Risky Pleasures?

Club Cultures and Feminine Identities

Fiona Hutton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317062615
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this book Fiona Hutton provides a fascinating insight into women's experiences of clubbing. Based on a rich ethnographic account of the Manchester club scene, Risky Pleasures? is set within the context of the theoretical literature on youth subcultures, female friendship, consumption, risk and the city. The work highlights both the producers of club scenes - promoters, DJs, dealers - and the consumers - women negotiating pleasure and risk in club spaces and in the city at night. It explores the range of club spaces, developing a typology of 'mainstream' and 'underground' clubs, and considers how different types of participants are attracted to different 'scenes'. It examines women's recreational drug-use within a club context and discusses issues of sexuality, tolerance and the importance of 'attitude' in terms of women's feelings of safety. Revealing the important role of different spaces and different atmospheres in how women participate in club scenes, Fiona Hutton argues that drug taking and sexual pleasure are always contextualized within the environments created in different spaces, and that the risk and danger negotiated by women clubbers are counterbalanced by fun and pleasure - and ultimately empowerment.

1 The Invisible Woman? The Participation of Women on Club Scenes

10.4324/9781315606576-2

Introduction

Writing about subcultures in 2006 is an exciting, challenging and complex undertaking. The way that subcultural groups develop and reform is different in comparison to previous decades and even the notion of ‘subculture’ itself has been challenged. In researching and writing about the experiences of female clubbers a series of interconnected theories and debates are relevant. For example women who go clubbing move between and within spaces in terms of identity construction, although they tend towards identifying with a particular type of space, and the music and people within it. An observation that supports the notions contained within the post-subcultural debate that the term ‘subculture’ is no longer relevant in discussions of youth cultures. Alternatively female clubbers specify very clearly the types of spaces where certain groups of people belong and argue that club spaces are divided along ‘tribal’ lines. Here on the other hand the observations of female clubbers support the notion that the term ‘subculture’ is still relevant. Women who go clubbing highlight that difference and diversity are part of their experiences when participating on club scenes so it is important to recognize the differences between spaces that are termed the ‘club scene’, with implications for the different experiences of women within them. Tensions between traditional expectations of femininity and sexuality and the expression of these features of identity are also apparent for female clubbers which are in turn linked to the debates surrounding gender, risk and pleasure. These overlapping arguments serve to emphasize the complex nature of gendered debates and the fact that gender remains an interesting, fragmented and diverse category for academic research and discussion. Thus the arguments I will discuss further in this chapter present new questions about the nature of femininities, sexualities, risk and pleasure for drug-using women participating in club spaces at night.

It can be argued that the position of young women has changed within society, and that women are not as socially constrained as in previous decades. Therefore a more relevant research agenda based on exploring (sub)cultural groups in the public sphere, such as club scenes, is called for to look at the contemporary experiences of young women. This research agenda needs to focus upon the public participation of young women within (sub)cultural scenes, because their lives have changed. However, the male centredness of cultural studies is still apparent and in contemporary society this is now more problematic than ever (Pini 2001). Women and girls take part in cultures and spaces that render them visible in public and which also label them quite clearly as participants in these cultures and spaces. So why the reluctance of writers (Miles 2000; Calcutt 1998) to consider gendered experiences? In focusing on the experiences of female clubbers, the extent to which club spaces are actually empowering for women is a theme that also runs through this book. It is generally acknowledged that club spaces are more liberal in terms of attitudes toward women and that women suffer from less sexual harassment in these types of spaces. This is often associated with the use of the drug ecstasy. ‘This resulted in some women finding dance events preferable to traditional straight night clubs because of the resulting reduction in sexual advances, propositions and harassment from heterosexual men’ (Meesham et al. 2000, 38).

