Burlesque Dancing: an Act for Feminism or Against It?

Many times, Burlesque Dancers describe what they do as "pro-women", or "pro-feminism", saying that they do it to increase their self-esteem, that they do it for themselves, and that rather than a form of striptease, it's a form of artistic expression. However, others entirely disagree; this is the minority who see burlesque dancers and know that the sexed-up, scantily clad group The Pussycat Dolls were originally a burlesque group. The same group was probably disgusted with the similarly curvy Bratz dolls that were popular among little girls but looked down upon by the parents, who already had enough trouble teaching their girls to be themselves in the era of 16th birthday plastic surgery gifts and sexed-up and screwed-up Brittney Spears.
Truly, there are justifiable points to each side. Burlesque becomes too stereotyped as "striptease" in our society, when it really covers a large scope including comedy, skits, and variety-style performance. However, this is America - we over-sex everything (PETA was even able to make vegetables "sexed up" recently...how pathetic is that?), and therefore the what we know today as Neo-Burlesque today will ultimately have sexual connotations. Therefore, sexual connotations equals not pro-women, right?
This opinion is understandable. True, the suffragettes that fought for the right to vote wouldn't have agreed with the general idea of a woman dancing half-naked for her own choice, but, then again, would the feminazis of today agree with it, either? For many women, the idea of getting on a stage and performing, for their own interest, in very little clothing, sounds terrifying. This is because the general audience forgets that it is the women's choice to do so. They aren't the strippers working so they can pay the electricity bill; they make their own calls because they do it for their own interest and appreciation for the art.
However, by naming this an "act of art" or calling it "okay", some can argue that we are telling our children that it is okay to do these things. We may have to fear that their still-developing brains see the similarities between a stripper and a burlesque dancer, for it can't be denied that there are many similarities between the two.
Furthermore, the common definition of feminism is forgotten by the public - the idea that both sexes should have equal rights - and is blown up as something it's not by the deeply pro-women feminists (feminazis, as I called them earlier in this article), who tend to give off the deep resentment of men for rights that they were deprived of - when it was really their ancestors who were deprived of these rights. To me, this is like being angry Germany because your grandfather was in World War II, and lost his innocence in war. However, I'll save my feminism rant for another day.
This being said, is Burlesque truly an act of feminism, if feminism is classified as equality between the sexes? I don't think so. While I do see the positives of burlesque and appreciate it as an art form, I think that the idea of it as an act of feminism is more closely tied to the ideas of the overly-feminist group of feminists, yet at the same time it isn't. With Burlesque, it is as if the dancers are trying to show some superiority over the male sex through the dancing - as if when they dance, this makes them superior over men because they are confident enough to display themselves in a way they consider artistic, and they don't care who's looking, male or female, or what they think about them. While this i-don't-care attitude is admirable, the way it adheres to the subject makes me feel that Burlesque Dancing is not an act of feminism. The lack of interest or acceptance of male burlesque dancing into the mainstream culture of the art makes it seem very unbalanced, also, but, maybe this is just the nature of the art.