Tough

Boston's female bouncers rely on brains, not brawn

Cityscape by Sarah McNaught

Du . . .
Du hast . . .
Du hast mich . . .

It's Saturday night -- "X Night" at Lansdowne Street's Axis nightclub. The music of Rammstein, a German industrial band, is pounding over the five-foot-tall speakers situated at the four corners of the club. The cement floor beneath the dancers seems to rise and fall as feet stomp and arms pump to the mounting bass. Strobe lights flash and smoke swirls overhead, making it nearly impossible to see the face of the person in front of you.

As clubgoers shout the words to the song and dance wildly, they are unaware that they are being watched. At the long bar across the front wall of the club stands Axis general manager John Matthews, a strikingly handsome, neatly groomed blond with a GQ sense of style. After working for the club for seven years, Matthews knows the layout with his eyes closed. His enormous arms are folded across his broad chest as he focuses on a group of young men getting a little too rowdy on the dance floor. Although moshing was the done thing at X Nights of long ago, the practice of dancers' ramming their bodies together has since been banned from the club. Tonight, the four slightly intoxicated patrons butt shoulders and even heads as the music blares on. But Matthews doesn't move in. He sees that one of his employees has the situation under control.

If you followed Matthews's gaze, you might expect to see a similarly hulking man quieting the group of slam-dancers. But amid the swirling crowd, wearing a radio headset and a black T-shirt with a white Axis logo, is Martha Whipple. Although she stands six feet one (with a size 13 shoe), the 24-year-old security worker is no bruiser. With her glasses, ponytail, and waiflike build (not much more than 125 pounds), she looks so much less imposing than her boss that she is almost invisible to the men dancing just a few feet from her.

Quickly, she moves in, threading her slim frame through the crowd. Her voice cannot be heard above the roaring music, but her presence has an immediate effect. She leans into the center of the mini-mosh pit, seemingly fearless of being trampled, and speaks to one of the men. Instantaneously, he holds up his hands as if to surrender. The other three follow suit, backing away and beginning to bop to the music, this time in a much more controlled manner. Matthews rocks forward on his feet, peering into the throng to assess the situation. Whipple smiles, pats one of the guys on the shoulder, and slips away. Matthews turns his attention to another area of the club. All is well again.

Whipple is one of a rare breed: of 53 Boston clubs contacted by the Phoenix, only three have female security staff. Other establishments that hire women usually assign them to checking IDs or searching purses. But at Axis, female staff aren't pigeonholed into the traditional positions of official greeter, coat-check girl, or speaker-top dancer. Whether they're monitoring the women's restroom or protecting female clubgoers from unwanted advances, the handful of women working security in Boston clubs are getting the job done.

"It's amazing to me that more clubs don't have women in security positions," says Patrick Lyons, who owns three Boston restaurants and 14 nightclubs, including Axis. "In reality, it's always best to have security representative of your market, and our clientele is at least 50 percent female."

Beyond diversifying the staff, women can sometimes handle situations that men can't. The purpose of security is to maintain a controlled environment, not crush heads, explains Lyons. "That's where the women come in," he says, referring to the three female members of the club's security staff.

Whipple, a Merrimac native who attended private girls' schools where she was the self-confessed "class geek," says she is usually more of a caretaker than a bone crusher at Axis. "Women often approach me in the bathroom with complaints about everything from feeling dizzy to being grabbed or stalked by guys at the club," says Whipple, who was hired three years ago. "I'll walk them outside and sit with them if they are sick or drunk. I'll bring them water and even make sure they have a way to get home if they are leaving their dates behind."

Axis bartender Beth Cheverie, who has worked on Lansdowne Street for five years, says Whipple has something of a dual personality. "She is forever going out of her way for complete strangers. She takes the time to get involved, which makes her so good at what she does," says Cheverie, a tiny brunette whose pretty face has turned many heads. "But these girls that work security are deceiving. They may not look like they can handle sticky situations, but I've seen them in action."

