A few weeks ago I was driving from Santa Cruz to San Francisco to meet up with some friends for a night out at the Cat Club's bi-monthly lesbian dance party, Hot Pants. On my way up I received a call saying that plans had changed and that we were going to start out the evening at the Lusty Lady in attempts to cheer up a friend who was in the process of breaking up with her girlfriend. Now I must mention that I have a problem with strip clubs. It's funny how as a feminist I have found this a difficult stance to admit. It turned out that my break-up friend ended up too distraught to go out at all, thus putting an abrupt end to my moral dilemma. Yet even after numerous discussions with friends about stripping and feminism, including input from a Lusty Lady dancer (an acquaintance we ran into at Hot Pants), I still find myself conflicted. Instead of discussing my thoughts and conclusions, I just want to send it out there: What place does stripping have in feminism? How subversive are unionized strip clubs like the Lusty Lady (especially in light of clients' reactions to big, beautiful women)? Is it important to focus on strip clubs at all?

Does anybody here honestly believe that a woman who leaves work for maternity leave should be paid the same amount as a man or woman who has stayed ont he job during that period?

If so, then running a business might not be for you. People make choices and they must live by the repercussions of these choices. I make a choice to quit my job and travel around every six months or so. Should I be able to go back to work and demand that they pay me the same amount as somebody who didn't spend three weeks in Bangkok? That would be ludicrous.

And so was this lawsuit.

Ranja-

The analogy between taking a vacation and having a baby is ridiculous, especially if you read the last story in this post. You obviously had money to travel, but who knows if a surprise pregnancy can be financially supported, should it be carried to term.

The issues about paid maternity leave go much deeper than "paid vacation." This story just shows how women (and mothers) are valued, regardless of what "family values" may be preached.

No, Azila, it just shows that actions have consequences. There is no Pregnancy Fairy that taps you on the stomach and makes you pregnant. If you choose to go through the actions that cause a pregnancy, if you choose not to give that child up for adoption, and if you choose to take time off of work - then it is simply insane to believe that you should be treated and paid the same as that person who comes to work every days, sits down at her desk, works lates, works nights, works weekends, and so on.

The financial rewards from work are based on the effort and time that is put into that work. That's the way it is. Separate from feminist arguments, lifestyle arguments and any other type of arguments. That is simply the way that it works. Women don't get special treatment because they can become pregnant with a child.

Ranja,

Men can take paternity leave as well. Obviously they aren't the ones having the baby - but they are every bit as responsible for it as the mother.

What you are looking for is a justification to pay women less. The continuation of the human race means procreation however. This requires society to allow for babies to happen.

And those men should be paid less than the men and women who stay at work.

And I'm not looking to justify anything - I'm merely explaining to you a little bit of Capitalism 101.

Concerning the Canadian government severing funding for women's rights advocacy, this happened last week. There is some talk about it being a 'streamlining effort' but in essence it is a complete halt of funding to the groups that have done the most to advance women's rights and equality in Canada over the last several decades.

And its not as if the money is not there. Several weeks ago, the Tory government announced a 13 billion dollar payment to the national debt.

In essence, the Canadian government is saying that economic trivialities trump women's and minorities rights.

This is a national disgrace.

Troll away, Ranja. Sooner or later, you all get banned.

Personally, I'm horrified at the direction our Conservative govt is heading in, especially when they are still only leading a minority govt. I assume part of this is due to the current weakness of the Liberals, and the security they have until the Liberals elect a new leader and manage to shake off their corrupt image. The NDP is trying, and I applaud them for it, but they don't have enough power to keep the Conservatives in line.

That 1% GST cut that no one even really notices has really turned into a monster with an unsatiable appetite, hasn't it? It's like that little thing Leela has on Futurama that eats like crazy and poops out starship fuel, except that we have no guarantee that it'll actually poop out anything good at all.

Or perhaps what they're saying is that taxpayer money should be going to paying off the national debt, and not to funding organizations that (1) some taxpayers might not agree with, and (2) should be earning that money on their own.

I had not heard about that, but I certainly applaud Canada for doing it.

