Pole Dancing, Empowerment and Embodiment [Hardcover]

This book provides an international, multi-disciplinary empirical account of pole classes and how they fit into wider discourses about bodies and gender, and age and fitness. In particular, the book explores how women initiate agency and espouse liberation and empowerment through something as seemingly problematic as pole classes.Introduction Towards a Feminist Ethnography From Circus& Sex & & to Fitness& Leisure What is a Pole Class? What Not to Wear Diversity& Empowerment? A Thing of Beauty' The Pole Community: Opening Closed Minds Case Study I: 'Empowering women with confidence' Case Study II: Power Moves& Everyday Bodies Conclusions: A Positive Active Identity? Appendix I: Questions for online questionnaire and statistics of responses Appendix II: Websites of Instructors Who Took Part + Schools Mentioned Bibliography Index

'This book pays much needed attention to a fascinating phenomenon emerging from striptease culture and the mainstreaming of sex...Holland's cutting-edge ethnography illuminates brilliantly the complexities of feminized and embodied empowerment swirling around these poles, as women from all walks of life explore this new form of exercise and self-expression. 'Poler' is now a new word in my vocabulary!' - Catherine M. Roach, Associate Professor, New College, University of Alabama, USA

'Pole Dancing, Empowerment and Embodiment is accessibly and appealingly written...[offering] a fresh perspective and much needed empirical contribution to current debates around the sexualisation of culture.' - Sociological Research Online

SAMANTHA HOLLAND is Research Fellow, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Her research focuses on?gender, ageing, and non-mainstream leisure and subcultures. Her?publications include?Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity and Remote Relationships in a Small World (edited).