NYC Strippers Protest Race Discrimination In City’s Clubs

NEW YORK CITY—Exotic dancers in New York City are attempting to start a movement, and even threatening a work stoppage, to protest what they say has become a double-edged policy of discrimination in the city’s strip clubs: discrimination against strippers in favor of a new breed of bartender, and job discrimination based on skin color. Last month, led by veteran dancer Gizelle Marie, a group of the Big Apple’s strippers met to create the movement under the social media hashtag #NYCStripperStrike, to protest the rise of so-called “startenders” who, the dancers say, have cut into their nightly tips and in some cases have even stolen money off stages where dancers are hard at work. Along with the rise of “startenders” who slice hundreds of dollars off strippers’ nightly take-home, club management and owners hire primarily white and Latina women to serve behind the bar, the #NYCStripperStrike dancers say, leaving African-American women hurting for employment—a problem that darker-skinned exotic dancers have faced for years. In another example of how the internet has radically altered working conditions throughout the American economy, the “startenders,” sometimes known as “bottle girls,” are largely drawn from the ranks of Instagram celebrities who have accrued thousands of followers by posting revealing poses of themselves on their social media feeds. The scantily clad bartenders frequently dance on the bar itself and in customers’ eyes are indistinguishable from the performers on stage, causing strip-club patrons to divide their tipping between the dancers and the “startenders.” But behind the scenes there are significant differences. While dancers must pay clubs a nightly “house fee” that can range from $50 to well over $100 or even $200 just to secure their place on the stage, the celebrity bartenders often receive regular wages in addition to their tips. While many of the #NYCStripperStrike dancers are African-American, the celebrity bartenders are mostly white or Latina, according to a report on the movement by the Washington Post. “Bartenders are doing our work, as well,” Gizelle Marie told the website Complex. “They're behind the bars dancing. If you wanna do that, that's fine. But why are they not paying a house fee? They're doing the same job that we're paying to do. What's the whole point of us being there? They might as well just take the poles out of the club.” According to Sinnamon Love, a porn performer turned author and social commentator, racial discrimination in the strip-club industry is rooted in long-ingrained stereotypes of female “attractiveness.” “When it comes down to sex work in general, there's no market research,” Love told Complex. “So you have to think about the psychology of sex and why (club owners) would possibly think that these black men might not be interested in a dark-skinned black woman. It's because they personally don't think that that's attractive. So it goes beyond the work itself and what the standard of beauty is that's being pushed on our society at large and our community at large.” The #NYCStripperStrike dancers also say that the racial discrimination they endure would not be tolerated in other industries outside of sex work. “Forget about it being a strip club,” said #NYCStripperStrike leader Panama—who, like Gizelle Marie, is African-American. "We're still being discriminated against as black women in the workplace in 2017."