Lip

Disguise, Delight and Disgust

Created by

Saorla Houston

2

3

4

This is about female sexuality, attitudes, appearance. Above all, it is about women at play; a celebration. This is about grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. About the passage of time. About the dressing up and dressing down of women. About pre-feminism, feminism and post-feminism.

Drawing on visual and textual narratives of my own mother and my two grandmothers, as well as on my interactions with young women of my generation, I explore the ways in which we perform femininity: its masquerades; its contradictions; its pleasures. At the core of this project is female beauty, the female body, self-consciousness, and how the body both defines and shapes us in terms of our choices and the reactions of others to us. Using both texts and imagery, I explore the female body’s relationship to liberation, self-expression and self-worth; the female body as an asset, as a valuable currency for work; for choice; for empowerment and delight.

My interest in feminism arose from a growing curiosity about issues around female power and sexuality within contemporary society. Although my mum is a feminist (and has labelled herself one since she was 18), I hadn’t taken much notice of the term ‘feminism’ before 2012. What I was aware of, though, was the derogatory connotations the term had, and the fact that not many young women of my generation felt any inclination to call themselves a feminist or to have any association with the term at all. I decided I wanted to look more closely at contemporary women’s concept of feminism, women’s liberation, and femininity.

Beyoncé recently labeled herself a “modern day feminist” in a May 2013 interview in Vogue, while declaring that the term can be “very extreme” and reiterating the fact that she’s happily married and loves her husband. The friction between second wave feminist values and a post feminist society is also notable in a recent article written by feminist writer, Camille Paglia entitled ‘Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Hollywood are ruining Women’, in which she recalls the “demure girly-girl days of the white-bread 1950s” and comments on a regurgitation of a “rigidly conformist and man pleasing era”. However to counteract this nostalgia we are also flooded with images of Rhianna throwing ‘dollar bills’ at strippers as she simultaneously posts photos of the scene on twitter to share with her 30,000,000 followers.

The contradictions are endless, and the ever changing notion of female identity is something I find extremely intriguing.

LIP provides a platform that draws together a diverse group of women from different backgrounds and generations. Let’s learn from one another, understand parallels and celebrate difference!

5

6

7

Lauren Jo Ford Photographic Editor at Dazed & Confused Magazine. 26 years old

I met Lauren in May last year when I found out from a friend that there was an opportunity to assist her at Dazed and Confused for three months during the summer. My first impressions were that she was very outgoing and fun whilst also being extremely hardworking and determined. Lauren was the only girl working within production at the time, and I was intrigued by how she handled such a male directed environment. I became aware during the course of the three months that she didn’t regard herself as a feminist, and I later learnt that her mother had been a feminist when she was younger. I was interested to learn more about her interpretation of feminism and to find out where she located her female empowerment and independence.

8

9

“This whole feminist thing - like whatever, it’s not just about what men think anymore; it’s about what everyone thinks. Women care as much about what women think, even more so than what men think. So actually I just think yeah - fuck it - be yourself and that does come with having a bit of an attitude.”

How would you describe yourself?

I would say I’m quite feisty, I’ve always been really independentwhich definitely comes from being the older sister; I was always on my own. When I was a kid I hated when people came over to play. I liked playing on my own because then I could control the games [laughs]. It’s true! And when my friends came over I used to tell them what to say throughout the whole game. So I would be like “blablabla, now you say this, blablabla”. Honestly I was so controlling; my friends’ parents used to tell my mum I was bossy and she needed to sort me out. I’m really hard working, I have a strong work ethic, I started working the day I finished my gcses; I got a job, and I’ve worked ever since then.

Who have been your biggest female influences growing up?

My mum and dad split up when I was super young, so I had my stepmum and my mum; both totally different women. My step mum was very normal; she was a housewife for the majority of my childhood and she’s quite house proud. She’s from quite a conservative family. Whereas my mum was in a band, and was really into feminism and hung out with lots of lesbians and feminists. She didn’t shave her armpits and believed in women’s liberation ‘cause it was the 80s.

How do you think they both influenced you?

I think I got the fact that I want everything to be perfect and pretty and nice from my step mum and my independent, I can do this on my own, I don’t need anyone else attitude from my mum.

Where do you think you got your strong work ethic from?

My mum and dad are just teachers, but I always - this is going to sound really lame - but I always really loved programmes like Ally McBeal and Sex in the City- you know, like those sorts of programmes. I used to watch them with my mum when I was younger.

Me and my mum used to always watch Ally McBeal as well, Did you watch ER? Yes! And did you cry when that guy with the glasses, Dr Green, died?!

I cried all the time during ER! It was really sad! I fucking loved that show! And Ally McBeal; I loved it.

So I used to watch all those shows and films like Grease and Romy and Michelles High School Reunion - so it’s all about the girls doing their thing; and anyway so I slowly got into Fashion and stuff like that.

10

Tell me about your mum’s influence on you in terms of feminism.

How has she affected your views on feminism?

In the 80s (this is what she tells me and my dad as well) my dad was one of those skinny little white artistic guys that just so wanted girls to like him that he became this ultra feminist man.

And was like “Aw I love women with hairy legs and hairy armpits and bushy eyebrows and that don’t ever conform’. When really now, if you asked my dad, he thinks it’s hilarious cause he like says ‘Yeah, no you can shave, that’s fine’; and he loves long hair and he likes - like girls - you know.

And looking back what does your mum tell you about it?

My mum said that actually just in the 80s my mum really wanted a boyfriend who would just look after her and she’d be his trophy and he’d be really proud of her, but because that wasn’t cool, women who thought like that openly - the majority of the women around, my mum’s friends - you know - those type of people, she hung out with lots of gay women, mods, and they were all into like ska and punk. They would think that those women were pathetic and look down on them, etc, and my mum was just like - well basically a bit of a wimp really - and instead of going for what she wanted, she was like ‘Oh no,I’d better be feminist’, and her and my dad were in a relationship for 10 years, and it wasn’t until I was born on the 8th year that they admitted that they were in a relationship, so they had a really open relationship because of it.

My mum hated it and my dad hated it. They both separately hated it, but they would never tell each other that, or tell other people, because it just wasn’t the thing to do.

An open relationship as in they could see other people?

Yeah, they would try not to.

Like a kind of hippy mentality?

Yeah totally; hippy feminism. If you speak to them separately now they’re both like ‘I hated it, I just wanted to be with that person’, but they didn’t speak to each other then, because it wasn’t cool.

My mum was independent - she didn’t need to speak to my dad, and my dad was like ‘whatever you want’.

What are your memories of that time?

I have no memories of my mum and dad together but the majority of my memories of me being a kid are just me and my mum.

It was just us until I was thirteen. I mean she had a boyfriend, but he didn’t live with us. My mum was my best friend; she was completely independent of men, but she wasn’t dependent on me either; she had loads of girlfriends - she had a really busy social life; and I think that made me like that.

How has that influenced you?

I never wanted to be one of those girls that had a boyfriend - you know, I haven’t had a serious relationship in my whole life. I always wanted to be out doing my own thing, because seeing somebody who can do it is not a bad thing. If someone said to me you have to be a single parent, it doesn’t even remotely scare me. If anything I actually quite like the idea. Because I think it’s fine; you just have a great relationship with your kids. It’s hard work, but it’s ok.I never saw it as this kind of like awful thing, ever.

That’s interesting, because my mum and dad not being together probably made me more inclined to aim for a safe relationship.

But that was due to my experience of witnessing her as a single parent having to bring up me along with two boys who were really hard work.

Exactly, my mum had just me; we lived in a flat in North London in Camden. Her mum lived quite close by, and her twin brother and her sister, and she had that big group of friends all in her band.

Wow, tell me more about her band?

There was 14 women in her band. They were called The Deltones - if you youtube The Deltones ‘mama chop chop’ - I think that’s the name of the song - or ‘two tone ska’ it will come up with their videos from their band, and my mum is the saxophonist.

So I’m guessing this meant she had a massive support network bringing you up?

Yeah, they all had kids around a year after my mum had me, so my mum then just had this massive network of friends to see that she was ok. And also because her relationship with my dad was kind of odd - it was never like they broke up, and then she didn’t see her friends - that wasn’t how they did it back then. It was very much like let’s get on with it.

How do you think that your mum being a feminist who didn’t shave etc, affected your view on feminism in general?

It made me more feminine, because I hated it more than anything.

I thought it was weird, and freaky, and I begged her and I cried.

I bought her razors. I was like ‘please, please shave your armpits and your legs’. I couldn’t cope with it. Because for all that I’m like an independent women - like you don’t need men, you can do shit on your own - I have a definite quite materialistic, superficial side.

In what way?

I love nice things, and I care about the way that I look, and you know all of that sort of shit, so it almost made me the opposite.

I didn’t look at my mum and think ‘yeah cool, that’s how women should be’. I was like ‘oh my god’. And it’s funny actually, because

when my sister was born I thought aw, my poor sister, she’ll go through the same thing, luckily I’m here. I wasn’t allowed to shave my legs until I was 15. I wasn’t allowed to shave my armpits until I was 15 - it was awful. Finally she let me, and now she lets my thirteen year old sister shave. My sister waxes her legs now and my mum’s doing it for her. So my sister having me there to be like the guide meant that my sister doesn’t have to suffer the same fate as me [laughs].

So would you say feminism for you was associated with being a bit more masculine? - in terms of not shaving, etc - like rebelling against femininity in a way?

I don’t think I saw it as masculine, I saw it as just a bit like … weird. All of my friends’ mums were quite glamorous, so I just saw it as really odd. I used to call her organic. Like obviously now organic is totally the way to go, but when I was younger all I wanted was chicken nuggets and beans and wallpaper because I was like, how can we have paint and vegetables? This is so organic and lame. Because I just wanted to be like my friends, that’s basically all it is.

So do you think your dad getting with a women who was very different to your mum was rebelling against that feminist ‘type’ of woman?

Like I was saying - they didn’t speak to each other. So gradually even though I came along they had kind of grown a part a bit, and I think it just got to the point where my dad and my mum wanted a normal relationship. My stepmum was much younger. She was five years younger than my dad. She was 24 and my dad was 30, and she idolized my dad; loved my dad; just wanted to be with my dad.

So does your mum still call herself a feminist?

No. When did that change?

I think with the times; she was aware that she didn’t have to be.

She believed in it in some ways, but I mean she had grown up with my granny who was a Greek ballet dancer, and all she wanted was to have beautiful little girls.