However as will be discussed in more detail in chapter 4, ecstasy-based club spaces are not necessarily the liberated spaces they are claimed to be, so how far do they really offer young women anything new in terms of empowerment and lack of sexism or harassment? Club scenes are sites of multiple struggles in terms of women asserting themselves within these spaces. Clubs are thought of as being ‘safe’ but the question of whether this is actually the case is explored throughout this book. The female clubbers were clear that overt harassing behaviour by men is not tolerated in some club spaces, but that this overt behaviour is replaced by more subtle covert forms of sexism. Women clubbers are involved in renegotiating spaces that are still dominated by male attitudes, so is sexual expression and availability the price they have to pay?

A further theme that is explored is that of difference and fragmentation. Commentators when writing about clubbing tend to categorize clubbing or club spaces as one scene or (sub)culture (Miles 2000). The material presented here highlights that this is clearly not the case with a diversity of clubbing arenas producing differing kinds of clubbing experiences particularly in relation to gender. In exploring difference however, the difficulty comes in the terms used for analysis. To define a complex group of social spaces such as clubs is always difficult but for the purposes of this discussion the terms underground and mainstream will be used to differentiate between the various kinds of spaces used for clubbing. The term underground itself is problematic as undergrounds define themselves in relation to authenticity of style and music (Thornton 1995). However the trickle up of underground styles and music into the mainstream is what is problematic for these types of club spaces – can we really state that true undergrounds do exist? The diversity of club scenes also suggests that more appropriate terms to differentiate between the spaces used for clubbing would be mainstreams and undergrounds.

Undergrounds with reference to the club spaces discussed here, refer to places that meet a number of criteria set out by female clubbers. Firstly the music played in these types of clubs is more experimental with DJs playing more cutting-edge music styles involving breakbeat ¹ for example. Musical style is constantly changing and being developed, but the important issue in underground spaces is the experimentation and the offering of ‘something different’ from mainstreams. Research has documented that different spaces attract different crowds and that this difference starts with the type of music played at a particular venue, which in turn influences drug use (Hunt and Evans 2003; Sanders 2005) and crowd demographics (Gore in Thomas 1997). Club cultures are fluid, unstable and fragmented and often defy definition. The differences in the spaces of undergrounds and mainstreams have implications for the experiences of women clubbers who attend in terms of safety, attitude and identity construction all of which will be explored further in later chapters.

1 Breakbeat evolved from late 1980s rave and its attributes are ‘funky rhythm tracks, lots of samples and choppy mixes, sped-up “chipmunk” vocal loops, frenetic explosive energy with a speed of 135 to 170 beats per minute’ (www.ethnotechno.com.defs.php). Breakbeat music is the sampling of breaks as drum loops (beats) and using them as a basis for hip hop tunes for example. More contemporary electronic artists and club DJs have created ‘breakbeats’ from other electronic music and fused them together. So this type of music is literally composed by ‘breaking the beats’ of other songs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/breakbeat).

Secondly the people attending have to have the right attitude towards others, especially women. Undergrounds were defined by female clubbers as places where less sexist and macho attitudes towards women were encountered. These better attitudes were associated with the types of drugs used, the lack of alcohol use, the music played and the style of those attending. Attitude is emphasized here as it is developed as a theoretical construct subtly related to style. Attitude is linked to where clubbing women choose to go and consists of a crucial range of factors that affect their night out, as a range of social and cultural factors that have to be present for women to feel ‘right’. This feeling ‘right’ was associated with underground club spaces. Attitude is seen by female clubbers as underpinning everything else that is important about club spaces. Without the ‘right’ attitude clubbers both male and female are excluded from participating and for women within club spaces it is attitude that is the most important defining factor in determining who belonged where and feeling ‘right’.

Thirdly, and this is linked to attitude, underground spaces are clubs that have an anything goes atmosphere towards fashion that is emphasized by the lack of dress codes. ² This free atmosphere is also linked to feeling comfortable with same sex partners in terms of holding hands, hugging and kissing, so the lack of policing of behaviour by others in the space is also a feature of undergrounds. Undergrounds tend to be situated in smaller, less commercialized spaces that put on innovative nights with creative décor and new up-and-coming music styles. They tend to have an older age group, approximately twenty five and over, and are not as highly sexually charged.

