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Friday 18 July 2008

Strip clubs are a City girl’s sanctuary

Venetia Thompson, until recently a broker, says that the feminist Fawcett Society should not campaign to outlaw City outings to strip joints: they are harmless after-hour crèches

While most of the City is fixated by the impending doom of a recession, its wronged women are still undistractedly focused on litigation, with court cases now becoming the norm. Indeed, when a woman leaves the City she is more or less expected and urged to cry harassment, even if, like myself, she has been fired for gross misconduct for writing an article. CNN and BBC will still wait with bated breath, wanting to interview her and tag it to a piece on sexism being rife in the City.

As long, that is, as she plays along with the tearful stereotype. If, on the other hand, she says she liked being called ‘Airbags’, having her arse slapped occasionally and going to strip clubs with clients, then the media don’t want to know.

It seems that there is only one one-size-fits-all sexist template for ex-City women: that of the victim. We do not hear about them until they leave — and then, perhaps in reports from the courts, we read tales of their distress and offence at being told by some hapless trader on one occasion that their breasts were too distracting for him to focus on his bond prices. The strip club provides such women with all the ammunition that they could possibly need. Their male colleagues are damned if they invite them — and damned if they don’t. One of the many complaints in 2006 made by six female employees of Dresdner Kleinwort who sued for sexual discrimination was that they were ‘excluded’ from meetings that took place in strip clubs.

Speaking personally, I have never even seen a meeting take place in a strip club — in this case the breasts really are a distraction. But it is also worth noting that these complainants would have been in an equally strong position if they had been invited, because of their potential discomfort at being in an environment that the Fawcett Society has decided ‘normalises the sexual objectification of women’ and is ‘counter to efforts to promote gender equality’.

During my time in the City, strip clubs were endlessly useful. If used correctly, they can be the City girl’s trump card; providing hassle-free after-dinner entertainment at will. I always thought of them as the City’s after-hour crèches; a sanctuary where I could sit back and relax with a drink while some tedious client bounced around, spaniel-like, his head safely ensconced ’twixt breasts. The overwhelming smell of talc and dubious moisturiser — no longer masked by wafts of tobacco, thanks to the smoking ban — is really the only downside. However, the feminists have developed the handiest of explanations for that rare breed of female who defends her time spent in strip clubs, and leaves the City without suing for sexual discrimination: false consciousness. Such a woman is merely deluded. She will wake up one day, and — the scales falling traumatically from her eyes — suddenly feel wronged; a victim. She will reach for that nice employment lawyer’s business card who had told her that this would happen; that the ‘drip drip drip’ effect of years of having her arse slapped would eventually take its toll.

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