The Politics of Prostitution

• Published in: Labour (Halifax) 2005, Vol.55 (55), p.313-315
• Main Authors: Agustin, laura M, Outshoorn, Joyce
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Debates; Feminism; Gender; Human rights; International; Labour relations; Political activism; Prostitutes; Prostitution; Reviews/Comptes Rendus; Sex industry; State; Womens rights movements
• ISSN: 0700-3862; 1911-4842

THE SUBJECT of The Politics of Prostitution is not really prostitution politics. Instead, the research collected here seeks to answer the questions "Do women's policy agencies matter?" and "Is there such a thing as state feminism?" The Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS) has been studying these questions since 1995 in "Western political democracies;" prostitution is only one of five issues which members have used to measure the impact of women's movements for equality. By the term "women's movements," the researchers mean a range of organizations and groups, both grassroots and formal, which may or may not self-identify as feminist. By "women's policy agencies," they refer to government institutions which exist to advance women's status in society. These definitions are key to appreciating the book. The researchers were required to judge if and how the debates they analyse became "gendered" as a requirement for deciding the significance of women's movements. These sections are interesting, but the constructs "woman" and "women's movement" inevitably mute or erase the diversity of opinions among women themselves. Thus a debate may be classified as "gendered," but it is arguable that conflicts within women's movements were sometimes more important than this gendering. Since these conflicts - about women's agency and the meaning of prostitution - have been particularly nettlesome in these debates, this merger is odd. Moreover, while activist sex workers' voices are sometimes noted, the book overlooks the fact they have rarely been consulted about policy issues by those attempting to legislate on their behalf, and thus have often been pitted against women's movements that treat them as distant objects in debates. By focussing on the role of women's policy agencies and the extent to which their views were heard, the book elides the fundamental issue of representation - that many speaking in these debates presume to speak on behalf of women who do not become protagonists themselves.