And if you think it's so horrible, then feel free to donate some of your money to those organizations, but don't tell me what I should be doing with my money.

"Economic trivialities". Are you for real?

And those men should be paid less than the men and women who stay at work.

Wow. Talk about being focused on the small picture.

Try expanding your viewpoint a little. Basic logic dictates that any society that cares about its continuation and advancement would encourage its members to have children - not penalize them for doing so.

Troll, troll, go away. Come again another day.

Look...like magic.

Disagreeing with a poster or other commenters does not a troll make. Engaging in personal insults and, above all, shoddy argumentation, makes one a troll. A troll is someone who tries to hijack or disrail a thread by taking attention away from the subject being discussed and direct it towards the troll. It's not about conformity, it's about the quality of the arguments being offered. Trolls waste everyone's time and energy, and in fact this site is very tolerant of those who might be considered trolls.

Shouldn't open debate be welcomed here?.

Yes, and there is. It happens often. In fact there are threads that exceed 100 replies due to long-running debates.

However,

No, Azila, it just shows that actions have consequences. There is no Pregnancy Fairy that taps you on the stomach and makes you pregnant.

I'm merely explaining to you a little bit of Capitalism 101.

... is just irrational condescension and hostility. Not debate.

"Or perhaps what they're saying is that taxpayer money should be going to paying off the national debt, and not to funding organizations that (1) some taxpayers might not agree with"
You mean everyone should agree with something before it can be funded by tax money? Very unpopular wars are funded by tax money all the time, but to fund women’s organization we need to hold a referendum? Maybe you suggest we hold referendums for funding welfare, Medicaid, public schools too?

Um... I don't really agree with Ranja, especially not on the Canadian issue, but I don't see how she matches the definition of a troll. Her posts were on-topic and presented arguments, whether they were good arguments or not. You can't ban people for having arguments you consider to be weak.

Anyway,

I'm not sure I actually undertand the lawsuit on equal pay. Was it basically about paid maternity leave?

I think parents should definitely recieve some pay if they take time off work for children, but I'm not sure it needs to be equal to regular pay to be just, and I'm not sure it makes sense for it to take the form of wages from an employer as opposed to, say, government subsidies and a decent state-regulated daycare program.

Women are usually the ones who end up having their incomes careers harmed by taking time off to have children. But I think an important approach to solving this would be to encourage fathers to do their share in child-rearing, as opposed to ensuring women are paid the exact same amount whether they take time off for pregnancy or not.

The Conservative actions in Canada are absolutely awful. They didn't only cut funding for Status of Women Canada, they actually re-wrote the organization's mission statement to remove any mention of it working for "equality" for women, which I think says a lot. Another step in their campaign to mold Canadian society along socially conservative lines.

While maternity leave is an important issue, I don’t think it applies to the Cadman case. If I am understanding this correctly, she left a job to care for children and then started a new job later on. She therefore had only 12 years at the current company (compared to longer tenures by male colleagues). She did not sue for maternity leave pay, or because the company held maternity leave against her. She sued against the concept of seniority as a part of the pay scale, saying that since many women leave their jobs to care for children this aspect of the pay scale affects them badly. The court ruling, then, did not say that maternity leave could be used as an excuse for paying someone less money. Rather it said that seniority at a company could be a reason to pay someone more.

Am I misreading this?

"She argued that a difference of £9,000 for male colleagues based on length of service amounted to sex discrimination because women were more likely to have career breaks to have children." - From the article

It is a bit confusing because while maternity leave is mentioned at the beginning of the article, this specific case actually dealt with a “career break�, which I understand to be leaving a job outright, not just taking a few months off.

prairie, I love that you compared the new Canadian rule to Nibbler :)

Is Ranja banned? He/She/It talks as though capitalism is an argument in and of itself -- "it's capitalist so it's right!" -- what a joke.

kristin, I have the same problem as you but I don't struggle with it in quite the same way. I think that strip clubs are extremely troubling and problematic because it's simply wrong to objectify people, and it's doubly wrong when those people are a historically oppressed group such as women.

I'm pissed that they fired the dancer and reinstated the dude who bothered writing down the idiots' comments in the first place. I shouldn't be surprised though -- even in a society as supposedly progressive as San Francisco, this ought to remind us just whose world we are living in.

