The Female Condition

(Re)thinking Marriage, Prostitution, and Feminist Theories of Abolition

Bibliographic Data

ID2230248
AuthorsKelsey Davies (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume50
Issue1
Pages71-92
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/731626
OpenAlexW4403671858
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

Throughout feminist histories, both the wife and prostitute have been evoked as symbols of women’s shared experiences under patriarchy or of a common female condition. Yet even as various feminist currents have put pressure on marriage and prostitution alike as pillars of male domination, these are decisively held to be not quite the same: the feminist movement today has produced a global campaign toward the immediate abolition of prostitution, but not of marriage. This means that the contemporary feminist pursuit of the abolition of prostitution is perfectly compatible with hegemonic ways of seeing “female” bodies in at least one important way: prostitutes are criminalized, or penalized in other direct or indirect ways by criminal justice structures, in the name of the abolition of their sexual labor; wives are not. Given this intersection between certain currents of contemporary feminism and the state, this article will ask how we might account for the fact that there has been no large-scale feminist movement toward the abolition of marriage or the family, as there exists now for the abolition of prostitution. Is it possible to theorize the abolition of prostitution—as well as marriage—within a feminist framework that does not seek to do so via increasing state control of laboring bodies? In exploring these questions, I argue that to misunderstand sexual labor and the people who do sexual labor—both in and out of the home—will, until corrected, ultimately defeat the crucial feminist project of reclaiming our bodies and abolishing the exploitation of our work

Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · Race, History, and American Society · Sex work and related issues

Tools

Open DOI