Neon girls a stripper's education in protest and power Worley, Jennifer creator author. text biography Biographies. Autobiographies. nyu 2020 First edition. monographic eng print 261 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm A riveting true story of a young woman's days stripping in grunge-era San Francisco where a radical group of dancers banded together to unionize and run the club on their own terms. When graduate student Jenny Worley needed a fast way to earn more money, she found herself at the door of the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco, auditioning on a stage surrounded by mirrors, in platform heels, and not much else. So began Jenny's career as a stripper strutting the peepshow stage as her alter-ego "Polly" alongside women called Octopussy and Amnesia. But this wasn't your run-of-the-mill strip club--it was a peepshow populated by free-thinking women who talked feminist theory and swapped radical zines like lipstick. As management's discriminatory practices and the rise of hidden cameras stir up tension among the dancers, Jenny rallies them to demand change. Together, they organize the first strippers' union in the world and risk it all to take over the club and run it as a co-operative. Refusing to be treated as sex objects or disposable labor, they become instead the rulers of their kingdom. Jenny's elation over the Lusty Lady's revolution is tempered by her evolving understanding of the toll dancing has taken on her. When she finally hangs up her heels for good to finish her Ph.D., neither Jenny nor San Francisco are the same--but she and the cadre of wild, beautiful, brave women who run the Lusty Lady come out on top despite it all. A first-hand account as only an insider could tell it, Neon Girls paints a vivid picture of a bygone San Francisco and a fiercely feminist world within the sex industry, asking sharp questions about what keeps women from fighting for their rights, who benefits from capitalizing on desire, and how we can change entrenched systems of power. How a nice girl like me -- Polly -- The daily bump and grind -- Exotic dancers union -- Freelance -- No justice? No piece! -- Seizing the means of production -- Under nude management -- Epilogue: the last dance. Jennifer Worley. n-us-ca Worley, Jennifer Stripteasers California San Francisco Biography Women labor union members California San Francisco Biography Labor unions California San Francisco Nightclubs California San Francisco San Francisco (Calif.) Social conditions 20th century Labor unions Nightclubs Social conditions Stripteasers Women labor union members California San Francisco 1900-1999 fast PN1949.S7 W57 2020 792.7092 9780062971326 0062971328 pda,print YDX 191214 20250318223218.5 in00004354537 eng