2 Mainstream club spaces have specific styles that have to be adhered to in order to gain entry such as no trainers, jeans or baseball caps.

Mainstreams refer to commercialized spaces for clubbing with musical styles that are often in the music charts, popularized and widely dispersed throughout youth cultures and wider society. Mainstreams can also refer to large clubs with a young age group, approximately sixteen to twenty two that are highly sexually charged spaces. The type of music played affects consumption of drugs such as amphetamines and the use of alcohol, producing a different attitude from the clubbers who use such spaces. Mainstream spaces as well as a younger age group attending also tend to have dress codes, and a less tolerant attitude towards those who are different. ‘Rave’ has been labelled as the last subculture (Miles 2000), because of the combination of alternative lifestyles and ‘relentless production of commercialism’ (Miles 2000, 98), although the commercialization and ‘corporatization’ of club spaces is something that female clubbers were very much against. In fact they moved from mainstreams to the undergrounds to avoid this commercialization of club spaces. Mainstreams were associated with high prices, chart based music, and poor sexist attitudes towards women (see chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion of these divisions).

So the divisions that are apparent within club cultures have an effect on the way in which young women engage in clubbing as a leisure activity and on the risks they take in these particular environments. Risk is looked at in a number of fields such as health, night club bouncers and governance (Dean 1999; Skidmore and Hayter 2000; Hobbs et al. 2003) but my focus will be on young women who go clubbing and I will analyse club spaces as new sites of risk and pleasure in terms of gendered experiences.

The Study of Club Cultures

Developments in clubbing in Manchester in terms of culture, music and violence ³ are discussed in masculine terms and focused on the experiences of young male clubbers (Collin 1997; Malbon 1998). In addition the discussion of subcultural style in the form of club cultures has a masculine tone or bias. For example Malbon (1998, 266) states that he wishes to look at the ‘experience of clubbing’ but again the focus is on young men who are taking part in this experience and female clubbers are absent from this discussion. While the experiences of young men within club spaces cannot be denied a place in the literature, the absence of accounts of clubbing from the perspective of female clubbers has left a large gap in the exploration and study of club cultures.

3 The demise of the focal points for clubbing and the upsurge in violence will be discussed in more detail in chapter 2.

How identities are formed has been explored by researchers looking at club cultures (see Malbon 1998; Thornton 1995, 1997). Clubs are spaces in which clubbers identities are formed and reformed as they experience the event, and the contexts of social interactions are crucial in terms of the opportunities to identify with others. Identity and unification are seen as less significant in contemporary club spaces, and it has been argued that clubbers identify more with the actual space than those within it (Malbon 1998). Although space in the context of clubbing is certainly important, the question of identity and unification being less important has to be acknowledged as problematic. Identity and unification are not present in contemporary youth cultures in the same obvious ways as the ‘punks’ and ‘mods’ of the 1960s and 1970s, but are present in different more subtle ways. Identity and unification for female clubbers can be seen as crucial in terms of attitude and these differing types of identity formation are also fluid and can change quite dramatically; as Malbon (1998) points out there is movement between groups.

In analysing the spaces of clubbing, subcultural hierarchies exist that are based on subtle power relations that are at work within them where gender is significant. Youth cultures are stratified within themselves, and young people such as those who go clubbing seek out and accumulate cultural experiences for use within their own social worlds. These cultural pursuits involve a form of power brokering in which ‘hipness’ becomes a form of ‘subcultural capital’ ⁴ (Thornton 1995), that confers status on its owner. Club cultures contain hierarchies within themselves, which result not in a unified culture but fragmented clusters which share the term ‘club culture’, that maintain their own dance styles, music genres and behaviours. Club nights are culturally organized by an attitude which can be described as ‘hipness’. Both gender and difference are therefore shown to be very much apparent within club spaces as are the power relations that work against young women in terms of their challenge to feminine stereotypes and the construction of alternative identities.

