Hunter S. Thompson
Just as long as its not our souls.
Chasmal
I find much gratification in the support that I get for writing this blog. That said I am overwhelmed by the support that I have received from people concerned about the situation in Portsmouth. Since I started my coverage I have received 1002 page views, in fact yesterday was an all time record with 335 views in one day.
Sometime tonight StrippingTheIllusion will receive its 5000th visitor, which is not bad for a blog that started in January. In fact whoever makes a comment that they are the 5000th visitor, will win a highly limited edition StrippingTheIllusion 'Robot Face' T Shirt.
There is something else that I have been very pleased about and that is the sheer volume of support that I have had from dancers in Portsmouth. Of the 1002 page views this week, 258 were from dancers. How do I know this? Because Blogger records the device that views the site and dancers are the only people that visit using iPhones, iPads and Macs. In fact dancers are the only people I know with iPhones, iPads and Macs.
The amount of support I have been getting from Portsmouth tells me that a lot of people have been made to be very frightened about their jobs and their futures. So I have to ask Charlie Dacke, Solent Feminist Network and Object of they really think that the fear they have created is worth while.
While they ponder their response, below is an updated world map which illustrates the global coverage of this blog...
This week has seen repeated page viewings from America, Australia, Russia, France, Germany, Brazil, Thailand, Iran and Ireland. So the eyes of the world are on Portsmouth at the moment and I imagine they have also concluded that Charlie Dacke can't spell.
Once again thank you very much and if you think that things look grim...
"Success is not measured by what you accomplish but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds"
Orison Swett Marden - Don't have a clue who this person is actually....
This site has revealed so many interesting things about what is currently going in Portsmouth. I had no idea how coordinated the campaign against the clubs was until reading through these articles. It's quite shocking that Portsmouth Council has got this far through the voting process under pressure from the Solent Feminist Network and Object, but at least they should now be realising that there is an alternative voice to be heard, not only here in Portsmouth, but globally too.
ReplyDeleteI don't go to dancing clubs, but I've been fighting their cause on Facebook lately because I object to their proposed closure under the guise of 'feminism', and I was invited along to Elegance by a couple of the dancers to see what it's like. Unsurprisingly there was no sex involved anywhere, but there were lots of women there by choice, who love their jobs, and who are clearly not only more confident in their bodies than I am, but also really physically fit. (Ever tried to hold yourself off the ground on a pole? It takes a LOT of strength and stamina.)
So I'd like to ask Charlie Dacke something: Have YOU ever been along to one of the clubs you are trying to close? Have you met the women whose jobs you and your associates are putting at risk? Have you seen these women doing what they love? If not Charlie, how about you and me head along to Wiggle or Elegance on a fact finding mission? How about you come and talk to these women for yourself, instead of silencing them like you did in the last council meeting? How about you put yourself in a position of real feminism, where you take on board the consideration that all women should have the choice to work where they want, when they want (because guess what Charlie, they have that choice too) and wearing what they want?
Because I for one don't want to see anymore of your letters going through anymore doors in this city until you have at least had the chance to view this matter from an unbiased standpoint that takes into account the rights of ALL women.
Maddie
DeleteThank you for a brilliant comment and which I am going to turn into a posting itself.
Chasmal
Maddie, I take it your the fine lady doing the tremendous work about abuse in the city who was discussing this with Maria on the portsmouth online virtual paper. You said you would go see the venues for yourself and make up your own mind and I am so glad you did. Ms Dacke has been near the venues from what I gather but mainly to shout at the people going in and out.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that's not me, but it's good to know there are more open minded women in this city! Whoever she is, I hope she went. If Charlie Dacke wants to come along to Elegance and go inside instead of ranting in the street, I'm more than happy to introduce her to some of the women whose jobs she's putting at risk.
DeleteI've just been reading Object's website; pretty shocking. They have a league table! I really didn't realise there was a business dedicated to closing other businesses on moral grounds. The list of councils they are putting pressure on is quite shocking, I hope Portsmouth City Council have a look at the site before they take the vote and realise they are just the latest in a long line of suckers being taken in by Object's policies.
The shared attitude of Charlie Dacke, the Solent Feminist Network and Object towards other women who make choices of which they disapprove reminds me of this quote from the essay Feminism As Fascism, by Bob Black:
ReplyDelete"For their own purposes (some of which are as mundane as sexual rivalry with straight men for the women they both desire), self-styled radical feminists actually reduce women to nothing but helpless, cringing near-vegetables, passive victims of male contempt and coercion. This profoundly insults women in a way which the worst patriarchal ideologies — the Jewish notion of woman as a source of pollution, for instance, or the Christian nightmare of woman as temptress and uncontrollable sexual nature-force — fell short of. They defamed woman as evil but could hardly regard her as powerless. The new woman-as-victim stereotype is not only directly traceable to nineteenth century Victorian patriarchal attitudes reducing (bourgeois) women to inert ornaments, but by denying to women the creative power inherent in everyone, it places women’s demands on a par with those advanced for, say, baby seals."
http://www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/feminism.html