So do you think if was some kind of rebellion against her mum?

Yeah totally; it was. My granny used to try and dress my mum and my mum hated it. So It had all come from this rebellious ‘I don’t want to conform to you’, and then fitting in with her friends, and actually I think my mum does quite like to look nice, and she is quite conscious of how she looks. I think she was just like actually it doesn’t really make any difference if I do or don’t shave my armpits. I think having a teenage daughter who definitely would never not shave her armpits and would be so disgusted at

11

her, made her. You can convince my mum to do something pretty easily. She’s quite a pushover - you know you’d be like…

Don’t wear that Yeah, and she’d be like ‘oh, oh ok. I’ll change’ bless her.

So what are your views? Do you think women have equality with men?

I think it totally differs in industry. In our industry yeah - And if anything I think women are more powerful. In fashion and the creative industries…you know - no maybe equal because obviously there is a lot of gay guys out there.

Yeah, I was talking to my tutor about this - I had mentioned working at Dazed, and about how it was interesting to see how male driven it was. I would have assumed the industry was more female led but actually it’s mostly men.

Yeah, but like if you went to Vogue it would be mainly women and the women would definitely be the ones in control - the equivalent to Tim, Rod and Chris, and then the designers would be the guys like Claude and Jenny. But at Dazedbecause it is a bit more of a boy magazine, it’s a fashion magazine but creatively it’s a lot harder and more masculine. But the women at Dazed are very strong women who stand their ground.

In the fashion industry, like models you know, they’re so important, so women can’t be disrespected in fashion because they are so vital to it. Practically every brand is womenswear and the majority of fashion in the magazine is womenswear, and then there will be a bit of menswear if it’s a menswear magazine. But if it’s a unisex magazine there will still be more womenswear than there will be menswear because it’s just so important because that’s your readership. So women are valued, you can’t disrespect them. Some of the most powerful people in the industry like Anna Wintor, all the designers like Vivenne Westwood, Sarah Burton. They’re all women and they are some of the most influential people working in the industry.

You were working at Burberry before Dazed. Was it mainly women running the show?

No it was men. Christopher Baily was obviously the top guy but the head of our department was a man. There were probably like four or five women in our department. Then you look over at marketing and it’s all women. So creatively - the web designers, the retouchers, the art directors are mainly men, like at Dazed.

Production is mainly women though.

Do you feel like you had to adjust to working in a very male environment?

I feel like I work better with boys; I always have done. So no. I think that’s because I’m a bit feisty and a bit bolshie. I like banter

12

and I hate bitchiness. Working with women inevitably there is bitchiness, there’s competitiveness - I hate it. Whereas around men you can have stupid banter - you don’t really care what you look like cause you know they’re just the stupid boys you work with. If you want to have a big row with them they’re not going to not talk to you for a week - they’ll get over it in 2 seconds. I feel personally like I can be a lot more outspoken with boys than I can with girls because men just don’t take it so personally - whereas women, they take it to heart. And its vice versa, if a man shouts at me I get over it quicker than I do if a woman shouts at me - I don’t know why.

If someone said to you “I’m a feminist” would you think that was quite an extreme view?

I find feminism a little bit dated; I don’t mind it, but I do find it a bit dated; it’s like realistically what is there to be … I mean I don’t know, no, I shouldn’t say that. In a lot of countries and a lot of situations men are so in a position of authority to women and it’s horrible. Personally I don’t feel like it affects me and actually, like my mum, I quite like having men look after me. I’ve always been a bit of a daddy’s girl - I quite like to feel like I’m being looked after.

So do you find that is the case if you’re in a relationship?

Yeah, I hate it when I feel like I’m more in control than they are, even though I’m a control freak; I don’t like that in my relationships with men. I actually prefer being a bit controlled, maybe because it means I can just relax, and I don’t have to think about stuff all the time like I do at work.

Are there any feminists you think are giving out a positive message?

Yeah, Caitlin Moran - that writer, she’s hilarious and she is a raging feminist ,but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t like adore her husband and make him dinner and dress up for him. She just has really strong views about women’s rights.

She respects women like Lady Gaga for being fucking crazy and independent and not giving a shit what anyone thinks, and she disrespects women like Jordan who revolved her whole career around men and how men perceived her. Lady Gaga does not dress for men. She talks about all of that; shes written a great book called Being a Woman; it’s really funny. She’s a modern day feminist; she takes the piss out of herself; she takes the piss out of women. She’s not like Germaine Greer; Germaine Greer is like a hard core, old school feminist that’s a bit scary.

So you don’t agree with Germaine Greer’s approach?

Those are the kind of women you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. Germaine Greer is older and Caitlin Moran is a little bit younger and she’s a mum and a wife and I don’t know about Germaine Greer - is she a lesbian? I don’t even know. Moran is a raging feminist but in a funny way. She uses her feminism in a comedic way.

So in terms of feminism, do you think the actual word feminism

is outdated because it scares people? I mean if you actually look at the definition of the term feminism all that feminism means is equality between the sexes, but people do get really freaked out by it.

People associate feminists with burning your bra, saggy tits, hairy armpits. But that’s not true.

The way that I see it is that feminism should be about celebrating being a woman.

Yeah and you can do that in a million different ways. You can do that by being the most slutty girl, but as long as you’re doing it for the right reasons -as long as you’re doing it for women and not men. I think that’s the difference - that’s what feminism for me is.

Which is why I definitely would say I’m a feminist in the sense that I don’t dress for men.

In what way?

So if a girl was like - ‘you look nice’ that means the world to me. If a guy says it, it’s almost a bit creepy. I think for me feminism is celebrating being a woman, but for women. I think if you are one of those women that loves being a woman and is very sexual and it’s all about men, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not a feminist, as long as you’re doing it in the right way. I think it’s about independence. But I think people will use the term feminist as…almost an insult to people, like “she’s such a feminist”; I’ve heard people say it at work.

People have a bad association with it I think because of how it’s like set out to be, but it’s like the suffragettes - they were all wives and mothers and they all wore little bonnets and long dresses in Victorian times.

Just because you’re a feminist doesn’t mean you have to hate men. It’s about celebrating being a female.

That’s the thing - in the 80’s, and that’s what my mum hated, feminism was about man hating - you hated men. Men were evil.

And especially lesbian feminists, they were the worst. My mum got in with a group of lesbian feminists and my mum said they were terrifying. Because they were so anti-men - they hated men.

And my mum was just like - this isn’t me, I don’t hate men, I love men - I just want women to do well too.

In terms of women being liberated, do you think sexuality is a big part of that? Going back to what you mentioned about slutty girls and their relationship to feminism - sometimes I think ‘being feminine’ has merged into ‘being slutty’. It’s interesting how that has changed. It’s like women have turned a corner and instead to being like “yes we’re women and we’re proud of who we are!”, it seems like they’re being slightly more masculine and taking on masculine traits.

that dress slutty are way less respected than women who dress a bit weird or maybe a bit masculine. Those are the women that men respect and like.

Do you think that’s something that has changed?

Yeah, in the 80’s or even the 90’s men would have been like ‘bloody dyke - look at her’, whereas now those women are the women who are respected, and I think it’s because men are starting to see women…well not starting, the majority of men, especially in our industry, see women as just people. And actually if women saw a girl dressing all slutty, we’d think ‘slut’, but men now think the same. I’ll see a girl dressed really cool and wacky and I’ll think of cool, awesome. Guys will think the same - straight or gay. I think especially in our industry, it’s a good industry for women.

Who do you admire? Who would you say is a good role model for women?

I admire my mum; I look up to my mum. But there’s not a woman that I look at and think ‘I want to be like that’. What I admire in women is style and as awful as it sound attractiveness. If I look at a woman and she’s beautiful and cool and dresses really nicely, and is quite individual. I get more girl crushes than I admire people - I don’t want to be like anyone, I don’t look at any successful women and think - I want to be just like her. It almost makes me cringe a little bit having role models like that because I think - no, I don’t want to be like you, I want to be like me, but on the flip side I’ll look at girls and find them attractive but for different reasons.

For an example, what do you think of Rhianna? She’s really sexually liberated and appears to see it as a tool for female power.

I love Rhianna. Yeah she is, but I think that’s great. That’s exactly how women should be – it’s attractive you know; it’s like if a woman’s not afraid to celebrate other women, be a bit slutty when she wants to be, and then be a total boy when she feels like it. I think actually it’s just about not giving a shit. This whole feminist thing - like whatever, it’s not about men, it’s not just about what men think anymore; it’s about what everyone thinks. Women care as much about what women think, even more so than what men think. So actually I just think yeah - fuck it - be yourself and that does come with having a bit of an attitude. With not caring, in turn you have to have quite a ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude. Like what are you gonna do sort of thing,. which is how I think women should be in general - like I don’t give a shit what you think. Just go for what you want and be who you want to be.

For sure I know what you mean. That all comes with independence though – women are getting to choose. Obviously depending on where you are from or where you work. In our industry - women

13

PLAYING DRESS-UP with Edna Houston

14

15

16

“The most glamorous outfit that I remember having was whenever the new look came in. I had bought a dark blue, nearly purple coloured suit. I had a little tiny waist at the time. It had a peplum at the back and a straight skirt, and then a guy called for me in an old fashioned car and I tried to step up and I couldn’t. He had to lift me in and lift me out again, but I was light enough to lift quite easily then!”

17

18

19

Lorna Stevens Lecturer in Marketing, 54 years old.

My mum is a single mother of three and is about to take up a Senior Lecturership in Marketing at The University of the West of Scotland. I have only recently realised how much I have in common with my mum. Subconsciously I have been soaking up her ideas and opinions on feminism all my life, and suddenly it’s all starting to click into place.

“When I was 18 I knew I was out-spoken, not good at doing what I was told, and I knew I wanted to have a career and be an independent woman. I never wanted to rely on a man to support me.”

20

When did you become a feminist?

I can’t remember the moment exactly, but when I was between 16 and 18. I think the first was reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, and realising that it was perfectly understandable for me to feel there was gender discrimination in the world and that many of my feelings of frustration at the inequality I saw around me were justified – that there was a bigger story out there that had been told by brilliant feminist intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir. The book confirmed my conviction that there was something wrong, and she helped me put it in a broader social and historical context.

Did you have any personal experiences that made you start to think about feminism?

I was observing the double standards in my own family. I was one of six children and had two older brothers. It seemed to me that my oldest brother had special privileges in the household and I couldn’t understand why.

