{"id":13266,"date":"2022-06-16T22:55:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T22:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dragkinghistory.com\/?p=13266"},"modified":"2022-07-07T23:50:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T23:50:23","slug":"drag-has-a-gender-pay-gap-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dragkinghistory.com\/drag-has-a-gender-pay-gap-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Drag Has a Gender Pay Gap Problem – fashionmagazine.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>

Drag Has a Gender Pay Gap Problem<\/h1>\n

Drag kings work as hard as queens. Why do they make less?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

By Russ Martin
\nhttps:\/\/fashionmagazine.com\/flare\/barbie\/<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

When Mo B. Dick burst onto the drag scene in New York City in 1995, around the same time that RuPaul Charles<\/a> had found mainstream success, kings and queens were on a fairly level playing field. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dick appeared on MTV<\/a>, was cast in the John Waters film Pecker<\/em> and launched a drag king tour across Canada and the U.S. called The Men of Club Casanova.<\/p>\n

Things changed once RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em> (which premiered in 2009) took off like a cultural supernova. The rise of the VH1 competition series ushered in the \u201cgolden age of drag<\/a>,\u201d but it\u2019s queens<\/a> rather than kings or other gender diverse performers who\u2019ve reaped the financial benefits of the drag boom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a gendered pay gap in drag<\/a> from large-scale theatre tours all the way down to local gay bars. For this year\u2019s Pride festival<\/a> in Toronto, for example, MRG Live announced the event \u201cKings & Queens,\u201d but selected a queen, Sofonda Cox, as the event\u2019s main host, offering kings the opportunity to perform for free on an \u201copen stage\u201d rather than a paid gig. After backlash, the company quietly added a king co-host. (MRG Live didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

The best paying jobs \u2013 corporate gigs like performing at store openings or branded Pride<\/a> parties \u2013 usually go to queens. Big drag management firms like Voss Management (home to Drag Race<\/em>\u2019s Aquaria) and PEG have king-free rosters. According to Dick, there\u2019s a handful of famous kings who earn $2,000 to $5,000 (USD) per performance while Drag Race<\/em><\/a> queens can fetch $16,000 to $20,000 (USD).<\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t always been this way. Depending on how it\u2019s defined, drag kinging dates back as far as the Yuan Dynasty, a period from 1279\u20131369 A. D. in which women played male figures in Chinese opera. Women have been paid handsomely for playing male roles throughout theatre history. Broadway\u2019s first Peter Pan, Maude Adams, was a bankable star in the early 1900s and male impersonators like Bert Whitman<\/a>, known as \u201cThe Ebony Fred Astaire,\u201d were wildly popular in the Vaudeville era. \u201cThey were making gobs of money,\u201d says Dick, who digs into the drag archives on DragKingHistory.com<\/a>. \u201cThey were making bank at a time when women struggled to own their own property, couldn\u2019t easily get credit and couldn\u2019t travel alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2009. Once Drag Race<\/em> took off, promoters learned performers with TV exposure sell more tickets. \u201cThat\u2019s basic business sense and it\u2019s not about discrimination or unfair practise,\u201d says renowned British king Adam All<\/a>. But when kings are excluded from drag\u2019s biggest TV show, it trickles down, leading to lower billings \u2014 and pay \u2014 for kings.<\/p>\n

While some see TV as the driving force behind pay disparity, Dick says it can be boiled down to one acronym: \u201cPMS\u2026Patriarchy, Misogyny, Sexism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kings are commonly cis women, trans men or other gender non-conforming individuals. There are, of course, many exceptions, but the lack of opportunities for kings is linked to wider struggles for women and assigned female at birth (AFAB) people in the workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as trans masculine people, we\u2019re still perceived as women,\u201d explains Ricky Ros\u00e9<\/a>, a Latinx king from Washington, D.C. who started out working for as little as $25 (USD) per gig. Ros\u00e9 would also often do \u201ctip spots,\u201d performing for tips<\/a> rather than a booking fee. \u201cA lot of promoters, venue owners and managers are cis men. Being perceived as a woman plays a huge factor,\u201d Ros\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s its own perpetuating cycle, as it tells the audience how to view kings in comparison to queens,\u201d All says.<\/p>\n

Race is another. \u201cBeing AFAB or trans or both, and being a person of colour \u2014 it\u2019s all these added layers that continue to knock your pay down.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is something drag king Kre\u0304me Inakuchi<\/a> knows well. Inakuchi works in Toronto\u2019s gay village, which he says is populated \u201calmost 100 per cent by queens.\u201d Inakuchi is a local staple, but had to overcome many obstacles to win over audiences and promoters and, even still, he sometimes feels tokenized. \u201cBecause I check so many boxes \u2014 I\u2019m a king, I\u2019m AFAB, I\u2019m trans non-binary and I\u2019m a person of colour. It feels like because one bar owner decides to book me, one is enough. Everyone in the village pats themselves on the back, like: \u2018We did it. We\u2019re diverse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Parity is less of an issue in some cities like Chicago, where Rose\u0301 says the advocacy work done on behalf of Black performers by a group called the Chicago Black Drag Council<\/a> has led to more equitable treatment for all types of performers. New Zealand is another place where kings prosper. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t be able to get away with paying kings any less than queens,\u201d says Hugo Grrrl<\/a>, who is the winner of the TV show House of Drag<\/em> and one of New Zealand\u2019s best-known performers. Part of the reason why is the country\u2019s long love affair with drag kings. New Zealand has a nationally-beloved duo, The Topp Twins<\/a>, whose act features kinging, and the troupe The Drag Kings has been active for 25 years.<\/p>\n

As for North America, there have been some positive changes for kings in recent years. Landon Cider\u2019s Dragula win<\/a> in 2019 smashed a glass ceiling for kings on TV and Cider\u2019s gone on to tour extensively through the U.S. and Europe, appear on HBO\u2019s We\u2019re Here<\/em><\/a> and garner a massive online fanbase<\/a>. In Canada, Call Me Mother<\/em> featured Hercusleaze<\/a> and Drag Heals<\/em> featured Cyril Cinder<\/a>, providing drag fans more exposure to kings.<\/p>\n

But despite drag\u2019s gender pay gap, Dick is inspired by the new generation of kings fighting for their fair share of the stage in this queen-dominated era. \u201cI am keeping faith,\u201d Dick says, \u201cThat there\u2019s a possibility that we\u2019ll have a springboard and be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

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