4 Thornton (1995) applies Bourdieu's theories of cultural capital to her own, developing the concept of ‘subcultural capital’. Bourdieu's definition of capital is very wide. It includes material things, which can have a symbolic value, as well as culturally significant attributes such as prestige, status and authority. Cultural capital is defined as culturally valued taste and consumption patterns. For Bourdieu cultural capital can take different forms such as art or language, and capital acts as social relation within a system of exchange. Bourdieu also sees capital as a basis of domination, although this is not always recognized as such by the participants. Different types of capital can be exchanged for each other i.e. capital is ‘convertible. The most powerful form of capital is symbolic capital, as it is in this form that various different types of capital are perceived and recognized as legitimate.

Subcultural groupings still reinforce stereotypical images of women as passive and uninvolved in the essence of these social spaces and groups. As parts of club cultures became perceived by participants as mainstream and ‘unhip’ they were feminized. Young women were objectified in unflattering stereotypes and placed outside the ‘hip’ places to be. The ‘Sharon and Tracy’ dancing round handbags ⁵ image of the unhip, unsophisticated clubber is embodied in such disparaging terms such as ‘Techno Tracy's’ (Thornton 1995, 100). This objectification of young women is a ‘position statement made by youth of both genders about girls who are not ‘one of the boys’. Subcultural capital would seem to be a currency which correlates with and legitimizes unequal statuses’ (Thornton 1995, 104). Therefore women within club spaces are still looked upon in disparaging, dismissive terms and this is especially true when looking at the currency of ‘subcultural capital’ that women within club spaces are not seen to possess because of their gender.

5 It must be noted that ‘Handbag’ itself became a particular form of music, albeit seen as less ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ than techno, garage or drum and bass.

This continuing negative, passive view of female clubbers results in the theoretical discussion of club cultures being focused on young males or of researchers assuming a masculine stance on what is researched. The moral panics generated by the police and media have centred on drug use and drug deaths, and young women if they are referred to at all are victims rather than perpetrators or active participants in club scenes (Redhead 1993). As the focus for discussion about this aspect of youth culture in popular representations has been elsewhere, it is important to explore the meanings that constructions of identities have for women participating in club spaces and whether their participation challenges a masculine patriarchal way of thinking and theorizing about young women who take drugs and dance in club spaces.

An apolitical view of club scenes is present in later accounts of clubbing which are critical of those who take part in these scenes for being apathetic politically and purely hedonistic (Calcutt 1998; Miles 2000). ‘Rather they behave in ways that barely threaten the dominant order and which in many respects serve to bolster or re-energize that order’ (Miles 2000, 89). However this type of stance explores (sub)cultures in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) terms which it is argued by some are now obsolete. In many ways this critique ‘misses the boat’ when investigating clubbing because gender and difference within club cultures are not considered. A hedonistic, non-challenging view of clubbers is presented, which is not the case when gender is taken into account. Although women are still treated in sexist ways in club spaces they very much challenge traditional concepts of femininity and sexuality and just being on club scenes as women is a challenge in itself that female clubbers revelled in. What is not recognized through inattention to gender is that clubbing has meaning for young women in terms of challenging who they are supposed to be.

In addition the assertion that the main incentive is to get ‘blitzed out of your brain’ (Miles 2000, 92) is not an adequate representation of female clubbers and why they take part in clubbing lifestyles. Of course part of the idea is to escape, to consume drugs, sometimes to excess, to lose yourself in the freedom of styles of music and dance that are closely integrated with drugs such as ecstasy, but the desire for oblivion? This has more resonance with injecting opiate users than it does with recreational drug users.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Invisible Woman? The Participation of Women on Club Scenes
• 2 Gendered Experience of Club Spaces
• 3 Negotiating the Night Time Economy; Women as Drug Dealers, DJs and Club Promoters
• 4 Pleasure and Risk: Drug Use and Club Scenes
• 5 Safety, Sexuality in the Club and in the City
• 6 Consuming and Producing Club Spaces: The Negotiation of Risk and Pleasure by Clubbing Women
• Bibliography
• Index