Monday, April 12, 2010
"Reality Check"
In reading Aisha Hakim-Dyce's essay, I found her argument way too familiar too the plight of many poor women. Dyce discusses her poor lifestyle as a college student and how it almost led her to a career in go-go dancing. While this is obviously a degrading business that Levy would heavily criticize and most women would like to avoid, Dyce was fortunate enough to be able to take a tutorial job instead. Unfortunately, many women do not have other options available to them and also must look at such a job as a career, whereas Dyce was going to accept the position presumably just while in college. I did enjoy Dyce's comparison of the exploitation in go-go dancing compared to other jobs in a capitalist and profit-driven economy. I have been studying Marx in another class and exploitation of workers is rooted in capitalism. For many women, however, this exploitation is one of their bodies and that is the unfortunate truth of modern times. While many people love to criticize such clubs and the women that work there, there is one positive: these jobs offer women with usually few credentials a chance to make a decent living. So, if women in this field are able to separate their exploitation at work from their personal life (a daunting task), then they can turn that exploitation into a positive gain in otherwise negative circumstances.
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I would have to agree with Daniel, I didn't particularly enjoy Dyce's essay. While I also found her story similar to so many others, I found it to not even measure up to others based on the fact she didn't even go through with it. I like the point you make about how this exploitation is rooted in capitolism. I guess I also don't connect with Dyce's essay because I am fortunate enough not to have to resort to seriously considering being a gogo dancer to get through college (although I'm not sure where you would do that around there, maybe the mysterious upstairs of the jug has some sort of setup)
ReplyDeleteAisha’s essay is important from a social and economic standpoint as it reveals an all too human face to an interesting business in America. Aisha’s economic woes led her to consider a job as a stripper. In an ideal world, these women would only be nude dancers and ones paid quite well for what they do. While I believe that society should find nothing wrong if women, or men for that matter, decide to provide this service, it should be in the right setting and for the right reasons. Yet I think the most important point of her essay, and a point perhaps that she missed herself, is that the business of sex is not safe or clean or respectable in any ways. As she noted, the stigma attached to these establishments attracted all kinds of illicit and illegal behaviors. Many of the strippers were also prostitutes, or involved in gangs and drugs. It is in this way that many illegal and dangerous behaviors become connected to a socially stigmatized profession. Furthermore, as Aisha notes, many women are driven to this profession out of desperation. Clearly there does seem to be something wrong about forcing impoverished women to sell their bodies, yet her arguments begin to take a social justice aspect to them. If we lived in a society which ensured that all of our citizens were afforded some safety net which allowed them to be housed and fed, than this would not be an issue. Yet, since we do not have this safety net, while I understand her criticisms, I agree with Daniel in that this does provide a lucrative job for those who have few other alternatives. And while Aisha complains of being objectified as a sexual object, there are many jobs out there with psychological and physical side effects which are just the nature of what is required to provide the service. In a capitalist society there will always be demands for certain services, and there will always be those who are willing to accept the negatives resulting from a job in return for monetary compensation. While Aisha ultimately felt that the job was not right for her, some women may have no problem with being a stripper and that is their decision to make.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Levy would disagree with her for taking the job she is more hypocritical than she is. Think about what all the men have said. We live in a capitalistic society that requires you to partake in things that you do not want to. So I pose the question as to where is the line drawn for people who got to school for the sake of their parents paying for their education? Does this fall under the same assumptions of women stripping to get by in life. Just a question? People that think they are not be exploited are. I believe every person that has went to school to major in something other than what they have wanted, has been treated like a stripper.
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