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Former exotic dancer not buying Joel North's 'white knight' defence of stripper tweet

A former exotic dancer in St. John's says she doesn't accept the defence of Joel North — a private radio host who left his job after he told a woman she'd do better by stripping online.

"He can't say, 'oh no, I was really being the white-knight of the strippers, and I was actually the one being so kind and so good-hearted here," Michelle Keep, who is also a volunteer with the St. John's Status of Women Council, said.

North, a DJ on Coast 101.1, tweeted a message to a woman broadcasting herself playing video games last week, telling her she'd get more viewers if she was stripping. The station apologized publicly and North has said he resigned amid the backlash.

In a 10-minute YouTube defence of the message published Monday night, North said he wouldn't apologize — saying that to do so would be an insult and he wasn't the one who was "dehumanizing" strippers.

He said "the physical prowess and bodily control required for the profession of exotic dancing is nothing short of astounding,' that the women were often "entrepreneurial" and were expressing their self worth.

'Choice is essential'

Keep said North shouldn't be able to portray himself as the defender of exotic dancers, and that there's a big difference between making the choice to dance, and having a stranger tell you to do it online.

"If she chose to be a sex worker, that'd be one thing," she told CBC.

"But just lobbing that at a woman and reducing them to their body or their sexuality is really offensive."

She said such comments force women to feel "self-conscious," as if they've done something wrong, and make women wonder "what did I do to bring this on."

"If people can't understand the difference between consenting to be a stripper and having that thrust upon them by some random guy that they don't know, I don't really know what to tell them," she said.

Keep added it doesn't seem like the woman involved has ever expressed any interest in stripping, and that the Status of Women Council supported sex workers, even if they complained to North's former employer about his tweets.

In his video, North characterized his comment as a harmless joke, and said it was not a demand or a request that the woman strip.

'Classic tactic' that diminishes women

But Jenny Wright, the executive director of the St. John's Status of Women Council, said it isn't harmless at all.

"That's kind of a classic tactic that we see whenever women speak out and say, 'hey, that wasn't OK' or 'that was harmful' or 'oh, it's just a joke get over it.''' said Wright.

"It just serves to diminish the harm done and diminish the person who said it."

She said this latest incident is part of a bigger problem when it comes to women who have personal or professional social media accounts.

"Joel is a tiny drop in a huge vat of online harassment of women that they are facing daily," she said. "They're inundated constantly and it's pervasive and it's harmful."

Wright said women are getting off social media in order to avoid the harassment, and that's not the solution.

"We're all losing there...nothing is being done and people have asked Twitter and other platforms to say, 'you need to step in and do something about that,' but it's moving far too slowly."