Like what?

When he was in a bad mood we were all expected to tiptoe around him, but I found it hard to jump to it when he ordered me about. Unlike my other brother who ran around trying to please him and was forever falling short, I took him on when he tried to ‘throw his weight about’, and needless to say always lost the fight!

He also had special privileges in terms of food. Whilst the rest of us happily sat down to homemade Shepherd’s Pie he was a ‘fussy’ eater, so he would get chicken breast and chips!

Did your parents influence your views on feminism at all?

My father did, not that he realised it at the time! He was an impassioned Glaswegian atheist and socialist and a voracious reader and writer. He had encouraged me to read too, giving me books on rationalism and socialism when I was about 11, but I think around about the time I discovered The Second Sex he was beginning to realise that he had ‘created a monster’! He had encouraged me to embrace the intellectual idea of rebellion and equality, but I had taken it too far and brought it into the home!

Give me an example of this?

Well, one evening my mum and dad went out for the evening – probably to the Ideal Homes Exhibition in Belfast which was their annual treat. Given that there were so many of us it was rare for my mum and dad to get nights out together. Anyway I was asked to cook dinner for everyone. I had a limited range of dishes – lasagne, baked stuffed potatoes and spaghetti bolognese. I made spaghetti bolognese and we all sat down to eat it – me, my three sisters and one of my brothers. My oldest brother came home from work and asked what was for dinner. I said ‘spaghetti bolognese’, and he made a face and promptly headed out the door to get chicken and chips at the local chip shop! Two hours later I was watching Visconti’s Death in Venice with Dirk Bogarde, which I was totally enthralled by, as the young boy in it reminded me of a boy in school who fascinated me. (My dad had given me a taste for foreign films too by the way – I loved Ingmar Bergman’s films and Italian films by Fellini, all thanks to my dad!). Anyway, my parents arrived home, and asked me what I had cooked for dinner. I was a bit distracted, as I was still trying to watch the film, but I replied, somewhat indifferently, ‘Oh, spaghetti bolognese’.

My mum was totally shocked: ‘Spaghetti bolognese! But Grant doesn’t like spaghetti Bolognese!’. ‘Yeah I know’, I replied, ‘I offered him some but he said no thanks and went out and got chicken and chips.’ My dad sprang into action, seeming to take my cavalier behaviour as a personal insult. It’s like I had insulted all men on the planet! He turned the TV off as punishment and then turned on me, saying something like ‘You’re completely

bloody selfish! You and that feminist nonsense! Try showing some consideration for others for a change!’ I was both hurt and indignant, and I think at that moment my dad realised the price he had paid for encouraging me to think for myself.

Obedience to men was never going to come easy to me, as subsequent events proved! I also felt a bit let down by him at the time, as it seemed to me there was a double standard – one for men and one for women – and also, that equality was a great concept in theory – and dad was happy to talk about it - but he didn’t like it when I put it into practice. The irony is I didn’t even realise I was doing something outrageous. I made dinner, Grant didn’t like it, and off he went to find an alternative. Of course my dad was a man of the 1950s, and women did all the childrearing, cooking, and housework back then. Men did nothing in the household, it seemed, and in fact the first time my dad lifted a drying cloth to dry the dishes was when he retired! I suppose then he felt that since he was no longer going out to work 5 days a week to support all of us that it was only fair that he helped my mum around the house!

Were there any other ‘defining moments’, as you call them, at that time?

Not really. But by the time I was 18 I knew I was out-spoken, not good at doing what I was told, and I knew I wanted to have a career and be an independent woman. I never wanted to rely on a man to support me. Oh, and I wanted job satisfaction. I wanted to have a room of my own like Virginia Woolf and do something literary, so I decided to study English Literature at University.

Did your degree influence your thinking with regard to feminism?

I think my feminism became a bit dormant when I was there. I was quite an introverted, shy person and was a bit overwhelmed at University. I had been bullied at school when I was 14 for about a year, and it all came back to haunt me when I ventured out on my own. I found it hard to be confident and had to really fight the urge to retreat into my shell completely. Things got easier for me by the end of my first year. When I was at University I was seeing the boy from school I mentioned earlier, so he came up to see me at weekends and that was nice. As I got more confident I started expressing my opinions more in tutorials and seminars, and I got to know some of the more colourful and confident people on my course and eventually established a solid group of friends who were all very individualistic and expressive. This enabled me to become more like myself again and when I left University I had a good bunch of friends, some of whom went to London and became part of my social life when I eventually moved over there a couple of years later. Firstly though, I wanted to try Dublin, a city that I loved.

Was your feminism dormant in Dublin too?

It’s hard to remember, but I do know that I was considered to be quite outspoken at times. I had got a job working for a small publishers in Dublin, mostly thanks to the shorthand and typing course that I did when I graduated. My dad reckoned that an English Literature degree was no use in the workplace and I needed to have a practical skill. I suppose he was right, but once I had secretarial skills they seemed to define me, and I found that degrading. I wanted a proper career, not to be some man’s secretary! I wasn’t working on the kind of books I wanted to work on in Dublin, but it was a great city and I made some great friends there, but I had another defining moment there too, come to think of it. We were at a book launch for one of our books – a reissue of The Demi-Gods by James Stephens. The press were there, and a photographer asked if he could take my picture. I posed, and then he took my details, and I said ‘Lorna Stevens, Butler Sims Publishing’. The next day this very flattering, glamorous photo appeared of me in one of the Dublin papers, and the caption said ‘Lorna Stevens at the Butler Sims Publishing launch of …’. I was really indignant; I was portrayed as just a pretty young woman

21

captured at the event, rather than an employee of the company. It really irked me, trivial as it sounds.

In fact there is something else that I forgot to mention about feminism and my time at University. I completely forgot that I cut off my hair in second year, because I was fed up being patronised because of my ‘cute’ appearance! Let me take back what I said about my feminism being dormant when I was in University! My hair was down my back, and I was very pretty, and I went to the hairdressers and ended up with this really short, boyish haircut!

I remember one of my male friends saying ‘Lorna, what have you done! You looked much cuter with long hair!’ And I said, ‘I know, I was fed up being patronised! I thought I would be taken more seriously’. Being taken seriously was a huge thing to me actually.

Also, I remember one of my male lecturers saying ‘Lorna, you’ve cut your hair! You look really cute!’ And I thought, drat, I still look cute – how annoying! Hair was a huge feminist issue to me actually. When I decided to grow it again a few years later I had to be sure that I was growing my hair because I wanted to, and not to please men.

often been accused of being an essentialist feminist – and it’s probably true.

So what was your next move after working at Butler Sims Publishing?

Fast forward to now – where has your feminist journey taken you?

After two years at Butler Simms I knew I had to apply for jobs in London in order to have any credibility in the publishing world, and I sent off my cv to Virago.

What was Virago?

Virago Press was one of two feminist presses in London. The other was the Woman’s Press. I had sent my cvs off to both of them, and I received this really pretty postcard back from Virago, so I was delighted. They were the publishers I most wanted to work for because they weren’t as radical or narrowly defined as the Woman’s Press. Their remit was broader, and their emphasis was on celebrating all women’s writing, so that included bringing forgotten women writers back into print who wouldn’t have considered themselves feminists. I loved their Virago Modern Classics series with their dark green covers and artwork, and the penny had dropped by this stage that my English literature degree had been very male-dominated. I wanted to find out about the women writers who had struggled to be accepted into the literary canon which seemed to be so male-dominated. Virago said they had two posts going, one as a production assistant and one as an editorial assistant. I said I was interested in the latter and off I went!

So what was your job when you got there?

Well I was pretty disappointed when I arrived, as I quickly discovered that my job description was ‘Assistant to the Editorial Director’ – not the same thing as ‘editorial assistant’ at all!

Needless to say, this was very different to what I had in mind for myself – the secretarial trap became all too real, and I realised women executives liked having ‘girls’ to do their letters as much as men did! There were many disappointments with regard to my feminist journey in the two years I spent at Virago, but you have seen the Image article so you know about that! Basically we were the ‘shit workers’ to use Carmen Callill’s phrase – she was one of Virago’s founders. That meant doing the donkey work, mixing and mingling when required but keeping in the background when it came to the important stuff. With 5 directors in a company employing about 12 women you can see there was most definitely an ‘us and them’ divide! I suppose I realised that women could adopt masculine work practices if they wanted to, and that there were probably men out there who embraced feminine work practices – I haven’t met any yet, but that’s not to say they don’t exist! I suppose I also learnt at Virago that people are people, and the issue is really about power – I discovered that women in power often acted just like men in power – that was massively disillusioning to me – I was such an idealist! Probably still am! I’ve

22

Tell me a bit about the event that you were photographed at?

That was the launch of the Virago Bookshop in Covent Garden.

The shop was beautiful – fitted out in rich, dark green to match our books, lots of stained wood, and with the bright green bitten apple of the Virago logo everywhere. You will notice in the photo that there were a cluster of us at the door serving wine – Carmen’s ‘donkey workers’! Still, we huddled together, had a bit of craic, and enjoyed the event - and it was an exciting venture for Virago, even if it was quite short-lived. Thinking back, they missed a trick.

They should definitely have had a tea-shop on the premises! By the way, the word Virago means a ‘female termagant or scold’ so they weren’t wishy washy liberals by any means – the Virago list did do genteel things like its series of Victorian Lady Travellers, but equally they would publish more radical feminist critiques in their non-fiction list.

My feminist journey got on track, if you like, when I discovered academia in 1994. I found a career where you could be paid to explore ideas around feminism and gender in conference papers and journal articles and in the classroom, and I discovered the thrill of seeing my work in print, even if academic writing is somewhat ‘niche’ in marketing terms’! When the book I co-edited, Marketing and Feminism was published in 2000 – that was a proud moment!

I’m also very proud when young female (or male!) academics come up to me and tell me they have enjoyed something I have written, and that it has made them think differently about something to do with gender in relation to advertising or consumer behaviour. That gives me a lot of pride and a real buzz! I’m my father’s daughter, and like him, I love to write and communicate ideas through writing. I’m really pleased that you are now interested in some of the areas I’ve studied in, and written about over the last 18 years!

The journey continues …!

What is your opinion on the way that female liberation is exemplified today within contemporary society in relation to your second wave ideals?