"I'm pissed that they fired the dancer and reinstated the dude who bothered writing down the idiots' comments in the first place." - The Law Fairy

Isn't it his responsibility to pass customer complaints on to management? Don’t kill the messenger.

But is stripping necessarily objectifying or can it be empowering? My feminist, mostly lesbian, friends who are or want to be strippers claim that stripping, especially at places like the Lusty, can be empowering. And so I wonder, is all stripping objectifying even if it is in a progressive club like the Lusty (which is a co-op) and the stripper feels empowered by it?

The confusion continues because I actually read it as just a general discrepancy in salary -- meaning she didn't take any maternity leave/career breaks, but she discovered the significant gap between male and female salaries and based her challenge against it on the fact that since men don't have to take off work for pregnancy/paternity, they have a significant advantage in garnering experience and pay raises than women. If a woman does get pregnant and takes off work, that's a significant amount of time subtracted to her earning that salary, and that formulation leaves her behind in earning more for her quality of work than the duration of time she's worked.

Making it discriminatory.

And the court disagreed by using the reductionist argument that if a woman sacrifices time for pregnancy, then the discrepancy in pay is justified because the men are there and able to work longer -- the same one ranja was just advocating.

noname, what bothers me is the inequity. It's not clear to me from the story that there was any rule against telling the other dancers what the customers said. Whether or not she should have is a different issue -- but that they guy gets his job and she gets *fired*, not even like a warning or anything -- yeah, that's messed up.

kristin, I honestly don't understand how stripping can be empowering. I mean, I get that being nude could be empowering, because it shatters restrictive ideals of modesty and celebrates the human-ness of a body. But stripping is one hundred percent different. Stripping isn't about getting naked -- it's about titillating through objectification. So I really don't see how it's empowering.

Thank you, Law Fairy! I could not for the life of me remember Nibbler's name. I'm kinda known for weird little analogies and making strange connections between things. I think this it's apt in this case because of how much has been cut, and how much more I'm predicting will be cut.

Ranja seemed to have decided that none of the programs are important because it wasn't important to him/her. That's clearly ridiculous. This isn't just an attack on women, but on Canadian culture in general.

We live right next to the United States, and are constantly at risk of being completely consumed by American values. Conservative Americans don't see the value in funding arts, culture, and minority groups in their struggles for equality because they think that they should all fend for themselves. That's what Stephen Harper thinks.

However, we are not American. We have a different history and culture, and they need to be preserved and promoted. In Canada, we should fund programs which better lives for Canadians. We should fund programs that keep the arts going in our country despite heavy American competition. We should fund programs that preserve our heritage and achievements.

We should fund such programs because they are what make us Canadian. We're a country full of very, very different people, but one that wants to make Canada work for everyone. The Conservatives don't want a Canada that works for everyone.

I think that's the problem with the United States right now. Right-wing conservatives (Republicans, I guess) don't want an America that works for everyone. It's "liberty for me, but not for you, because you're not enough like me." Why would we want to bring values like that to Canada? And make no mistake, that is what the Conservatives are actually trying to do.

We don't need that kind of New Right religious idealogy in Canada. Rick Mercer encapsulated the agenda well when commenting on how the cuts would affect the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame: "Because there's nothing to be learned there but Science."

By the way, I voted for the NDP in the last election, so if someone wants to call me a naive socialist, go right ahead. All I know is that I grew up on the prairies (obviously) and I've never trusted Reformers, and I never, ever will. I was hoping minority status would keep them in check, but I guess they feel pretty secure with the Liberals in such disarray.

On a different note, I don't think it is empowering, kristin, if only because these big, beautiful women got on stage, and were basically told (in a roundabout way) that men felt they didn't deserve to be there. Maybe the action feels like it's empowering, but IMHO, catering to what men want is never empowering. Other people are entitled to disagree, and I'm sure the experience would be freeing, but I wouldn't regard it as empowering.

