One accusation I have encountered in the past two years of suing strip clubs for things like misclassification, illegal theft of tips and sexual harassment, is being called opportunistic by idiots who don't understand how screwed over strippers are. These kinds of people are generally misogynists who don't think it's a big deal that strippers are often harassed and robbed by their employers. They will state that people like me are only using legal resources for their advantage, rather than caring about the well being of peers. Even if that was true-- that I wasn't altruistic and I was only suing strip clubs for myself-- all of my lawsuit claims are true. My money is really being stolen from me and has been stolen from me. I have been harassed by bosses and customers. I have not been paid an hourly wage.

My interests in forcing strip clubs to comply with the law are altruistic though, and this has been no easy journey.

I've written about Bryce Covert's ThinkProgress article before on this website. I've written about how unhappy it made me because it was factually incorrect in so many ways, and because she misrepresented me. One bothersome quote she included in her article was from Angelina Spencer. It says:

“Most of these dancers filing these cases are the same ladies over and over again and many don’t even work in the industry anymore and they don’t bother to ask the current dancers in a club what they might want...If these cases had limits and the lawyers could not reap attorney fees from the owners, they’d never file such cases to begin with.”

Bryce Covert didn't bother to explain that people who have filed multiple suits, such as Hima and myself, have done so because we are educated enough to know that just one lawsuit isn't going to change anything. Bryce Covert's shoddy journalistic skills didn't bother to cover how much work I have done in addition to filing lawsuits. Bryce Covert didn't bother to mention that Hima usually hired non-profit attorneys for her cases, or how untrue the Spencer quote is.

Filing lawsuits against strip clubs will result in being called litigious and vindictive by misogynist scum. It is important to deflect this kind of criticism by being evermore stubborn in one's efforts, and continuing to hold exploitative employers accountable for their actions.