I’ve written quite a bit about this, mostly by analysing advertisements that are a great reflection of a society’s values in relation to gender. Women have always been defined by their bodies – culturally it goes back a long, long way. First wave feminists knew that the key to women having equality lay in focussing on women’s mental abilities rather than their physical appearance. Second wave feminists took various approaches: the burn your bra idea was about not being slaves to our bodies – our bodies, ourselves – and contraception took centre stage.

This coincided with the whole hippie thing of course, and the concept of ‘free love’. Many commentators reckon that it was Helen Gurley Brown, founder of Cosmopolitan magazine, who had published a raunchy book Sex and the Single Girl in the 1960s that led to the dumbing down of feminism – as I see it!

Women’s liberation became confused with sexual liberation, so whilst earlier feminists knew that sex was a minefield for women on so many levels, it was re-packaged as being about empowerment, fun and liberation. The media loved this emphasis, of course! In my opinion second wave feminism was about trying to get men to behave more like women; what actually happened was that women started to behave more like men. Second wave feminism was dead, supposedly because we had won the battles for equality, etc, and were just kill-joys. Some of us wouldn’t necessarily see women’s lives as vastly improved - it as a never ending cycle!

23

24

25

I’m not even going to talk about women in third world countries – that deserves a whole issue to itself. Progress?

Liberation? With second wave feminism discredited as being angry and bitter and unnecessary in the UK and US in the 1990s, third wave feminism took centre stage, or Post-feminism, or Raunch Culture, whatever you want to call it. It is the predictable result of this – women’s liberation is sexual liberation – period! We were fighting to not be judged on our appearances and our bodies and look where we have ended up -

“What The

26

Fuck Happened?�

27

Lorna Stevens & Laura Lacole Transcription of Interview with Noel Thompson, ‘Good Morning Ulster’, BBC Radio Ulster, October 2013.

28

Noel: Research [survey on Mumsnet.com] has found that young women are rejecting traditional feminist views as outdated and angry, so is there room for the principles of feminism in modern society? We’re joined

by Dr Lorna Stevens who is a Lecturer in Gender issues and Consumer Culture at the University of Ulster and Laura Lacole, a photographic model who is Northern Ireland’s number one glamour model, who describes herself as a non feminist.

Dr Stevens I suppose what we can tell from those short interviews [based on the Mumsnet.com poll] that whatever you call it, the issues are still alive. Is it just the term itself - feminism – that has become outdated?

Lorna: I think it’s absolutely true to suggest that the problem lies in the word itself and how it has come to be perceived.

Many women are saying;

“I’m not a feminist, but...”

That’s a bit of a cliché in our society, that women aren’t comfortable to admit that they are feminists because the perception is very negative. That came across in the recent survey on mumsneet.com, about whether feminism had any relevance to today’s women. Women were blogging and making a comments like “oh I don’t wear dungarees, ’’I’m not a dyke” etc.

There is a stereotype that goes with being a feminist, so the first thing I would want to do is clarify what the word feminism means.

Noel: What would you define it as?

Lorna: Well, I consulted my Oxford English Dictionary in preparation for today [laughs], and the exact definition is

‘the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes’, so there’s nothing scary there!

Noel: Ok, let’s put that straight to Laura, what’s wrong with that?

Laura: I think that it sort of causes sexism because I think that everyone is equal.

Talking to my generation and speaking to my friends, both male and female, we have the general consensus that we are both equal, and it is because of the original feminist movement that paved the way for our generation to think like that.

Noel: So do you not betray them by rejecting it?

Laura: No, I think that there’s little need nowadays to have a feminist movement.

There definitely is in some small cases, but

generally speaking there really isn’t, and I think that by highlighting it, it makes people think that there is sexism when there isn’t.

Noel: So what you’re saying is that there is a need for an equality movement but not a feminist movement?

Laura: I think there are some things within society that need to be tackled, especially within religion; religion is the main cause of sexism within society. So I think there is a need within churches to have some kind of feminist movement, but in the wider picture there really isn’t, because we are equal.

Noel: Well, except in pay for example: men earn nearly 20% more than women.

Laura: Ok well that’s not equal certainly, there’s no disputing that Noel: Yeah, and Dr Stevens, the glass ceiling still exists, there are these salary differentials so whether you call it equality or feminism, it’s not a level playing field, is it?

Lorna: Yes, well I would obviously agree with that as a self confessed Feminist.

I think also it’s important to make the point that there is more than one form of feminism now.

What has happened is that the feminist movement has evolved into various feminisms.

We began with the suffragettes; they are regarded as the first wave feminist movement; we had the second wave feminist movement between the 1960s and 1980s and that would be where my feminism is located. That all changed into third wave feminism or as it’s sometimes referred to, as post feminism in the 1990s.

But I think the point that I would make is that this is something that has evolved through time and I think it will continue to evolve, because it has to take account of a changing environment and changing attitudes. Yes there has been progress in certain key areas, but at its core the issue is about equality and anti discrimination and I think that we just have to look around us to see that many of those issues haven’t gone away.

Noel: Laura, do you think that young people are aware of the sacrifices that were made not just by the second wave but by the first wave feminists?

Laura: In the media definitely, that’s how ’I’m aware about the original feminist movement. I think that it’s education plays a huge part in making people understand

that we are both equal, by providing the scientific evidence and what not [laughs] and I think that’s where we need to target, not by creating a movement and making accusations in the media about stuff that there’s no scientific evidence to back it up. From my point of view I know that I’m equal and so do my male friends because of education. I think that’s where we should target.

Noel: And do you accept that that confidence has come to you from people who fought hard?

Laura: Definitely from the original feminist movement I understand that nowadays there are generations that are a product of their time and still have the mentality.

Especially orthodox people within their religion have that, but that’s a bit of a dying breed [laughs] Noel: Lorna, what do you think the original suffragettes would make of the polls findings on mumsnet.com that 78% thought breast enlargements were acceptable; poll dancing was supported by 71%; hair extensions by 95%; escort work by 40%.

Do you think Emily [Pankhurst] would be turning in her grave?

Lorna: I think she probably would be [laughs], but can I just say that all of this is completely understandable in the culture that we live in. This is the sign of the times, if you like, and characterises third wave feminism. there have been a number of studies done about this and liberation is now defined in sexual terms, to put it simply. The women’s liberation movement came to be simplified to being about the female body, and one of the results of that is that there’s a lot of focus on individualist feminism. You know, - ‘I do this because I can do what I like, I’m a free agent, you know, I’ve got free will’ Noel: Yes, let me quickly put that to Laura, do you feel like that’s correct, that there’s a sexual independence now?

Laura: No, I think that with freedom of choice sexualisation is always going to come to the forefront because it’s a normal part of society; evolution; it’s a normal part of mankind and celebrating that with freedom of choice, it’s obviously a natural progression. Women having a choice means that they are able to put themselves in that position, it’s personal liberation, not liberation as a general gender thing.

Noel: Laura Lacole and Dr Stevens, I must leave it there, thank you very much indeed.

29

Erin Elizabeth Kelly Photographer, 24 years old.

Self Portrait

Erin is a Belfast based photographer who enjoys photographing the female form. I became aware of Erin’s work when I began studying Fashion Promotion and Imaging in 2010. Northern Ireland is a small place, and everyone within the creative “scene” tends to know one another, but I was reintroduced to her work when I found out about my mum’s radio interview with Laura Lacole, a glamour model. It was then that I realised the reason I knew of Laura was due to seeing images that Erin had taken of her.

What struck me about Erin’s work initially was how different it was to mine, not only in terms of the style of photography but also in terms of subject matter.

While I was playing around with narrative and natural light, Erin’s images were mostly harshly lit, depicting female models in a highly sexualised way. I have always been curious about her aesthetic, its influences, and the way she represents women.

30

“There is something different about a women who is comfortable in her sexuality compared to a woman who isn’t. I like a woman who has an “I don’t give a fuck what any woman or man thinks of me” vibe. It’s refreshing and inspiring.”

Which women have been the biggest influence in your life and tell me why and a bit about them?

The women who have influenced me are the ones who have hurt me.

Why is that?

Because I think channelling that emotion into your “art” is the biggest fuck you. That said, I don’t think about them everyday when I work or shoot, but when you’re low and feeling like crap, I think that it gives you a great drive to succeed.

Who are these women? Are they family? friends?

Friendships that have went wrong, the girls that bullied me at school - ultimate teenage girl woes that have stuck with me until now! My art teacher at school was just horrible - I used to get really bad anxiety before I went to her class and she was renowned for making people cry.. up until a few years ago I used to have nightmares about her and wake up in tears. I think that is influence right there ha!

Have you always been more interested in photographing women?

And if so why is that?

Yes, because women are sexier!

For me, they are very strongly linked. There is something different about a women who is comfortable in her sexuality compared to a woman who isn’t. I like a woman who has an “I don’t give a fuck what any woman or man thinks of me” vibe. It’s refreshing and inspiring!

Whenever you are coming up with a concept for a shoot are you thinking about what you find sexually attractive personally or what is going to appeal to the viewing audience?

It’s a bit of both really, although most of the time my shoots have no concepts. That cucumber shot? Well it was a bit like.. ”what can we use? I have a cucumber in the fridge, let’s use that!”

How do you feel about porn?

I like porn and I watch it. As long as people aren’t getting hurt in the process (unless that’s what they’re into) then I don’t see any harm in pornography as long as it’s made by the right protocol.

I’ve noticed that you feature a glamour model from northern Ireland in your images- Laura Lacole, do you think you would ever be up for doing shoots for a lads mags such as nuts or FHM? Totally, I love shooting sexy models so shooting for a lads mag would be hella fun!

How do you think your own experience of being a woman is reflected within your photography?

A lot of women are divided on their opinion of weather glamour modelling is degrading or liberating what is your opinion on the subject?

Although I’m inspired by women, I’m definitely a man’s woman.

I find it much more easier to talk to men and be in their company than with women. I like to think I know what both men and woman like, so fusing that together in my photography gives them both something beautiful to look at!

As long as the girl is confident in herself and knows what she wants then fair play. There are the obvious stereotypes in glamour modelling that will make people have a certain opinion on everybody who does it but I really admire a girl who is smart, sexy, confident and whips her tits out for the right reasons.

Which men are you most inspired by?

How far are you willing to push the sexualised content within your images?

Cheesy as it sounds, right now I’m very inspired by my boyfriend - he’s very strong and smart and gives me alot of happiness that I have never had until now.

I will always be inspired by my father, he plays a very strong and important role in my life. Professionally, Tony Kelly is inspiring me right now.. he’s not only an amazing photographer but a really sound guy!

