The political economy of stripping, the social construction of sex trade work

grantor: University of TorontoThe study examines how the political economy contributed to the social organization of stripping during the 1980s and 1990s in Ontario. Forty-seven strippers and a variety of other personnel in eighteen strip clubs were surveyed. Stripping is viewed as a practice which is part of the new global economy with segmented markets, diversification, work intensification and declining rates of remuneration. The experiences of strippers are seen to be socially constructed (formed by historical, material and discursive procedures), as part of a capitalist labour process, patriarchal practices and specific forms of race relations. The purpose of the study was to explore stripping as skilled and knowledgeable work, located within the service industry and subject to a gendered division of labour. A materialist feminist labour process was utilized to explicate specific aspects of the everyday working lives of strippers. Gender and race were employed as organizing categories (to be investigated as culturally constructed and materialist forces) central to a differential labour process. Stripping was viewed as similar to other forms of unequal exchange relations which have evolved within the service industry. The defining features of the service industry of stripping highlighted a decentralized and flexible labour process, in which working class women are available to service the needs of predominantly White men with economic resources. Shifts in skills and the nature of power and resistance based on class, gender and race statuses were revealed in a labour process of stripping.Ph.D