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Neon Wasteland: On Love, Motherhood, and Sex Work in a Rust Belt Town
This path-breaking book examines the lives of five topless dancers in the economically devastated “rust belt” of upstate New York. With insight and empathy, Susan Dewey shows how these women negotiate their lives as parents, employees, and family members while working in a profession widely regarded as incompatible with motherhood and fidelity. Neither disparaging nor romanticizing her subjects, Dewey investigates the complicated dynamic of performance, resilience, economic need, and emotional vulnerability that comprises the life of a stripper. An accessibly written text that uses academic theories and methods to make sense of feminized labor, Neon Wasteland shows that sex work is part of the learned process by which some women come to believe that their self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies.
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 24, 2014
You'll have to forgive some of the fuzziness of this review, but I've had a beach holiday between when I finished reading it and now, and the things I sharply wanted to say are now less clear.
Dewey's book is a strong piece if cultural anthropology, writing up the results of her decade-ago graduate studies assignment looking at the workers in a rust-belt upstate NY strip club. Dewey is well read, and clear, and her summaries of existing scholarship in the field are welcome. The very earnest academic feel of the book can reinforce how much of an outsider she is - not helped by an intro which emphasises her own nervousness and fear for her safety engaging in a poverty-stricken world and can sometimes feel as if she is too quickly leaping to theorise and shelve an observation or an experience, perhaps without letting it resonate.
As the book progresses, the stories if the women at the centre of the book begin to assert themselves through the analysis, and in this case, to the book's benefit. The complexity of choices made by the women, about their bodies, their incomes, their children, seem to defy being easily shelved or packaged up. Similarly, the complexity of the author's own experience shines through glimpses into what was clearly a life-changing and challenging experience.
It was good to read stories of working, rather than middle, class sex workers, whose choices were often more constrained than the better-off workers more often represented. The my raid of ways that these women's lives were defined by their limited control over bodies and reproduction, including the right to raise their children, well before they entered the sex industry was fascinating to me. The extent to which social systems had failed, and continued to fail them, was infuriating. The clear interchangability of poverty wages and welfare systems in particular - Wal Mart signing new employees up for food stamps as part of the intake process, was particularly rage-inducing. And intended eh end, the women shine sharper than the container their story comes in - the author's affection and understanding outstripping her tools perhaps - pleading for the reader to listen more than analyse - remind in me that analysis can sit uncomfortably close to judgement.
Dewey's book is a strong piece if cultural anthropology, writing up the results of her decade-ago graduate studies assignment looking at the workers in a rust-belt upstate NY strip club. Dewey is well read, and clear, and her summaries of existing scholarship in the field are welcome. The very earnest academic feel of the book can reinforce how much of an outsider she is - not helped by an intro which emphasises her own nervousness and fear for her safety engaging in a poverty-stricken world and can sometimes feel as if she is too quickly leaping to theorise and shelve an observation or an experience, perhaps without letting it resonate.
As the book progresses, the stories if the women at the centre of the book begin to assert themselves through the analysis, and in this case, to the book's benefit. The complexity of choices made by the women, about their bodies, their incomes, their children, seem to defy being easily shelved or packaged up. Similarly, the complexity of the author's own experience shines through glimpses into what was clearly a life-changing and challenging experience.
It was good to read stories of working, rather than middle, class sex workers, whose choices were often more constrained than the better-off workers more often represented. The my raid of ways that these women's lives were defined by their limited control over bodies and reproduction, including the right to raise their children, well before they entered the sex industry was fascinating to me. The extent to which social systems had failed, and continued to fail them, was infuriating. The clear interchangability of poverty wages and welfare systems in particular - Wal Mart signing new employees up for food stamps as part of the intake process, was particularly rage-inducing. And intended eh end, the women shine sharper than the container their story comes in - the author's affection and understanding outstripping her tools perhaps - pleading for the reader to listen more than analyse - remind in me that analysis can sit uncomfortably close to judgement.
June 16, 2015
I have to say that I find most research, ethnographies or otherwise, dull, poorly written, or lacking added value. Overall, I would say that Dewey had interesting things to say and told it in a way that was captivating. The only thing I can really knock in her writing style was that she repeated the same words a lot (I'm looking at you, "myriad"). I would definitely recommend this book!
May 15, 2024
I really liked the content of this book, it dispels the many long-held myths Americans have regarding exotic dancers in the States and illuminates how self destructive and paradoxical the staunch conservative mindset of the dancers is regarding welfare and their profession.
What keeps this book from a higher rating is that it is very repetitive. The main points are repeated over and over again, so much so that you felt as if you could read only the first 2 chapters and understand everything about the book. The second is that while the anthropological analysis was very insightful, I wish there was more focus on the storytelling of the dancers.
What keeps this book from a higher rating is that it is very repetitive. The main points are repeated over and over again, so much so that you felt as if you could read only the first 2 chapters and understand everything about the book. The second is that while the anthropological analysis was very insightful, I wish there was more focus on the storytelling of the dancers.
November 4, 2019
One of the best pieces of ethnography I've read. Dewey clearly went deep into this context and offers a smart and compassionate analysis of the women's lives she observed. Very well done.
October 4, 2023
i like these bitches
September 19, 2012
Neon Wasteland chronicles the lives of exotic dancers. Her ethnography shows an interesting view on why women enter the world of stripping and why they stay there. Her methodology is solid for an ethnographic piece but her study only looks at one club in one city. Her work would have been far more interesting had she incorporated a comparison with another kind of establishment. That being said, this is a well written study, easy to read, and goes into great detail of the lives of the women that she grew close to during her research.
August 17, 2023
5⭐️ - My absolute favorite piece from my anthropology courses in school! The setting is in my state and it makes it more relatable and personable to me. I wish i could write something like this with my time studying in cultural anthropology.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews