
These actions are done to prove that are good enough to belong to a man as a girlfriend or wife - depending on the culture or period of history they are in. They not evil whore.
As long as we allow the sex trade to exist - women will disassociated themselves from the prostituted class- often by cruel and sometimes sadistic behaviour.
Do not think this behaviour is new.
I'd have probably asked that woman if she'd like to be quasi-stoned at work and treated like a hunk of nothing by other women for the amusement of dudes. I've done it to some obnoxious kids throwing things around on the train, asked them whether they'd like me to throw stuff around in their houses.
ReplyDeleteShaming doesn't always work, but the shock of a stranger calmly calling them out sometimes forces them to justify their bullying bullshit. It's really nice how our female misogynist thinks this is acceptable behavior, like the same conditions that she applies to the stripper could never be applied to her, or it already has been and she's trying to minimize by humiliating others, like a vicious circle. It's always depressing to see the divide and conquer tactic at work.
Just when you thought it was safe to stop being pissed off all the time.
ReplyDeleteWell men seem to have to much fun hating women and treating them like fuckholes and pieces of meat, women just couldn't resist right? I would say this is horrifying, but sometimes women are better are at enforcing "the patriarchy" than the men.
ReplyDelete