Controversial: Dita Von Teese is due to appear in Bristol on Friday for a private event
A row has broken out at Bristol City Council over the appearance of Dita Von Teese at an event at Bristol’s City Museum.
The burlesque star was due to perform at the launch party of the Art from the New World exhibition on Friday evening.
The city council says it’s delighted to be hosting the exhibition, which is a mixture of urban and contemporary artists from the new American art scene. The exhibition opens to members of the public on Saturday, May 15.
But the appearance of the international star has provoked outrage from equality campaigners and councillors.
Bristol’s Labour Party group leader Helen Holland said she was “appalled”, adding in an email to a Bristol resident who complained that, “I would like to know just who in the Council’s officer or political leadership knows about this, and what they were thinking of when they approved it”.
A Bristol City Council legal officer said that the performance did not break regulations concerning equalities, adding that senior members of the council were aware of the performance. But Mrs Holland remains unconvinced.
“I am a gender equality consultant and I have been unable among all my professional colleagues to find a single expert on gender equality who does not agree that this event acts against the interests of women’s equality,” she said.
“The Council, unlike private bodies, is bound to consider the impact of its decisions on gender equality. This is not
optional: it is enshrined in legislation for a reason.
“I am appalled and bitterly disappointed at the lack of gender equality awareness demonstrated thus far.”
Campaign group Equality South West told JackFM: “This amounts to a public body spending  public money on the gratuitous debasement of women. Bristol City Council has a legal obligation to promote equality so should be
supporting women, not demeaning them.
“This is a disappointing mistake by Bristol City Council, and we sincerely hope they change their mind and stop the stripper from attending.”
There are a lot of people missing the point.
No-one is criticising Dita Von Teese, either as a person or a performer. It isn't about jealous feminists attacking or ostracizing other women, rather, it is appreciating that stripping promotes the objectification of women – which is particularly inappropriate in a public building when endorsed by the local council. Stripping doesn't become empowering just because you get a pay packet, and the person with the cash doesn't become exploited just because they fork it over. Come on now.
If you want to go a Burlesque show, a strip joint or whatever, you're perfectly entitled to do so. What is not right at all is for a public institution to run such events. There is still, believe it or not, a sizeable number of people who consider sex a private matter, and wouldn't dream of patronizing the sex industry in any form.
The rampant sexualisation of modern society is massively damaging to young people in all sorts of ways, and yet a representative from the City Museum said on Radio 4 this morning that the show would form part of their Key Stage 2 education programme. This in the year when schools have been stopped from teaching sex education as they see fit: you couldn't make it up.
So if you're in favour of this, don't complain when your teenage daughter comes home with a Playboy tattoo and a home pole dancing kit. It's just Art, innit?
There is no shortage of commercial venues in which Miss Von Teese can exhibit her art. This is not the case for most art, which is why we have publicly funded galleries. Public money should not be used to support this person's career.
Mrs Bradley – please educate yourself – stop reading the Daily Mail and this will improve.
OF COURSE Dita is not being exploited – many of you are totally missing the point – the sexualisation of society which further backs up theories surrounding young women and mental illness. Think of every situation where you see women are sexual objects and the pose they're in – then exchange the gender – see how shocking it is when you see a man with his bollocks out – now tell me that isn't offensive.
I have never heard so much tripe as that expressed by so called experts. Dita's work is not offensive to anyone that i know. she is a beautiful, articulate woman, who is also an excellent buisness woman. She is not in any way, shape, or form being exploited, nor is she doing anything that damages the cause of women. I strongly object to women who think they know better than others, trying to force their views. What century are they in? It is also an observation, that on the whole, they are women that look like the back of a bus, AND, before any other incorrect assumtions are made. ……i am a 60 yr old hetrosexual woman, and i finish my comments with ….KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK DITA, we are not all dinosaurs.
Feminista has got it exactly. To be a fan of Ms Van Teese is missing the point entirely that the overwhelming majority of women performing this kind of thing are damaged and exploited and wouldn't do it if they had another viable means of support. It is wholly inappropriate for the council to endorse, never mind, host this in a publicly owned building. This is my (and your) council tax being used for such dubious purposes.
How amazing. So many people here think that this is OK!
It isn't.
That is because:
1. Stripping is offensive.
2. It degrades women.
3. Tassels stuck to nipples doesn't make it OK.
4. Public money – Bristolians' council tax – is paying for it.
5. The Council, like all public organisations, has a legal equality duty.
6. This event goes against that duty (using public money to degrade women).
So I have a question.
Why don't the men in the council who commissioned this stripper at public expense, take their own clothes off in public to reveal – hurrah! – tassels stuck to the ends of their own willies?
I think we should be told.
Now I (like many feminists) don't have a problem with porn or erotic art, but I do object to a Council owned and managed, family venue being used for a strip show.
The Council is ignoring it's duty to promote gender equality by hosting a strip performance in a public building, and I feel like they are also ignoring all the men and women in this city who have been campaigning so hard to combat sex object culture.
By showing this act the museum will effectively be endorsing a porn industry, presenting it as a contemporary art performance. Dita von Teese may be an empowered, wealthy artist, but the vast majority of women who work in sexual encounter establishments are not.
Most women who do sex or sexual encounter work get expolited and damaged. I've visted some of our local support centres for women and heard about the daily horrors enacted by men who believe that have the right to buy or demand access to women's bodies. The mainstreaming of porn and sex shows by lads' mags, advertising or lap dancing clubs is driving attitudes which discriminate against women and are associated with violence against women. Activists in Bristol are battling to address this kind of sexual objectification, we'd expect the Council to be on our side.
All of you out there in Bristol who marched to Reclaim the Night, who contributed to Representations of Women in the Media, campaigned to get a Rape Crisis centre opened, who object to street harrasment, domestic violence, sex trafficking or the sexualisation of children – are your views being represented here? Do some decision makers at the the Council need to be educated about sexual discrimination?
Just for clarity: I don't have a problem with Dita von Teese, sex, sexual empowerment or the informed, consentual decisions people make about sex and sex work. I do have a problem with striptease in a public museum.
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery – you can do better than this!


