Female Persuasion

A disgruntled-looking man with disheveled gray hair steps out of line and into the doorway of the Harmon Theater, nearly filling it. He has at least 100 pounds -- and 8 inches -- on the bouncer.

He's also a different gender.

"We're not letting people in yet," Dee Elmore explains, blocking the man's way without a blink.

Elmore, 33, is one of dozens of female security guards obstructing doorways and bouncing troublemakers across the valley, and earning the same pay as their male counterparts for it: about $15 an hour to start.

Equal opportunity has finally caught up with one of the last traditionally male-dominated occupations.

"We train them all the same as men," says Roosevelt Howard, security director at the Hard Rock Hotel, where 25 of the 200 security officers combing the property are women. "There's no discrimination."

Howard, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, says there was only one female security guard at the Hard Rock when he began working for the company five years ago.

"A third of (the LAPD) was female when I worked there," he notes, "so I took that philosophy when I became a director here."

Elmore says that although female bouncers are becoming more common, most male antagonists still react with surprise, and some with laughter or other degrees of disrespect.

"I've encountered people (leery) about me, not knowing if I can handle myself," Elmore says. "And some male customers think they can get away with stuff."

One learned otherwise after being ejected from a private party at the former Desert Passage Mall worked by Elmore in 2004.

"All these gang members were inside and they started a fight," Elmore recalls. "So I'm standing outside the door and they're throwing people out. On the radio, I hear, 'Black jacket, Dee! He's trying to get back in!' "

When the man in the black jacket refused to stop, Elmore's extensive takedown and self-defense training gave him no choice.

"The guy was yelling at my supervisor, 'Where's that guy who put his knee in my neck and threw me against the wall?' " Elmore says.

"And my supervisor said, 'Dude, you got taken down by my bitch!' "

Since moving from Spokane, Wash., to Las Vegas in 2000, Elmore also has worked at Light, Ice, Seven, Rainbow Bar & Grill, Seamless and Beacher's Rock House.

"I was usually the only female security guard wherever I was," Elmore says. "But things are starting to change."

Howard says there's nothing a male security officer can do that a female can't. He says he even sends female guards into men's rooms, "if it's an emergency situation and you've got to go take care of a guest."

The Hard Rock trains all its officers in self-defense and handcuffing. "But our main thing is to try to de-escalate," Howard says, noting that women are usually better at it than men.

"When you have a female go over, men kind of back off and say, 'OK, she's here to get my problem resolved,' " Howard says.

Malia Gloude, lead security guard for Rain at the Palms, agrees.

"It depends on the situation and what exactly the fight is over," says the 26-year-old, who supervises 30 security guards for the dance club, two of whom are female.

"Sometimes, when it's a female-on-female fight, my being female doesn't help because the females are so mad that they don't want to talk to a female.

"But when it's a male-on-male fight, I can usually calm them down."

Gloude is neither as muscular nor as schooled in self-defense as Elmore, who was the first female wrestler at Spokane's Mount Lake Terrace High School. But Gloude, who estimates about one situation occurs per weekend at Rain, is never more than a radio call away from brute force.

"I work with so many men who don't want me involved in a fight," she says. "I walk through the club and I have all eyes on me. Even though (the male guards) are watching the guests, they're watching me, too, because they know they need to protect me."

According to Howard, brute force is a nonissue.

"We want a person to be in physical shape, because we also offer bike positions," Howard says. "But I'm not looking for muscle."

Howard says he seeks the same qualifications in both sexes: "prior experience, overall personality, office skills and service skills, and good character."

Muscle can even be a detriment, not only because the sight of it tends to heighten male aggression, but because some male bouncers rely too heavily on putting it to use.

"Some of these 6-foot-8, 400-pound guys, all they know to do is grab by the throat and throw to the ground," Elmore says. "This is never OK. You should only do something that drastic if there's a weapon involved."

Such treatment is an invitation to lawsuits, which also can be levied against male bouncers who don't strong-arm.

"Say there's a female who's intoxicated," Elmore says. "Maybe she's falling all over the place. With a guy, she could say, 'He touched me.'

"I see (female bouncers) as protection for the nightclub."

They're also better for purse checks, according to Howard.

"The female guests at our Rehab party like female officers," he says, adding that they're also preferred as escorts through the property -- by female guests who aren't feeling well and female celebrities wishing to avoid fan contact.

"It's not always that a female feels comfortable with some strong, strapping guy," Howard says. "They feel comfortable with a female."

Despite the move toward equality in bouncing, however, Elmore says she suspects female applicants need to be more qualified than their male counterparts to get the job.

"I have a lot more stuff than some of these guys have," she says. "I have my PI license. I know safe ways to detain somebody without hurting them or me. And I've been doing this longer than most of them have.

"Just because they're fat and I'm not doesn't mean I'm not capable of doing this job."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@review journal.com or 702-383-0456.