Ava Adore

Why I Do It: Part III: Third Wave.

PART THREE: Third Wave: ‘Feminist Sweepstakes.’
Answering, “So, why are you a stripper?”

“Sex was on my own terms… I don’t even recall having to work hard. I didn’t even wear heels and short skirts until the 90s were almost over. There was no stripper pole in the picture. It was super simple: I wanted to have sex and so I did.” —Ada, 90sWoman.com

Ada is not actually speaking about stripping there; she’s simply talking about coming of age in the 90s, when third wave feminism was theoretically in full swing. It was simple: ‘I wanted to have sex, and so I did.’ There’s ownership in that—and that autonomy is what’s important to recognize.

Because I believe that’s the heart of third wave feminism: no longer is it about what a woman can and cannot do, which is what the other waves were about; those waves were reactionary (necessary, but reactionary). ‘Men can do this, I want to do this, too.’ It still had male/female dichotomies and definitions. Gender expressions and expectations.

In third wave, I like to think that we say, ‘Fuck that all to hell. Fuck your oppression and your guilt and your shame. Fuck what you think I’m thinking.’ That’s where my feminist politics lay, in the backbone and heartbeat of riot grrrl, in the zines and the conferences and the music. ‘I wanted to strip, and so I did.’

I’d like to think Kathleen Hanna would be proud of me.

I own stripping as a feminist option because I believe that feminism is anything that empowers a female. You want to be a housewife because it empowers you? DO IT. You want to be in the army? DO IT. You want to be a doctor? An astronaut? A painter? A bartender? …A stripper? DO IT if it makes you happy, just do it.

The essence here is the phrase, empowering to a female. I do not claim that stripping is empowering for everyone. I will not stand here and tout it as the be-all. Some girls come to it out of a rock and a hard place, and that, my friends, is not feminism. If there’s no choice in it, if it is not empowering, it is not feminism.

But I do refuse to be shamed into being told that stripping is inherently degrading. I refuse to be told that I have no self-respect; I’ve got it in spades. I refuse to, like any good feminist, allow you to use your narrow-minded perspective and words against me. To let you create my spaces for me.

All empowered women should be allowed to roar. And any who haven’t found that voice should be supported to find their empowerment, where ever it may lie.