Strippers Workers

Even as they entertain you from the catwalk and champagne room, America’s erotic dancers face a shameful array of workplace malfeasance; here, we go inside a growing and long overdue labor movement.

- Jessica P. Ogilvie

Gizelle Marie was on her way home to New York City after working a shift at the Stadium Club, a Washington, D.C. establishment whose website promises “the most talented exotic entertainment in the industry.” It was October 2017, and the 29-year-old dancer was flush with cash.

But as the black car she’d hired whisked her homeward, Marie’s satisfaction turned to frustration. Scrolling through the social media feeds of other strippers, she saw, over and over, their complaints about club practices that prevent dancers from earning the kind of money she’d just made — specifically, the growing ranks of female bartenders who wear revealing clothing, dance provocatively and sometimes literally stand between strippers and their tips. With online followings that can hit six figures, these so-called “startenders” are a reliable draw for customers and an easy distraction from the women working onstage.

In a moment of exasperation, Marie typed up her feelings and posted them to Instagram: “I’m so sick of seeing my fellow dancers in New York complain about deserving what is supposed to be theirs. Me nor any dancer should have to leave the comfort of their own home/city to make a fucking check.”

For the next few days, Marie kept posting about the problem using the hashtag #NYCStripperStrike. By the end of the week, she was trending. Local and national media picked up the story, and Marie gained tens of thousands of followers. Over the next few months, she and other dancers joined larger protests, holding signs with slogans like OUR BODIES, OUR MINDS, OUR POWER; TWERK IS WORK; AND STIGMA DRIVES VIOLANCE at the Women’s March on Central Park West and the International Women’s Strike in Washington Square Park.