Would you say that you aim to depict female strength within your imagery?

My aim was always to create fun, sexy, playful photos. If I ever depicted female strength in my photos very early on, it wasn’t on purpose. Maybe as I learnt more and shot more, it became more symbolic of my own journey.

How connected would you say female strength and female sexuality are?

I’ve gone as far as you can go on some shoots. I shoot a lot of commissioned work so I’ve worked with a lot of different people in a lot of very odd scenarios. I have no problem pushing the boundaries in the future.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

The future holds a lot of travel, working hard, working with new people, creating and inspiring and having fun and loving every minute of it while it lasts!

I’m working on a “book” of sorts at the moment so a lot of my work is remaining unseen until I know what to do with it. It’s quite heartbreaking not to release images as soon as they are shot but it’s important to me to keep them all under wraps and release it all in one go! I knew I wanted to make a book, more for myself than anybody else - to have something I’d worked hard doing and have a great end product! I’d like to have it released next year!

31

32

Objectification

33

34

35

36

37

“I feel like every man and every woman should call themselves a feminist – it’s just so basic.”

38

Karen Orton Staff Writer at Dazed & Confused Magazine. 30 years old.

Karen was the second woman at Dazed and Confused that I wanted to learn more about. It was during my time interning at Dazed that I first actually started to think about feminism in any great depth. Karen had given me the job of transcribing an interview she had done with feminist Writer Naomi Wolf, and the points that Wolf was raising during the interview in relation to her new book ‘Vagina’ seemed to me to have considerable relevance within contemporary society, so I became interested in why these negative associations had arisen in regard to the term feminism. As a self-confessed feminist I wanted to ask Karen about her views on the topic.

39

So you are from Canada, what brought you over to London?

I came over here to do a Masters at Goldsmiths in media studies and media and communications, which is a really good programme there. There were some professors I read when I was in my final year in Canada, and so I was like really excited to work with them.

I focused on sub Culture and I worked with this woman Angela McRobbie. She’s written loads on feminism actually, but also before that she did a lot on subcultures. At first she was really embracing the idea of sub culture and what creative people could do, them creating their own niche within an economy, and this idea of club culture…

Do you study something to do with feminism?

No, my mum is a feminist, and I’ve never really thought about it too much because, you know when you’re younger you’re not really interested in what your mum is interested in. I think being at Dazed & Confused kind of opened me up a bit to it, probably because of transcribing that Naomi Wolf interview, but I also became quite aware of how male dominated it was.

Oh that’s interesting, how so? I never really thought about that before.

Well I started to think about how women might have to like … not change, but adjust to a male environment.

That’s so true you know, and you never see that when you’re in it, and you just get used to it, but when someone comes in from outside, and you are right in the middle of it, you can see it much more clearly.

Tell me abit about your view on feminism So many people come out against being feminist, like in the new Art Review there was this article about how women in art are not calling themselves feminists but making art which by virtue of being a women their experience comes out in their work. But it was the fact that they blatantly don’t want to be seen as feminists, and I just feel like that’s so offensive; I feel like every man and every woman should call themselves a feminist – it’s just so basic.

Yeah, it’s just the associations that the term has, I think, that people are afraid of.

My parents are strong activists, but more environmental activists, they had a lot of lesbian and gay friends while I was growing up, and we lived in like a really conservative area of rural Canada. I remember going to this like demonstrations when I was a kid, which was about - it was before gay marriage was even an issue but it was about this idea of it being ok to be gay. And I remember going on this march, and all of these Christians lining the street shouting at us, and me just being there not really understanding, but knowing that to me it was just normal. I used to spend my holidays with their lesbian friends and I still remember when I was a kid them being like, are you going to get married when you grow up? And I was like ‘I don’t know yet’ ‘cause I didn’t want to upset them [laughs]. I was like ‘I don’t know if that’s an option yet, I’m still figuring it out’.

That’s what I wanted to ask you about actually, who would you say have been your main female influences as you’ve been growing up?

I guess my mum, but I’ve always really looked up to strong female characters. Like I say I’ve always felt like my mum kind of sacrificed what she wanted to do because she got pregnant; she had wanted to study more. I felt like maybe she wasn’t as fulfilled as what she wanted to be, because she was helping my dad do what he wanted to do, and making sure that it was stable for me,

40

and I always felt a bit sad about that. I feel like so much is like that for women – there’s this really beautiful aspect to having to sacrifice for their families, and they are never acknowledged. It’s just like these lives that kind of just fade out after a while. I don’t know if that sounds really horrible and dramatic [laughs], but you know there are so many important men in the history books and yet there are so many women who have just lived these really quiet, good lives.

Yeah, and also in today’s society, it often seems like women lose their value as they get older, due to the value of women being so directly linked to their appearance, which means there is this fear of getting older, when really it should be celebrated due to the wisdom that is gained and the knowledge they can share.

Yeah I know, and I still remember my dad telling me, ‘Oh you know, it’s all fine when you’re young and have boyfriends and stuff, but at a certain point you need to have a really sharp and critical mind and that will be your strength because’ … I think he even said ‘as you get to your late twenties looks just aren’t really going to be your thing anymore’ not just my thing, but as for women in general [laughs]. And I just found that really traumatising, especially because I had grown up always wanting to wear makeup and always wanting to like dress-up because my mum was the opposite, you know, she never shaved her armpits etc. My parents were really anti everything that they called “ phoney”. It had to be authentic, and I just wanted to be normal. I loved like Sweet Valley Twins. To me they were like perfect, they lived in Southern California, went to the mall. And I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall, and it was not normal the way I grew up - I was at protests all the time [laughs]. Now I kind of appreciate it, but not at the time. So they were kinda female role models for me when I was younger, and then in university I had these really amazing professors who were young women, I guess in their thirties, and they went and did their Phds, and they were just like really cool, strong and interesting. And I felt like that was the first time that I had a role model for what I wanted to be like when I was older.

I always felt like I’ve had professors that I admire. Whereas in this industry I don’t really see many women I admire, or that I want to be like. And sometimes I go to these PR lunches, and there was these two female journalists, one was for the Financial Times and the other was for the Evening Standard, and they were both sooo bitchy. And they were obviously kind of out to get each other. They were like “Oh I didn’t know you guys did much arts coverage” etc. etc., and just taking each other down for stories they had done before - it was really kind of conniving, but they were obviously very intelligent but sharply intelligent; it was critical - there was nothing warm about them at all. And it just seemed stressful;, one of them was there for half an hour, writing stuff down, then running out the door and I was like oh my gosh, I don’t want my life to be like that forever.

What do you have to say about Female identity?

Everything is so based on women’s looks, that’s the thing that really gets to me, no matter how far we’ve come, that’s always the first thing that women get taken down on.

Yeah, a perfect example of that is when my friend came to visit me at the weekend and she studies law and politics and is really outspoken and opinionated, which is something I love about her, but at the weekend we were out and it was pretty late at night, and we had gone to a chip shop. Anyway, there was this guy there, and he was shouting some kind of abuse to the guy behind the counter. He was being racist and just generally very loud and obnoxious. I would have probably said something and tried to level with the guy if it had got any more confrontational, but Laura straight away told him to “Stop being rude” and he was like, “What the fuck is it to do with you?” And it went back and forth like this for a bit until it climaxed with the guy telling her she was ugly and “had tree trunk legs”. This was of course totally

“I’m really anti pornography, I’ve always been on a personal level, and since my ex boyfriend, I was just like no, but it seems so hard to make men step away from pornography. It was like a reoccurring thing that I would find him with it. And I was like what’s up, this is completely unacceptable.”

41

unrelated That’s crazy but also very scary, because that’s the weird thing, isn’t it? You feel like you don’t know what they could do. ‘Cause there is always that weird thing of violence, and they could have friends out there, someone could follow you home. Someone could be waiting for you. You just don’t know and it’s like, that fear, because you’re always not as physically powerful.

Exactly, so no matter what, women have to always be aware that there is always going to be that difference, and I believe that women shouldn’t become more like men, they should celebrate being women, and one of the things that we have to accept is that men have different strengths and one of those strengths is physical.

I’ve been looking into stereotypes a bit as well, and how women are always associated with a type and put into boxes. Even when I’m talking to women in interviews I’ve noticed them identifying themselves as types.

That’s interesting - what types, do you mean like a strong woman versus …

Well for example Lauren was talking about her mum and her step mum and talking about how they were very different types of women. Her mum was a feminist who didn’t shave, and she was really independent, and her step mum was a housewife type who was really caring and reliant on her dad, but it’s interesting how these different attributes are associated with a certain type.

Yeah that’s true; I guess in my head I kind of think of it like that too.

Yeah, it’s like a natural instinct to put people into boxes in order to understand them.

It’s true isn’t it, we always try and do that, but it’s so wrong to do that. Until you get to know someone really well, then they’re not a type; they’re just a special combination of things. It’s funny because I remember my ex boyfriend - I lived with this English guy for ages, and he would always describe his friends’ girlfriends by what they looked like first - I just remember that, and even if he would talk about some ex girlfriend. I found it so offensive, and I brought it up to him so many times. It was just really weird that in his head that’s how he would first think of a woman as by what she looked like and then he’d talk about her. And it was always quite negative I think - it was a real critical streak. I mean he was critical about most people anyway. And then also in women there is quite a separation with pop culture, and there is this idea that you do things separately from girls; you have a night out with your guys, and I don’t feel like that’s normal. I suppose you have girls nights and stuff but it’s not like a thing; it just kind of naturally happens or it’s more mixed. I think also it has something to do with this whole child care thing. I see a lot of friends from other countries all moving out of London or like moving back to their home counties once they get pregnant, because here it’s impossible to get child care, and it makes more sense for you to stay home with your baby because it costs so much money and the government doesn’t really fund it. So then it just like reinstates all these rules that women are quiet, docile, and domesticated. Whereas I’ve lived with Swedish people and there’s this really different idea that there is complete equality and it’s not even questioned. It’s just assumed that the man is going to help out in the house, he’s going to do as much, look after the baby as much and it’s going to be completely equal they even have this stereotypical joke that they call them slipper husbands because they step around in their slippers to be really quiet not to wake their wives. [laughs] So it’s almost like the other way around.

There’s a funny video on youtube by Caitlyn Moran, you know that

42

feminist. She made a comment about how she thought that men should just sit down and chill out for a while after one hundred thousand years of patriarchy and let women rule the world for a bit, then “once they have their energy back” we can all rule the world together.