Bryna Charlton, who has worked security at the two-story dance club for a little more than a year, says that no matter how much she tries to sidestep such situations, sometimes they are unavoidable. "We know that the other security staff has our back, but it is not out of the ordinary for me or the other female security to physically remove an obnoxious person from the club," says the 20-year-old aspiring fashion designer. "Believe it or not, when we do have to get physical, the men [clubgoers] are more cooperative than the women."

The prospect of that sort of confrontation worries people who think women aren't capable of holding their own, but Cheryl Garrity, Massachusetts president of the National Organization for Women, says that argument recalls the position taken by police and fire departments years ago. "These departments used to argue that the job is not safe for women or for the public," explains Garrity, who says it's about time women moved into club security. "But bouncing isn't about brute strength, because bouncers aren't supposed to get in fights. They are supposed to keep order."

Garrity adds that women may actually be better suited to that task, because arguments between men quickly become physical. Women, on the other hand, can disarm an explosive situation without resorting to force.

Whipple finds that her best weapon is her mouth, not her fists. She can often calm a situation with a mere gesture or soothing word. If that doesn't work, a little nonviolent subterfuge may do the trick. "Sometimes I'll approach a group of people harassing another group and try to talk to them, but they completely ignore me," explains Whipple. "So I flip down the mouthpiece to my headset as if I were calling in reinforcements, and things quiet down very quickly."

Axis manager Shane Sykes, a well-built 29-year-old who works by day as an art director for a company that publishes children's books, agrees that women are more dependable than men when it comes to dealing with conflicts between groups of people. "The females keep the place operational," says the sharp-dressing Quincy resident. "Men will use the position to pump their egos and play the macho role, but the women don't look for problems. They resolve them."

Whipple's ability to avoid conflict, create peace, and soothe sometimes unruly patrons has won wider notice: on September 23, the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau presented her with its annual Spirited Services Award. The award goes to an individual within the hospitality industry who has exhibited outstanding front-line service.

Axis is not the only club with female security staff. Mama Kin has two women working security, and the Middle East hired two female security employees two months ago, according to club publicist Mahmood Shaik. "Here they mainly check IDs or pat down women at concerts," Shaik says. Like the staff at Axis, he believes that just as a club would never limit itself to male musicians, it shouldn't have an all-male security staff.

"It's important to have a staff that makes every patron feel comfortable," says Shaik. "For instance, I'm sure a female patron would prefer a woman checking her bags."

But at Axis, the women don't just take the supporting role: they are in the thick of the action. Whipple has been punched in the stomach and flipped over a drunken patron's shoulder onto the hood of a car. She has also dived out of a moving car to help a fellow staffer in trouble. Along the way, she has suffered a couple of broken fingers, multiple bruises, and many aches and pains the morning after.

A small price to pay, says Whipple, considering what she manages to do. It's nearing the end of the night. Young men, still single after four hours of courting, search anxiously through the sea of faces for that one woman who might offer up a phone number. Young women, slightly intoxicated, have abandoned their initial self-consciousness; their mascara is smudged, and only the remnants of their carefully applied lipstick still linger on their lips.

At the back of the club, near the staircase to the second floor, a young woman dances on a speaker, her black platform boots slipping every so often on spilled cocktails. She gains confidence as she notices a group of men gathering to watch her. Below her, a total stranger -- another young woman, not feeling so well -- sits on the edge of the speaker, sipping water and wiping beads of sweat from her brow.

Whipple, who is stacking bottles nearby, stops what she is doing and slowly moves toward the speaker. To anyone else, the scene appears harmless enough. But Whipple's trained eye never leaves the dancer.

BAM! Eight quick knees to the back of the head and the woman sitting on the speaker slides off her seat and hits the floor. Whipple moves in.

Calmly, she asks the dancer to step down, repeating her request several times. Eventually the young woman -- clearly intoxicated -- jumps down off the speaker and staggers toward Whipple, spitting insults at her.

"I'm sorry, it's time for you to go," Whipple says as she escorts her to the door. She signals for a fellow employee to take care of the other woman, still sitting dazed on the dance floor.

Around her, the crowd of onlookers that had gathered begins to disperse. For Whipple, it's just another night at the club.

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.