This is pretty funny. Polly Courtney, who was interviewed by The Observer this past weekend, and who has penned the new apparently self-published book "Golden Handcuffs" detailing her disillusionment with investment banking — at Merrill Lynch as it turns out — has admitted to being a pole dancer at a club called "For Your Eyes Only" on a website. However, when asked about it by the Daily Mail, she claims that she was just being sarcastic and that "I’d never do anything like that". (Uh huh).
In the Observer article, Ms. Courtney describes her disillusionment with the banking business with its long,unpredictable hours and ample sexism, which is the subject of her novel. She even described how she never felt "properly invited to "lads night out". Ironically it appears that she might have been pretty comfortable if she had been properly invited.
We’re not knocking pole dancing. It’s really catching on as a form of exercise. Even Christine Schwarzman, wife of Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman has been observed to take a turn or two around a pole….
She claimed to have quit a high flying career in the City because she could not stand the sexism.
In particular, Cambridge graduate Polly Courtney complained about her male colleagues’ nights out that would ‘typically end up in the local strip club.’
Strange then, that the 26-year-old, who has just completed a novel based on her harrowing time in the Square Mile, freely admits that enjoys a spot of pole dancing herself.
She has even posted revealing pictures of herself in action on two websites…..
Despite these concerns, on her official website www.pollycourtney.com, she is happy to include a picture of herself hanging upside down with her exposed legs wrapped around a pole, together with other photos of herself in provocative poses.
She also posted a larger version of herself pole dancing on the Friends Reunited website.
Her entry on the site reads: ‘Trained as a mechanic, quit engineering. Sold my soul to the City, quit banking, Now writing fiction set in the City, working in FYEO nights..’
FYEO is short for For Your Eyes Only, a chain of table dancing clubs.
Last night Miss Courtney told the Daily Mail: ‘ I have done pole dancing a few times with friends for a laugh, but it’s not a regular hobby or anything.
‘I was just being sarcastic when I said I worked at For Your Eyes Only. I’d never do anything like that.’
She left Merrill Lynch after taking £10,000 voluntary redundancy. Despite her experiences, still works in the City as a freelance strategy analyst and also plays violin in the semi-professional string quartet, No Strings Attached.
City woman who quit over sexism admits pole dancing – Daily Mail
Tags: Books, Interns, Merrill Lynch, Pole Dancing
At the risk of stating something you and your readers may or may not know, the Daily Mail is a horrific tabloid paper in the UK, well known for it’s … “creative” jounalism.
Even after reading the article in question, i can’t help but feel the Miss Courtney’s in the right.
What’s wrong with having done Pole Dancing? I own wife took some classes in it a few years back when it was a “keep fit fad” and she works in The City. Are we saying now that if a woman does anything “sexy” that she has to then give up all rights to say that they have been treated in a sexist way in other aspects of their life?
And, for the record, if you read the other articles (fomr the papers that are not tabloids) you’ll see that Miss Courtney’s comments do infact not say that she “quit a high flying career in the City because she could not stand the sexism”. She said in the Observer article to which this Mirror article was referring, that she and 29 others of the 32 interns she joined with, quit because of the long hours and little respect to which they were paid. Her only reference to any sexist actions was to comment that she was un-invited from company nights out due to being the only female in the department.
Hardly the same thing.
Hapless Steve Bank can’t even get the most basic of facts right. He complains that the “Daily Mail is a horrific tabloid paper in the UK, well known for it’s … “creative” jounalism.”
Two paragraphs later he mistakenly describes the newspaper as “the Mirror” – a completely different British newspaper. What a plonker. Wouldn’t trust a word he writes.