Yeah, it’s true though isn’t it! It’s always like an extreme in the meantime, like I think Anthony what’s his name from Anthony and the Johnstons when we had that takeover and Natalie interviewed him, and he was saying that women should rule the world and all people should take the opposite sex hormones to understand one another better, like he was really radical. But I think there’s always this extreme before it levels out. Even like with Gay men when they come out, you know those pride parades, it’s so extreme and then it kind of levels out when they’re a bit older, or like if people become political activists - at the beginning they are so radical and they really alienate everyone who’s not like them, but then they kind of level out.

What’s your opinion on Pornography?

I’m really anti pornography, I’ve always really been on a personal level’ and since my ex boyfriend I was just like no, but it seems so hard to make men step away from pornography. It was like a reoccurring thing that I would find him with it. And I was like what’s up, this is completely unacceptable.

Naomi Wolf is really against pornography as well. She thinks it’s completely ruining peoples’ sex lives and this strange way of seeing sex has just become completely normalised. Men are insisting on these things happening with girls, it’s just completely unnatural and messes up young people’s first experiences of sex, where they’re at this really weird age where it affects them so much.

I just saw this movie called Clip, it’s this really controversial movie that was banned in Russia and it’s been showing at some film festivals. It’s about young teenagers in Serbia in these impoverished suburbs of Belgrade, and they’re making all these hand held films of each other having sex, and making films of each other to send to boys, doing loads of drugs and it’s really violent. I’ve never seen kids, but I think it’s really like that movie kids you know, it’s pretty extreme. I couldn’t even watch it all the way through because it just got too much to for me. The main girl, she’s seventeen now but she was fourteen when she made it. Apparently they used body doubles at parts, but it’s just so full on, it’s actually like porn. But then there is this other story line that is actually quite sweet. Her dad’s very sick and she kind of gets closer to him by the end. Also she’s trying to win the affection of this older guy who’s eighteen and the school drug dealer. But I told work about it and Tim said ‘oh that sounds great for us; we should do a feature on it, you should go to Serbia and meet her’ and I was like yeah, but it was really disturbing. … But I guess that’s what Dazed does; they do really disturbing things.

We just did a head to head between them so I just did it on Skype between the director who’s really young- 28 or 29, and this main actress who’s seventeen now.

What did the director say?

The director talked a lot about the problems in this age group and how there are just completely different ways of communication now, and it’s quite cruel, but it’s just normal to them to share things that no one would share at an older age. Like her generation would have never been like that. She said the guys would have maybe gone to see one porn film, and that would happen very occasionally, or there would be some picture of naked women, but now it’s so normal for all teenagers to see pornography as a normal thing, and so it just completely skews the way they see sex.

But she was saying that she doesn’t even think pornography is a bad thing, which I’ve never really heard from someone before.

She was like- I think it’s good because it opens people up to diversity. The problem is that porn is seen as the only form of sex that people see. The media especially in America is so anti sex. If there were other depictions of sex as like emotional and realistic, the way it really is, then it would be ok if pornography was just one tiny part of that. The problem is that is the only form we can see. So I thought that was really interesting, and it challenged the way it thought about it. I guess she does have a point. I still don’t think it’s a good thing, but it was interesting to talk to someone who had really thought a lot about it, and she had made this film that at first to me was just downright offensive, but then I saw that maybe it’s interesting to explore it because it’s happening, and not just turn away from it, you know. She really didn’t judge it, she wasn’t judging the drug use, she wasn’t judging the sex. But that’s really happening with fourteen year olds, and maybe we do need to understand why, to see how we can help them still. That was a rant! Sorry! [laughs] No that’s really interesting, I think I’m really easily disturbed by things; my boyfriend’s always telling me I need to toughen up about that kind of thing.

I interviewed a girl who works as a waitress in a stripclub. I asked her about the girls and how they felt about stripping; did they feel objectified or liberated? And she thinks they feel very liberated while stripping. She said that if men are stupid enough to payalot of money just to see them naked then why not? Which is a different way than I would have thought about it, so that was interesting to hear.

They probably say that, but it must affect the way they feel about men and partners and the way they feel about their bodies being the reason they make all this money. I mean what else can you do as a woman to command that much money unless you have a business or work for a massive bank?

Yeah, I think that’s the problem with it; the highest paying jobs for women are to do with their appearence.

What was that show, you know the one with Billy Piper? I remember watching that one time and I didn’t agree with it because it completely glamourized high end prostitution, and it was really strange; it made her life seem so great, she had all the control and I thought it was really scary because it makes women think that that’s what it’s going to be like, and it’s probably going to be horrible, really dangerous in some places. It was interesting because I think when that story came out after, she was a PhD student at the time, and she said there are loads of women doing their PhDs and paying it off by being escorts on the side.

Yeah, the girl I was talking to said that is the case with a lot of the strippers who work at the strip club she works at. One of the girls was a law and politics student and she had mentioned wanting to be an MP .Yeah, it was interesting , there seems to be a new attitude about sex in regards to women.

Yeah I guess Naomi talked about that too, about how women’s desire is always seen as debasing. Especially in the Victorian ages, women were just taught that they shouldn’t have sexual desire or want to have sex, and then actually we did this head to head in the Asian issue with Brook Candy. Her parents were in the porn industry and she kind of calls herself a rapper/stripper. I don’t think she strips but her clothes are outrageous, she’s interesting, she was in the Grimes video actually - Oblivion. And she dresses really scantily but she’s really tough. And it’s interesting because she doesn’t really try to look hot, she just looks really different. You can tell she doesn’t really have the education to place her ideas under terms such as feminism, but she’s like ‘women should fucking take control of their bodies and its ok for a woman to have

sex’. I think she’s probably just seen so many women degraded in her life that she’s standing up against it, but she does it by also being quite sexual, but in a different way; not like look at me I’m hot, but look at me I’m here.

Yeah that is interesting. Lauren touched on that a bit in terms of how she thinks that feminism should be women just not being held back by anything, and just by doing whatever the fuck they want. If they want to be slutty in a way that is them celebrating themselves as women, as long as they are doing it for themselves then go for it.

Yeah, Lauren also said something interesting about going from blonde to brunette. She noticed that she got so many less looks and she felt safer; it was kind of a relief.

Yeah I was talking to Misty about that as well. I filmed her putting on her make-up and asked her questions at the same time, for example, how she would feel if she wasn’t wearing any make-up when she left the house. And she said ‘completely naked’, but at the same time whenever she doesn’t wear make-up she feels a lot more invisible and sometimes that is quite nice. Which I guess relates to how Lauren felt changing hair colour.

I feel the same thing when I wear certain things. Like when you can move really easily, when you’re wearing flats, or I remember I used to have a friend and we would go and try and do like really bad graffiti stuff, but it was so liberating to wear like bandanas and hoodies, and to just run and feel so free and tough. I really liked that feeling; it was so fun.

So would you call yourself a feminist?

Yeah, although sometimes I’m a little bit scared to because I feel like I don’t know enough to back it up. Like if someone asked me about second wave and third wave feminism, do you know the main people? I would be like ‘no’, so I get a bit scared [laughs] I think men should call themselves feminist. I hate when people say they’re not feminists, it makes me angry [laughs] And so how have your boyfriends responded to you being a feminist?

My ex boyfriend, the one who was really focused on his looks - he would really push it, whatever the sore spot was, so he would put me down, and also I would talk to him about it a lot, and he would kind of laugh it off, I think that was his reply to most things, just to laugh it off. But I think that I kind of changed him a little bit. I don’t know actually because when I read that Naomi Wolf book I texted him and I was like you should read this, and he was like ‘oh really’. And then he took a picture of himself when it came to the book shop where he works reading the book looking really unimpressed [laughs] What bit did you think he should particularly pay attention to?

I think it was the part about putting down women, because he’s really bad with terminology, like calling women names, calling women’s body parts names. He’s from Birmingham so he really relished that kind of working class humour I think, and he would really rub my face in it sometimes by just saying really disgusting things. It’s weird that I found it kind of funny at the beginning’ but it pissed me of so much quite quickly.

What does the term feminism mean to you?

I think it just means that women should be equal to men and that there shouldn’t be any discrimination against women based on their sex.

43

44

45

Sophie Nicholson Student. 18 years old.

Sophie is my little cousin. Being four years older than her I have watched her grow up, and we have always been really close. I have used her as a model since she was about ten, and have a back-catalogue of hundreds of photos of her. At 18 she is the youngest of my interviewees and I wanted to see what she had to say about female identity and her attitude to empowerment and feminism.

46

“I dont really know what feminism means�

47

“Sex sells and I think women are right to take advantage of this if it’s what they feel comfortable doing.”

Who would you say your biggest female influences have been growing up? and tell me abit about each of them.

relationships she has with men. But on the other hand I have seen girls my own age being used for sex and this isn’t liberating at all.

My mum was my biggest influence growing up, she’s probably the person I’ve spent most time with. She’s very open and bubbly so it was always easy bringing friends home with her being so welcoming. She always told me I could do whatever I wanted when I grew up and she always pushed me to do well in school without making me feel pressured. She has always trusted my judgement and allowed me to make my own decisions - even when the results of these weren’t always that good for me. This allowed me to feel independent as well as supported while I was growing up and its great knowing that she trusts me so much.

Tell me about some of your first hand experiences of this?

You have been another huge female influence growing up! As my older cousin, ive always looked up to you and wanted to “be like you when I grow up”. You’ve always included me in your work, whether it was in art or photography, which increased my confidence so much when I was growing up. Your positive attitude and laid back personality is something that makes you so fun to be around and I feel like you’re more like my sister rather than my cousin!

I remember you went through a playboy phase a few years back, when you bleched your hair blonde and had a playboy themed bedroom. What do you think sparked of this fascination off?

This started when I watched “Girls of the Playboy Mansion” on E! a few years back. It focused on the lives of three “girlfriends” in Hugh Hefners playboy mansion and their life seemed so idyllic and exciting that I wanted to be just like them. This was during a time when I was really unhappy at school with friends and the whole school environment so I feel like my fascination with playboy was escapism. Dying my hair blonde was a way of feeling closer to them and closer to having a life like them and it made me feel less connected to the problems at school.

You said the other day that you think stripping would be really liberating, tell me abit more about your views on this.

I think that in some ways stripping can be liberating to women.

The media constantly bombards us with the objectification of women and those who choose to be in this profession (in some cases) are just playing on this. These women are taking their clothes off to make money but all the power is in their hands - not the mens. This profession is showing that sex sells and I think women are right to take advantage of this if its what they feel comfortable doing.

