prostitution

What A Wonderful World

mandy — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In What A Wonderful World, director Faouzi Bensaidi attempts to bring together the incongruities of Moroccan urban life with elegance and intimacy. The film features a set of diverse characters whose lives intersect either by coincidence or choice. Thus, throughout the film one notices several intertwined little stories. However, the film’s main storyline revolves around a mercenary assassin, Kamel (who is played by Bensaidi), who falls in love with Kenza, a traffic officer by day and a prostitute by night.

Kamel’s job is driven by the world around him. Everything he sees is a potential sign he will use in order to obtain serial numbers as passwords that enable him to log onto a secure website where he gets his assignment—his next victim. Following every murder, Kamel calls Souad, Kenza’s best friend and prostitute. They meet in Kamel's rooftop apartment, which has a panoramic view of Casablanca. After he is done with her, Kamel literally dumps Souad from his bed. This scene is repeated more than once, yet Souad continues to answer his calls whenever Kamel desires.

I found these scenes to be quite disturbing because the director projects the idea that women and prostitutes are mere objects used for the sexual gratification of men. In other words, Souad’s body is transformed into an arena where institutionalized violence is accepted, and hence constitutes part of the spectrum of (dis)embodiment that is inflicted, and not determined, by the cultural, social, economic, and political setting of her world. Whether Bensaidi was conscious of the implications that this had, I cannot help but argue that What A Wonderful World reproduced dynamics of objectification and dissociation.

On another note, from a gendered perspective, one can argue that Bensaidi positions women against each other given the fact that Kamel falls in love with Souad’s best friend. Thus, rather than creating a mutual bond between women who are economically, culturally, and socially ostracized and oppressed, he constructs a form of competition that makes one question whether or not ‘sisterhood’ is actually possible. What A Wonderful World demonstrates that to survive in a world where crime is widespread and unemployment is evident, people might end up resorting to violence.

Written by: May Abu-Jaber, January 20th 2011

Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars

barbara — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sonia Faleiro

Penguin India

Beautiful Thing is an eponymous title. It is journalist Sonia Faleiro's first book, about the dancers and not-so-secret prostitutes of the “dance bars” of suburban Bombay (Mumbai). These now-illegal establishments offered the tripartite pleasures of alcohol, enticing women, and Bollywood music. Their dancers were “bootiful” young girls, sometimes in their initial teenage years, and well aware that their “booty”—pun unintended—is what defines them, and keeps them fed and clothed.

But this free-market beauty of Faleiro's informants and the women in their lives—mothers, daughters, sisters, wives of their lovers, their hijra (male-to-female intersex, transsexual, or transgender) friends—is what dehumanises them into things. Beautiful things. Things that entertain, things to watch, things to make money with, things to rape, things to give as gifts, things to show off, things to have sex with, things that produce meals, things to punch when the world tightens the screws.

And their eternal tragedy is that their beauty fades, usually by the grand old age of thirty, but their essential thingness, their perceived worthlessness as anything other than beautiful and sexually available women, remains.

And yet Faleiro's informants are neither cowering nor desolate, nor are they subaltern heroines, stiff-upper-lipping the world. Her guide to “the secret world of Bombay's dance bars,” Leela, came to Bombay at fourteen to escape her abusive father's pimping. More infuriating than him selling her virginity to local policemen for a gang-rape at the station, she said, was his refusal to give her the money she earned. Bombay was much better. She could get money just for dancing, relative freedom to choose “kustomers,” and pretty things from men who admired her. Even weekends at expensive resorts. Although the bar owner took the greater share of the money men threw at her, she made enough to live in luxury. If she was forced to "go" with a patron, he was usually a mafia boss, and there was both privilege and profit in sleeping with them.

The histories of the other dancers are all riffs on the same general theme. They come from poor families with too many mouths to feed and little money to do it with. They were prostituted from puberty, and the injustice of being the broke and abused breadwinner nagged them till they decided to start working for themselves in the big city. In their first months several were tricked or forced into brothels, in conditions harsher than home, but most escaped—Leela by jumping out of a window—and found their way to a dance bar. For all the politically-motivated moral outrage directed at these ostensible destroyers of the social fabric and disgraces unto womankind, the bar dancers of Bombay were amongst the tiny minority of poor, illiterate, victims of abuse who managed to win a measure of independence and happiness without institutional intervention, and no social capital apart from their “bootiful” faces.

In fact, if one manages to look past the scene-stealing women, Beautiful Thing is a chronicle of total institutional failure. From “family” and “community,” to the state legislature for banning their “immoral” profession (in open defiance of their Constitutional right to live and work without prejudice), to law-keepers who extort, rape and get free blowjobs from this suddenly-unemployed or illegally-employed demography, these women have been let down by every institutional holy cow. The only place that lends them space—at a price—is the underground nexus of police, politicians and the mafia that “really” runs Bombay. And even then it is a faceless, substitutable existence amongst a steady influx of fresher, younger girls.

