As I start writing this posting its about 4.45pm, the sun has set, its cold outside and I am glad to be in for the evening. My dinner is in the oven, I have a coffee on the go and I've just finished a fag (slang for a cigarette for my American readers...just so there's no confusion about my leisure habits). Anyway, as I write this loads of people are on their way home and at least thinking about it, but there is of course another group whose day is about to start, these are the bar staff, door people and of course the dancers that work in clubs throughout Britain.....
I was speaking with a dancer on Saturday who was somewhat concerned about being able to pay her fees. No, not her 'house fees', she was worried about the fees for her degree course, which amount to £7,000 a year. Lot's of people come Britain to study for a degree of some description and a number of them become dancers or work in clubs. Prohibitionists such as Object and UK Feminista don't really believe these people exist, for them dancers are abused, ill-educated and above all traumatised individuals for who the loss of their job would be a feminist blessing in disguise.
Some prohibitionists argue that even if there are dancers and bar staff that are studying for degrees, there is no necessity for them to work in lap dancing clubs. I want to explore this, so lets look at the economics of the matter and what expenses need to be covered....
Cost of Degree Course £7,000 per annum,
Single Room with shared facilities - £600 per month or £7,200 per annum,
Food and drink on a budget of £40 a week or £2080 per annum,
Phone bill on a budget of £50 a month or £600 per annum,
Clothing on a budget of £50 a month or £600 per annum,
Other stuff on a budget of £100 a month or £1200 per annum.
Let's add all of this up and we see that it comes to £18,680 a year. This number doesn't include travel expenses, text books and other resources or any real provision for an emergency such as a dental problem. So we can see that the average foreign student in the UK, needs either their parents to pay for everything or get a job that after deductions leaves them with about £19,000 a year, or before deductions, the thick end of £26,000. The parents of foreign students tend not to have a spare £26K in the bank, so the students are on their own and they look for a job...
But what kind of job?
Well its got to be one that allows flexibility of hours, let's face it degree courses involve attending lectures and of course essays and assignments must be completed. Furthermore, we must consider that student visas limit the amount of hours that can be worked. 20 hours per week in term time with a full time allowance during holidays.
So what kind of job in the UK can pay about £26,000, is flexible about attendance and involves no more that 20 hours a week?
Lets really make it simple for the clowns in Object and UK Feminista to understand what is going on, by looking at the hourly rate target for this imaginary job that our foreign student is looking for....
36 weeks term time at 20 hours per week.. 720 hours
16 weeks holidays at full time of 40 hours per week 640 hours
So its a total of 1360 hours a year can be worked, if of course they take no holidays at all. Divide the hours by the gross salary and we see that our student needs to a find a job that pays just over £19.00 an hour. I'm not even going to bother to try and find it on a job search site.....but hang on there is one job where that kind of money is easily achievable.......
I now understand why Object et al vehemently deny that dancers may be students. It's really simple. Radical feminist campaigners seek to close clubs, this would of course make lots of people jobless. The uncomfortable truth for the prohibitionists is that an inevitable consequence of their campaign would be the termination of a large number of degree courses and a lot of very disappointed students whose futures would then be in doubt. So as far as Anna and the gang are concerned, its best not to think about it.
Think for a minute what it must be like for a foreign student in Britain. They have studied hard to be able to take their degree course then they have flown sometimes thousands of miles from their families to study in Britain. They have arrived with whatever savings they could muster and must then support themselves for 3 to 4 years. They are on their own and yet they still make it through.
Incredibly, there exists a group of middle class 'feminists' that at best want to see the students that choose to work in clubs made jobless and if their education and futures get screwed up as a consequence, then that's fine because at least they are not being 'objectified'. It's also important to note that not all student employees are dancers. Some are bar staff and they work much harder for less money, but they still work in a club and would be jobless if Object and UK Feminista get their way....
Recently in Pakistan, we saw that a school girl, Malala Yousufzai was the victim of an attempted assassination by Taliban activists, due to the fact that she vocally campaigned for her right to education. In Britain, we see a group a activists are engaged in a campaign to, by default, deny high quality education to the thousands of employees of clubs that need their jobs if they are to afford to live and study in this country.
Is there a difference between the Taliban and radical feminism?
Well Object don't have guns but their intentions in terms of this matter seem almost identical and a cause for shame, that is of course if they had the courage to be ashamed.
So that's the end of my article. I've had dinner, done the dishes, my arse is on the sofa and I'm listening to Steely Dan ('Black Cow' at the moment). The point that I want to make is that I understand how lucky I am to be in a place that is mine, that is secure and full of toys that make life bearable. We must never forget that other people have the right to have the same thing and to seek to deny them that right in the name of an intellectual abstract is inexcusable.