What do you think of sex as a form of female liberation?

I think that sex is definitely liberating for females in many situations.

Since the sexual revolution, it has given them freedom to do what men have been doing for centuries with out feeling guilty about it.

Sex and the City character Samantha really shows how females can be liberated through sex. As a successful business woman she is able to have casual sex while maintaining control of the

48

Two of my closest friends are currently in a “friends with benefits or FWB” relationship with guys. Since losing her virginity to a guy she had known for a week, my best friend has now slept with three different people - all “without commitment”. Even though this was the agreement beforehand, she became attached to and developed feelings for all of them, moving on to the next boy to make herself feel less attached to the last. This really shocked me because she didn’t seem like the type of person to want a casual relationship with a guy and her personality is quite intense to deal with. She develops feelings so easily for guys so I knew from the start what she would feel like after she had sex with them.

My other friend decided to be friends with benefits with a guy she met in a club in Belfast. She’s always sending me screen shots of their conversations- after getting his number and accepting that he didn’t want a relationship, she started sending semi-naked pictures of herself to him. When she showed me what she had sent I was so surprised because she didn’t even crop her face out of the pictures and I was worried he would show people and she would get a bad reputation. He also sent her naked pictures, which she showed to most of the girls in our year group. I found this odd because if I was in that situation I would be worried about what other people would say to me or whether or not they had lost respect for me. The guy eventually got back together with his ex leaving my friend feeling let down and used.

Although I think that friends with benefits could probably work, I dont think that its possible at our age. I have even spoken to guys who said that it couldn’t work because sex is such an intimate thing, you cant help but develop feelings for the other person.

Who do you think is a good female role model within popular culture and how do you think is a bad one?

Beyoncé is the first woman I thought of. She promotes female talent with her all-women band and back up vocal group as well as singing empowering songs more often than love songs. From interviews that I have seen , she looks like such a nice person and so down to earth. She isn’t skinny like most other popular female singers at the minute and this makes me respect her even more - she shows that curves are sexy and should be favoured over stick-thin models.

Paris Hilton is a bad role model for women as she has been arrested for driving drunk and uses her dad’s money to make herself more popular even though she lacks talent in most things she does. She is the typical spoilt child her grows up thinking they are better than everyone else because she is able to buy opportunities that others have to work very hard for.

49

50

51

Misty Griffiths Part-time waitress in Secrets Lap Dancing and Table Dancing club, Fashion Journalism student.

I met Misty when I started university in 2010. While meeting everyone at the beginning she made an impact due to her strong but kind demeanour. Within her flat in halls she was quickly regarded as the mum of the flat, but her appearance was anything but mumsy. With an array of clothing, fake nails, false eyelashes and hair extensions she was always groomed to perfection.

Misty works part-time as a waitress in Central London at Secrets Lap Dancing Club whilst completing her studies at university.

“I’ll ask my mums opinion on anything, now I work in the strip club again, but when I first came to uni and I was struggling with money I was thinking shall I go and strip, but I thought can I actually do it myself and then I spoke to my mum and said shall I do it? And she wouldn’t just say no, I don’t want my daughter to do that, she had the reasons around it, really talked me through it, and it just put me of completely.”

52

53

54

“When I was younger I was interested in Playboy especially when they had their fifty year anniversary. I think that’s what got me interested in that whole industry. I remember telling my mum as a kid that I wanted to be a Playboy bunny, but do you have to sleep with men? And she was like yes, you have to sleep with men! You do not want to be a playboy bunny!”

55

Who do you think has made the biggest influence on your life?

My mum and my sister. My parents broke up when I was young, so the closest people were my mum and my sister. I think more so my sister…my mum’s really liberal with her views; my family are really open about everything. I don’t really like to talk about certain things with my mum. My sister has really pushed me to do things; she’s thirty three, so she’s 10 years older. I didn’t really want to come to uni, I was a bit like- no I’m scared, my life is fine here, but she really encouraged me to go.

I’ll ask my mum’s opinion on anything, now I work in the strip club again, but when I first came to uni and I was struggling with money I was thinking shall I go and strip, but I thought can I actually do it myself? And then I spoke to my mum and said shall I do it? She wouldn’t just say no, I don’t want my daughter to do that, she had the reasons around it, really talked my through it, and It just put my off completely.

What did she say?

Things like; you don’t want to do that sort of thing because you’re going into the fashion industry and if anything ever comes out about you doing this it will probably effect you negatively. I don’t think I could have done it now anyway. When I look back I think probably not, and I’m glad I didn’t, but at the time it was like Oh my god, how am I going to make any money quickly? But she told me to just persevere with jobs; you’ll find a job. That’s how I ended up in Sainsburys [laughs].

Did you go to your sister and ask “do you think I should strip?”

I didn’t initially go to her. I went to my mum first, and then my mum spoke to my sister. And my sister said no, please don’t do it! My sister’s a lesbian; she has a completely different view of it than me, ‘cause I don’t think it’s so bad, but she thinks it’s degrading.

It’s sort of a typical feminist point of view, whereas sometimes I feel, ok I couldn’t do it now, and when I see the girls doing it in work it makes me giggle because it’s like, oh my god, how can you just get naked and do that in front of a stranger [laughs] but on the other hand, I feel like if they can make money from the fact that they are beautiful, and if men are stupid enough to pay for it, then why not? Some nights they’re coming out with quite a lot.

The girls often say to me and the other waitress. Oh why don’t you do it? You’d make loads of money.

Well they have to pay a house fee to be there, and whatever they earn they have to pay a percentage back as well. So if they earn £200 then they only get £175, the club take a percentage off them. Which isn’t so bad really, but we don’t seem to get as many customers in here that are willing to spend as much as in the Mayfair Club.

Is there not a fixed price? Or can men just give whatever they want?

There was no fixed price in Mayfair. They could charge whatever they wanted, so that’s why some girls were getting like £3000 for an hour. And in Secrets they can buy dance vouchers which are like £20 or half an hour which is like £200 or an hour which is £300. But the stripper who has been there since it opened was saying that she doesn’t even dance; she literally just sits and talks, and she gets paid. She’s like “I don’t get naked, I don’t need to, I just talk to them. They just pay me to chat’.

Really?

She said she rarely does, once in a while, but she says most of the time if she’s in VIP she’ll be drinking champagne, just talking.

What do they start off wearing?

Here they wear, long, but tacky looking dresses. All full length but with a cut out front and cut out sides - they look like stripper dresses. A couple of the girls wear long, going out dresses.

And so do they get completely naked?

Not on the pole. On the pole they don’t take anything off, but in a £20 dance they get completely naked. Here more so, because when I worked in [Spearmint Rhino] in Sheffield, waitressing there was specific rules like you couldn’t turn round to a customer and bend over because he couldn’t see you in that way; you couldn’t open your legs to a customer; there was certain rules. Here it’s more like they can do whatever as long as there’s no touching involved. The Mayfair club was a bit stricter.

Why don’t you do it?

So how many have you worked in?

I’m happy with the amount I earn now anyway, I’m not that greedy.

And I couldn’t do it [laughs]. Now looking back, I’m glad I didn’t.

I started at Napoleon’s Casino, then I moved down here, got a horrible job at Sainsbury’s which I hated, and then when I went home for summer I needed to get a summer job, and I tried all the bars in Sheffield and then I thought I’m going to try Spearmint Rhino as well. I’ve always been interested to know what it’s like there, and they were the first place to get back to me. From having that in the summer I thought- ok I don’t mind working in strip clubs, I like all the girls, it’s not as bitchy as people make out, and my mum just used to say well as long as you don’t do it, please don’t let them talk you into it. Then I went to Mayfair club and one of the girls who was a waitress there was saying come on, let’s try it. We spoke to the manager about it and he said don’t do it. I was quite good friends with him eventually but he said the girls that do it end up with drug addictions, surgery addictions or they just spend all of their money on clothes; they end up with no money for rent - they all have problems with relationships, and they’re all just generally fucked up. He said this is what it does; sometimes normal girls go into it thinking ok it will help pay for uni, and they can’t get into a proper job after that because the money is so good and they get used to having that income.

I think if it was me, I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously- I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.

Yes, it’s the thought of a man actually sitting there fully dressed, and you’re not. But at the same time I feel like they are in control of it a little. Because they are getting money out of the fact that a man would pay just to see a woman naked. I think to myself, women don’t do this, it’s not so popular for us to go and see a man naked and pay the amount that they do. To see a man dancing around naked is not appealing. Why are men so stupid? [laughs] And how much would they make a night?

Um, Mayfair Club was different because they used to make a couple of thousand a night, but that would be business men coming in. Here, at Secrets it’s not so much, probably about £300/£400 a night. But that’s good nights, some nights they could go away with nothing. They always say - at least with your job you’re guaranteed income even if there’s nothing to do here, and I’m like well yeah that’s true.

56

So what do you mean?

Yeah I can see how it would effect relationships too, if you’re used to treating your body as a spectacle.

Yeah, and it changes the way they see men.

working here?”

Yeah I can imagine it changes the dynamic of a relationship.

That’s a bit hypocritical!

Yeah.

Yeah exactly. I’m like, well she doesn’t really think anything, because I’m not doing it, and she trusts me enough to know that if I say I’m not doing it then I’m not doing it. But it does shock me when they say that. The money’s really good here, which is what is keeping me here.

So what is your uniform like at Secrets?

It’s just a shirt, apron, this is probably the most covered up, it’s not so revealing. You can wear heels or flats. I wear heels though because you feel so small beside the girls. In the Mayfair club it was just black dresses and tights. You didn’t have to wear tights, but I felt like if you were just standing there in a black dress customers would walk in and I would greet them and ask if they wanted a table and they would be really dismissive - like “yeah, yeah I want to get a drink first”, because they would think you were a dancer trying to grab them as soon as they walk in.

What was it like in Spearmint Rhino?

It was a playboy sort of costume with the white cuffs and collar, a little dicky-bow, waistcoat, high waisted hot pants and fish net tights; that was really quite over the top. But for there it felt like you were wearing quite a lot of clothes, because often the girls were walking around in underwear. All of the uniforms really differ because although all the girls walked around in their underwear they were stricter in terms of what the girls were allowed to do.

Whereas here they wear these full length gowns but they can get away with more.

Do you think working in a strip club has changed your view on men at all?

