If
there had been a hidden camera, you would have seen 11 women of various ages
and shapes in black leggings and T-shirts vamping toward a mirrored wall,
throwing their hands against it, and then wiggling their derrières.
           And if there had been a hidden
microphone, you would have heard: “You are all beautiful and strong. That’s it,
girls, show the world how powerful you are!”
           No, the image feed and the audio
feed were not mixed up. They were both from the same exotic dance course. But
this was no ordinary exotic dance course. It was billed as a “self-empowerment
class.”
           “Exotic dance is more than sexy
dancing,” said the Info-Courses online catalog. “It’s learning how to reach
deep within yourself to find your inner beauty and grace.”
           Now, I know a bargain when I see
one. This was a great opportunity to take care of a couple of things high on my
To Do list. I could add some hot cha-cha to my marriage and become self-empowered. All in a three-hour class. I signed up
and forked over $49.
           Let’s fast forward over most of the
bump-and-grind footage, shall we? Some of the women, who ranged in ages from
the mid-20s to the mid-60s, could really shake their booties. I couldn’t. They
eagerly followed the teacher’s instructions, performing the toe-dragging walk,
the come-hither crawl, and the feel-your-body-all-over-as-if-it’s-his-hands
thing with grace and panache. I prayed I wouldn’t trip and fall.
           There was only one time when I
really felt like I got it. We were working on a hip roll that involved putting
our hands on our knees and rotating our behinds. “Imagine there’s a laser beam
coming out of your butt,” the instructor said helpfully, “and you’re drawing a
circle on the far wall with it.”
           Laser-butts! I could just see it —
a dozen women zooming around the room powered by green lasers shooting out of
our bums. Stripper superheroes!
           When she wasn’t offering helpful
imagery, the instructor conducted a running pep talk about how strong,
beautiful, and powerful we were. It’s the same nonsense that has embalmed a
large portion of the female population — a light solution of Oprah-style
bromides that pours out of magazines, daytime talk shows, and classes. Be good to yourself. Find your inner spirit
and soar. Overcome and achieve.
           But then the teacher went a little
too far. When we were writhing around on the floor to a Melissa Etheridge song,
she actually said, “Wow! You women are going to take over the world.”
           Cut!
At the same
exact moment, in a parallel universe about a mile-and-a-half away, a
report had just been released stating that women are emphatically not going to take over the world. At
least not through political channels. At least not any time soon. At least not
here.
           Even though we make up more than 50
percent of the state’s population, women hold less than 18 percent of the local
elected offices, according to the Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership at the
University of Rochester. That means there aren’t a whole lot of women in jobs
like mayor, county legislator, and city councilmember in New York State.
           And unless thousands and thousands
of women sign up for this self-empowering exotic dance class right now, the outlook is kind of bleak
for that whole women-taking-over-the-world plan.
           In the meantime, until we can get
more women into office, issues that are important to us will languish: domestic
violence protection, child protective services, hunting down deadbeat dads,
etc. Plus, it can be mighty lonely to be one of only a few women elected
officials.
           When I was young and foolish —
before I realized I could become a world ruler through exotic dance — I
considered a career in politics. I got a plum internship with a state
representative in Massachusetts right out of high school.
           After spending weeks helping craft
new bills or tinkering with old ones, I’d sit in the gallery and watch Rep.
Barbara Gray (R-Framingham, now retired) down on the floor of the House moving
among the overwhelmingly male crowd, nearly indistinguishable in her navy power
suit, trading votes and cutting deals.
           It was disheartening to see the
kinds of compromises she had to make to get the guys to vote for even the most
common-sense laws — laws that made it easier for judges to punish rapists and
laws that reduced the time juvenile offenders had to wait to see a lawyer.
           I remember thinking that men only
care about raising car insurance fees and cutting public transportation to poor
neighborhoods. But what if there had been more female movers and shakers out
there on the floor of the House of Representatives?
           Maybe that’s where I’d be now,
instead of being one of the movers and shakers on the floor of the House of
Dance, peeling off an oversized shirt to the beat of “You Can Leave Your Hat On.“
You can’t
really blame the exotic dance class for using the premise of
self-improvement. Let’s be honest. Would I have signed up if the course
description had said something like: “Get naked, get nasty”? Would anyone?
           We like to pretend to be prudish,
even when we’re having fun. This great country was founded by Puritans, after
all. And locally, some pretty uptight Rochesterians set the tone for
prudishness early on.
           Back in the day, Rochester was
ground zero for temperance activity, for example. Way before Mayor Johnson
tried to clean up downtown, a fistful of feisty broads tried to rid the city of
evil spirits.
           Come to think of it, weren’t those
the same women who later started the women’s movement? By organizing against
liquor, those ladies got a little self-empowerment action themselves. They got
so self-empowered, in fact, that they went on to change the course of history.
           Wait, wait. Don’t tell me.
           If removing booze can lead to
women’s rights… then maybe removing clothes can lead to women ruling the
world?!!
           Shake your booty. Shake your booty.
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2002.