"Art from the New World" is a brash, hip show of young west coast American artists coming to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery (BCMAG) in May. Referencing mass culture, it promises to be popular and will allow the city to continue to engage the new, young audience that the Bansky show attracted in such huge numbers. This new popularity brings new responsibility. But, is this responsibility being met with the invitation to Dita von Teese, burlesque stripper, to perform at the opening party?

The image of the semi dressed, sexy young woman is a marker for popular culture that surrounds us daily, usually representing a performance of female sexuality for men. She appears again and again in the work of the Corey Helford Gallery (who is providing the show and sponsoring the `entertainment') but this exhibition isn't all a celebration of her figure.
In fact, in the work of some of the women artists (who are outnumbered by the men 2 to 1) we are witness to the melancholy and alienation that is expressive of the predicament faced by young women living in our current pornified culture where they are encouraged to perform their sexuality without feeling. A culture in which recent research has shown that a very high percentage of all women are unhappy with their own bodies and 40% of teenage girls are so unhappy as to be defined as mentally ill.

Dita von Teese, with her white skin, large breasts and tiny waist, conforms to the mainstream stereotype of the sexual woman, the dominant cultural image that leaves ordinary women with low self esteem and anxiety, reaching for the cosmetic surgeon’s knife. The burlesque performance at the gallery’s opening becomes an explicit celebration of this porn culture that will overshadow the critique presented in the art itself.
Perhaps in a female dominated burlesque venue, with a woman compering an event featuring performances from a range of women with varying body types, then Ms von Teese’s skillfully exaggerated performance would read differently. But this performance is taking place in a male dominated context. The majority of the artists are men, the headline promotional material for the show is male dominated, and Dita would be the only person using and revealing her own body. In this context her act inevitably locks back into the old, objectified "sexual performance for men”.

O, BCMAG, surely you can do better than this? Why bring in this audience if all you do is replicate the dangerous stereotypes that so much research has demonstrated is deeply damaging to our culture; damaging to women and also the psyches of young men; damaging to the possibility of genuinely equal and mutual sexual relationships.
Bristol feminists want to celebrate the real beauty and excitement of female sexuality. But this repetition of the stereotyped view of female sexuality perpetuates the endless stream of sterilised, blank and repetitive sexual representation that permeates our every day cultural experience and that diminishes us all.
I have found this very interesting, I am an equality mangager and have been working in equality for a number of years now, in september i started to take burlesque lessons, the reason was to feel good about myself and my curvys. burlesque is about confidence and a positive attitude. it is empowering for women, as it gives us a sense of control. As mentioned earlier, the majority of people that go to burlesque shows are women, burlesque is about art and beauty, it can be comic and it can be a tease.
Dita by making burlesque fashionable has given more women the confidence to do it. my friends think i am incredible brave, (or mad) for doing it, but i also know they envy me as they wish they were brave enought to do it too.
I am part of a charity burlesque group called the Dollie Mixtures and by performing not only do we have fun, exercise and entertain we get to raise money for charities we believe in.
As an equality manager I dont see it as exploitation of gender quite the reverse, no one made me do it, i do it to feel good, and empower myself, and it does!
It's a shame there are such narrow minded people in this world who hide behind "the exploitation of women" – the Helen Hollands of this world are most probably jealous that they can't exploit men like Dita does! Good luck to Dita
What better place for a stripper to perform than Bristol City?
Abyssus- i was about to say, great minds think alike! I was so angered by what I read that I went straight down to the "leave a reply" tab, and after submitting I noticed that you had already said much more eloquently the point I was trying to make. It's nice to see I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Well said Cassie, you put it far better than myself.
This is rediculous. I find it outrageous that women can oppress other women in the name of "gender equality". If Dita Von Teese was being forced by a man to dance, that would be one thing but confidence in one's own body and gender equality are two entirely different issues.
Women ostracizing other women and calling it feminism or women's lib sickens me.
This is just ridiculous, I'm female and a huge fan of Dita and her work. She is an extremely talented, strong and intelligent woman who makes a living from a career she chose for herself. I fail to see how a burlesque performance affects gender equality and our rights as women. It's an art form taking a lot of talent skill and style to be able to do. Dita has a lot of female fans who admire her for a wide variety of reasons and I don't see why the prejudices and fears of the jealous few should stop the show. You need to take a good look at exactly who is complaining and what their complaints actually are then in turn look at the true motivation for their issues. Equality is all about freedom of choice, it's not for the extreme feminists to take over the decision making and dictate what we can and cannot do. Feminism is about us women having the same rights and to make decisions freely for ourselves
So if we chose to be a burlesque performer we have that right. Apologies if I have become a little repetitive but this needs to be said
Never mind all that — where can I get a ticket?
You've misattributed the quotes; they were made by a representative of the Bristol Fawcett Society, not Helen Holland
I agree with woodsy!
Dita has put burlesque back on the map and made, I imagine, a healthy living from it. Burlesque is no easy artform and women train and practise extensively to reach the top of their game, as Dita has.
More often than not, the vast majority of the audience are women, appreciating the beauty in the art of burlesque.
I have a question for 'gender equality consultant' Helen Holland: have you ever thought that, instead of being 'exploited', Ms Van Teese is actually doing the exploiting by playing on the weakness of men being unable to use their brains and genitalia at the same time? I think we should be told.
Readers may also like to read the other accounts of this story by local bloggers BristleKRS and James Barlow.