I think it’s made me question marriage and trust more than anything. You see these married men come in saying ‘oh I don’t want my wife to see this on my statement;, what’s going to come up on the bill?’ and I’m like ok, it comes up as the Garden Bar and restaurant or something. They all come up as a random fake name, so that people don’t have to worry about what comes up on their bank statements.

So it disguises it for people?

Yeah, otherwise people won’t want to spend, and obviously they want people to come in and spend. But I just think if you have a wife and kids at home, why’s this what you’re coming to do, and how is this a priority? And I was speaking to someone about it the other day, and saying it shocks me. Groups of young guys I can understand why; if you’re on a night out or stag do or whatever it’s a fun thing to do; but when it’s just one man and he’s married, I don’t understand why he’s doing that. His wife’s not doing that, and I just think it’s such a terrible thing to do.

That makes you question, is this just what all relationships turn into in the end? Are men this dishonest?

Yeah, so it makes you lose faith a little bit.

Yeah, a bit. In the other clubs it wasn’t so bad, but here they want to talk to the waitress. I’ve had a man say ‘I’ll pay you £500 to take your clothes off, please please please please!’ and I have to be like listen I’m paid to serve drinks, I’m not paid to take my clothes off, and I’m not paid to talk to you. I just told him no, you’re a man and men just want what they can’t have; you have all those girls to choose from. Sometimes there’s thirty girls on, and he’s come to me and he’s saying all this. I just said you pay £500 to someone else; I’m not going to take my clothes off for you, and I just walk off. Some guy gave me his room key number, “in case you want to come to my hotel”. He was a small bald fat man. But I often get customers asking me“ so what does your mum think of you

How much do you get paid?

It varies from week to week. So the hourly pay is just minimum wage, six pounds something, but with tips and service charge on top, an average week is probably £500 and it gets better around Christmas. Most of my money goes on clothes [laughs}, but yeah, the money is good, which is what is really keeping me there. And the money in Mayfair club was good as well. But I hate when customers say what does your mum think? It’s like, I’m not actually doing it, I’m not getting naked, I’m serving you tramps that come in because you think you need to pay to see someone naked! [Laughs] Did you know someone that stripped to start of with? Is that how you thought of it as a possible part-time job?

Not really, I don’t even know why, I think it’s because when I was younger I was interested in Playboy especially when they had their fifty year anniversary. I think that’s what got me interested in that whole industry. I remember telling my mum as a kid that I wanted to be a Playboy bunny, but do you have to sleep with men? And she was like yes, you have to sleep with men! You do not want to be a playboy bunny! I also remember when I was a child shoe size thirteen there were these thigh high patent boots in Shuuh?, and I must have been about seven, and I remember coming up to the till with my mum and asking the woman at the till if those boots came in a size 13 [laughs] and my mum was like I don’t know why she likes these, it’s nothing to do with us! [laughs] I guess it kind of glamorised that whole industry; it was seen as something exciting.

Yeah, but I don’t really know why, because my mum was shocked that I had said that, and I don’t know where I had seen it, or why I would have liked those boots at that age. But my mum was like oh no, you’re going to be a stripper! [laughs] How long do you think you’ll work in a strip club?

I’m hoping as soon as I get a good enough job in the fashion industry I can just come out of it, because I do hate that reaction you get when you tell someone that you work in a strip club, I always then have to follow it up with ‘but I’m not a dancer’. Why do I feel like I have to say that anyway? like I shouldn’t have to, but I just hate the associations that come with it and the judgement.

I think people often have a different view of me just because I’m there. I wouldn’t mind working in a night club as opposed to this, if the money was as good but I spend so much that this is ideal.

And what do you think about the whole thing? Do you find stripping to be degrading or empowering for women?

My opinion on it all often changes. One of the girls was new when I started and she was a bit shy; she’s actually a professional dancer, but she’s doing that for extra money. She said one day she did a dance for this guy and bent over, and he just stuck his fingers in her. She came up to me straight after and was like; “I feel so violated, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say, do I tell management? What do I say, when he came in people said he was a regular.” I just said go and tell the manager, but she would only tell when he left and when she told the assistant

57

“Some of the girls are in uni, or actresses; one of them is studying politics and I heard a customer asking her the other day about it. She was saying that eventually she wanted to be an MP, and he was like how do you think you’re going to do that if this is the kind of job you’re doing?”

58

manager he said we’re barring him, that sort of thing doesn’t go on in our club; that might happen in other clubs, but not here. You have to know that all our girls here are safe, but you have to tell us if there’s anything like that. In some clubs, apparently there’s one called Red Rooms, which is on the next street down from us, they can get away with doing anything. Their VIP room has no cameras apparently security aren’t even in there, so the girls can do whatever they want.

So it’s seen as the girls can do whatever they want, rather than the male customers? I think that’s the scary part isn’t it? It’s the vulnerability.

Exactly, the girl I was talking about is really strict with customers now. If a man so much as puts his hand on her thigh she’s like “get of me”, but it took that to happen. I think if it was me and that happened I would have turned around and punched him; that would have been my natural reaction. But I think she just felt so scared.

I felt really upset for her because she was new, and if you’ve never done this sort of thing before and no one has told you about the possibilities then you’re sort of going into it a bit blind and maybe just thinking about the money.

And also how it can affect you mentally.

Yeah, I can understand why people do think ’’ts degrading, but at the same time it’s an industry where, like all industries, its supply and demand, so if people didn’t want it then there would be no need for it. It’s just so highly paid; some of the girls are in uni, or actresses; one of them is studying politics and I heard a customer asking her the other day about it. She was saying that eventually she wanted to be an MP, and he was like how do you think you’re going to do that if this is the kind of job you’re doing? And she was like just because I haven’t had a rich enough background to provide me with good money to do my course so I’ve had to resort to this. And he was just really critical of the whole thing, and then one of the other girls stepped in and stuck up for her. There are only a few that I know there that are actually just glamour models in that industry anyway.

So there is quite a lot of interaction with the men that come in; it’s not like they just come in and watch you dance.

Yeah, and the girls have to act like they are all really interested in everything they have to say. Laughing along with them, then they’ll walk away and be like ‘ugh he’s so dull”, [laughs] and I’m just so glad I don’t have to talk to these people. Sometimes they come in and try and talk to me for a bit, and I’m like ok, so you can sit at your table and I’ll get the girls to come over and talk to you [laughs]. I just can’t wait to get away from them.

When you’re going to work would you do your make-up any differently than if you were going on a night out for example?

It’s very similar to going out make-up. My day make-up is different; I wear shorter eyelashes; as you know, I’m obsessed with eyelashes. So I wear short day eyelashes, but to go into work I wear the long night ones; at the weekend I’ll put on more eyeliner.

At the weekend it feels like a night out at work, with the music and there’s so many customers and girls, it’s almost like a club atmosphere. Despite the fact that they are dancing in the back.

When I worked in a bar in Chelsea at weekends I would put on more, just because it’s a going out atmosphere.

Do you think it is like putting on a costume, like when you’re getting ready for different occasions, like for work, uni, etc, are there different elements that you think are essential to each look.

For me I’m the same regardless; I try and put my own style into each occasion. I hate to have to wear uniforms because I don’t really feel like me in it. So I’ll wear my jewellery and people are like oh that’s a nice earring - oh and you’ve got a different earring in that ear! And I’m like yeah, to you I’m weird, but in fashion I’m normal [laughs] Yeah, so you always put your own stamp on whatever you’re wearing, cause I guess we all take on different roles for the different aspects of our lives, so you have to take on a different role whenever you’re working there.

Yeah. With heels I would happily wear trainers but I would happily wear heals, and all my heels look similar, that’s the thing, they all look a bit dominatrix [laughs].

Who would you say is your female role model?

but I go on and off her.

I think Scarlett Johansson is one of my favourites, probably just because of some of the roles she’s played. She’s not interested in being super skinny, and she’s just so gorgeous. I do like the typical ones like Rhianna,

Yea, she goes to strip clubs and stuff.

See I like the fact that she’s not judgemental about it; whenever girls say oh I’ve been to one before with some of my friends I think ok, you’ve got a similar stance to me.

59

60

I waited outside ‘Secrets’ tentatively, until Misty arrived to take me in. It was 6:30 and I was reassured when she told me the club is always empty until a bit later, as clients tend to arrive after work. Misty had already asked the manager if he minded if I took a few photos and he had cleared it. Misty’s charm melted the initially icy reception from the bouncer and barman as she lead me into the dimly lit club.

Immediately I felt underdressed, wearing all black I instinctively felt the urge to take of a few layers to look less reserved and therefore less conspicuous. It was interesting that I felt like a form of disguise was necessary in order to be a fly on the wall, I remember thinking, I should have put more make-up on. The club music resonated from all around and as Misty disappeared out the back to get into her uniform. I apprehensively made my way over to a booth in the corner and proceeded to take in my surroundings.

The situation was dimly lit by red and blue lights, which bounced of silver beaded curtains that separated each booth. The only other source of light was coming from the bright screens raised on the walls, which offered scenes from the latest Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Mirrored walls surrounded me and a silver poll was elevated on a stage that took pride of place in the center of the club.

The girls were all together in a booth beside me, a united front, chatting and laughing. Each of them wearing different coloured long gowns that were cut up at the front exposing their underwear. I watched as a petit brunette wearing leopard print made her way to the bar, swaying in time to the music before rising one leg until it was parallel to her body, as if limbering up for a race. I was later informed by misty that she was called Angel, that wasn’t her real name of course but that was what they called her. I toyed with the idea of getting out my camera to record my surroundings but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a welcomed act, the bar man kept a close eye on me and I felt conspicuous holding the camera, as if it was forbidden object in ‘Secrets’.

Towards the end of my short visit to the club I asked Misty if the girls would mind me getting a picture of them, their was something quite impressive about them all huddled together in these jewel coloured dresses, apprehending the night ahead, But Misty confirmed, it wouldn’t have been a welcomed act.

‘Secrets’ was beginning to live up to its name.

61

PLAYING DRESS-UP with Mary Stevens

62

63

“I think the way that some young women dress now is very provocative, I don’t know if women have changed as much as the way they dress, because the only young women I know are my granddaughters and I think they are all wonderful!”

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

feminism femininity relationships identity disguise trends fashion motherhood sisterhood sexuality.

71

Lauren Jo Ford Edna Houston Lorna Stevens Erin Elizabeth Kelly Karen Orton Sophie Nicholson Misty Griffiths Mary Stevens

72

73