The Law Fairy - I'm not saying she should have been fired. I'm saying he shouldn't have been fired. I've been in the service industry long enough to know that competent management always wants to know about re-occurring client complaints, and that an employee who hides those complaints is not doing his job. He sent the complaints to management, not to the dancers. None of this was his fault.

skyanide - That is another way to read it. I wish the article was more clear. Anyone know more about this lawsuit?

We're a country full of very, very different people, but one that wants to make Canada work for everyone. The Conservatives don't want a Canada that works for everyone.

*applause*

Sorry - too late for me to write anything of substance... Especially since prairielily just said it so eloquently.

I voted NDP too prairie... There seem to be more and more of us every election. =P

Women are usually the ones who end up having their incomes careers harmed by taking time off to have children. But I think an important approach to solving this would be to encourage fathers to do their share in child-rearing, as opposed to ensuring women are paid the exact same amount whether they take time off for pregnancy or not.

Well said! I'm torn on this issue because while I obviously want to see equality in the workplace, I can't help but to think that a lot of women don't make their partners do their fair share. If you bring the men into this, then the issue of paying equal salaries to COUPLES if they CHOOSE to have children can be examined fairly.

I know that I often have to cover coworkers (especially those who commute) when they can't be at work because of the kids "I'll be available on IM today"). That's fine, but shouldn't I be paid more for that effort? I may not be a mom, but I have to put my own time and money into the preparations that make me a "cool aunt" to several kids. :)

I can't help but to think when people retort, "it takes a community..." that my status as a single woman with no children is not as "valid" as others.

On the coed dorm rooms...didn't Antioch do this years ago with their coed showers? I've used them before when visiting friends!

Jane, I think the issue about maternity versus paternity is best encapsuled in different pregnancy and parental leaves. Pregnancy leave is a natural thing; women in modern society shouldn't have to work right before or right after giving birth. Parental leave is something completely different, though. Canada gets it right by separating the two, but what it gets wrong is not mandating some paternity leave. Gender-neutral parental leave combined with pregnancy leave naturally encourages women to take the entire leave.

P.S. I probably should have clarified that my comment referred to the European court incident and not the Canadian government incident. lol

"I can't help but to think when people retort, "it takes a community..." that my status as a single woman with no children is not as "valid" as others."

Same here. I think it's only right that people can take parental leave, etc., but what about those of us who make different lifestyle choices? What about those of us who want to volunteer or choose to take a break from work for other personal reasons? (Because in the workplace, family people often assume that childless people have no personal life anyway).

As for the "ways for Hollywood to stop alienating women" part of the post, am I the only one who's offended by the whole "chick flick" concept anyway? Do movies have to be gendered? Movies for guys about fast cars and movies for chicks with sappy love stories and fashion? Isn't society ripe with gender stereotyping already?

The stories around this were confusing and contradicted each other, but this seamed the most reasonable analysis of what the case really means.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5405986.stm

from this article maternity leave doesn't count but a career break does count against you.

Thanks chem_fem. That clears it up pretty well.

Note: It sounds like a serious pain in the ass to do business in Europe.

I don't know if it is any harder to do business over here (not having worked in the States) but just because you can sue doesn't mean people regularly do. I don't think this really affects many every day people.

Also it is my personal experience that if you want more pay you move company rather than stay, as many firms offer good salaries to get good people.

I'm not comparing it to the US. That is difficult as well. I work in Latin America. It is damn near impossible to fire anyone down here, but at least we can manage our own pay-scales to reward hard work and loyalty without worry.

The college I attended had no problems with coed dorm-rooms, and a few percent did take advantage of it. It mostly wasn't for sexual relationships, that I could see.

I don't think there was much of an official policy at the college level. Initial roommates were random within the same sex, but these only lasted a week or two, as all of the dorms shortly have a room pick.

When problems develop, they get dealt with the same way problems between roommates of the same sex are dealt with.

Even for nonlaywers and ESPECIALLY for lawyers, it makes little sense to discuss the Cadman litigation without at least reading the relevant court opions, which are easy enough to find with Google. The opinion of the UK court (where Cadman won) is here:
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j2836/bernadettecadman-v-thehealthandsafetyexec.htm

The opion of the ECJ is here: http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Rechercher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=C-17/05&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100