Yet, despite the horror, anger, frustration, pity and even guilty relief (there, but for the grace of god...) that one might feel about the dancers, their defining moment comes, fittingly, at the end. Leela, having lost family, job, home, savings, and friends, is about to be smuggled into Dubai without a passport, ripe for every kind of abuse and exploitation imaginable. To reassure a nervous Faleiro, she points to her own smiling face and asks, “Do you see fear?”

And Faleiro has to admit she doesn't.

Written by: Priyanka Nandy, November 26th 2010

The Photograph

gwen — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Nan Achnas

The Global Film Initiative

The Photograph begins with an old man slowly examining old photographs with his hands. The viewer feels almost intrusive watching the gnarled fingers pass over the pictures he knows so well that he need only touch their frames to bring the images to mind. The slow, tender motions of the old man are a direct contrast to the brash, young protagonist, Sita, who is introduced in the next scene.

At first glance, Sita is a young, immature, and breathtakingly beautiful woman who sings in a karaoke bar. The audience soon realizes, however, that Sita is working to support her young daughter and ailing grandmother back home. She works not only as a singer but also a prostitute. Her pimp is a vile and violent man who physically assaults her, screams at her, cuts off contact from her daughter, and demands money.

The Photograph does not romanticize, degrade, or judge Sita’s choice to become a prostitute. Instead, it paints the very realistic portrayal of survival sex, and how it destroys women by trapping them in a cycle of poverty and violence. That Sita is gang raped by johns and still continues to work is something all of the characters accept. This is a pragmatic view of the necessity of dangerous work for women who have no other viable options. By avoiding the “hooker with a heart of gold” stereotype, and showing the stark reality of some women’s experience, Nan Achnas makes Sita even more heartbreaking.

Sita also cleans and cooks for Mr. Johan, the elderly photographer we met in the opening scene. A begrudging host, he soon realizes Sita needs some kindness, and he needs to make peace with his own demons before he dies. Both Sita and Mr. Johan find acceptance in one another: two broken and bruised people just trying to survive.

The Photograph could have been shorter, as there were many scenes with no music or dialogue in which very little action happened. Despite these scenes, I became invested in Sita and Mr. Johan as the film progressed, and found myself living in their reality, which is light-years away from my living room. There were a few minor errors with the English subtitles, but nothing that significantly took away from the dialogue.

I thoroughly enjoyed Achnas’ decision to let the characters in The Photograph exist in their own reality, instead of within the context of some grand statement. The film depicts quiet and seemingly insubstantial lives intersecting to create a few moments of happiness, despite all the odds against it. After all, is this not how the universe actually works?

Cross-posted at Gender Across Borders

Written by: Colleen Hodgetts, October 18th 2010

A Call Girl (Slovenian Girl)

brittany — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Directed by Damjan Kozole

Film Movement

“Life is just one big disappointment after another,” laments the main character Alexandra in Damjan Kozole’s award-winning film about a Slovenian college student who delves into prostitution. Unfortunately for Alexandra and for viewers, the tone of A Call Girl never ascends much higher that that sentiment.

To her small town father, Alexandra seems like a bright, if moody, college student working on her English skills in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. Her family and friends question some of her tendencies—buying an expensive apartment and owning two cell phones—but by the time the audience meets Alexandra, she’s already very skilled at living her double life, whipping out excuses and fake illnesses to cover her tracks.

But Alexandra’s venture into prostitution unveils scarier and scarier problems for her—the constant threat of violent pimps and disturbing blackmail from friends who find out her secret, on top of the stress of school and mortgage payments. The sex worker lifestyle doesn’t reward Alexandra well, and her story is a fine example of why sex workers who are in the trade by choice or coercion should have legal protections. Thankfully, some feminist groups are leading the charge to offer sex workers just that.

A Call Girl is certainly a dark and pensive film, but it’s not completely without hope. The settings are artfully gritty. The opening and closing shots in particular are compelling because of the patience Kozole exercises to zero in on his main character’s expressions. But those scenes would be lost without the lead actress’ charisma. The role of Alexandra is shockingly Nina Ivanisin’s debut, and she rightfully earned kudos for her performance at the Valencia Festival of Mediterranean Cinema.

This film’s themes about prostitution are pretty clear cut. It’s not a ringing endorsement of the industry, but rather a reflection of its workers’ vulnerability to abuse. Ultimately, the responsibility for violence and coercion of women, including sex workers, has to fall squarely on the perpetrators of that abuse.

Written by: Hannah Moulton Belec, September 12th 2010

Surviving the Witch-Hunt: Battle Notes from Portland’s 82nd Avenue, 2007-2010

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Emi Koyama

Confluere Publications

Surviving the Witch-Hunt is collection of artifacts and commentary from 2007 to the present and catalogues the community forces that emerged after the City of Portland removed its controversial Prostitution Free Zones (PFZ). These zones had allowed the police to issue exclusion orders for those who had been arrested for sex work, even if they had never been charged. For ninety days, anyone arrested for prostitution in the designated area was not allowed to return without submitting an appeal, segregating public space and criminalizing behavior without actual legal indictment.

The uproar from community figures after the removal of the PFZs demonstrated the discriminatory sentiments of many of those living in the 82nd Avenue neighborhood. Those who opposed the end of the PFZs claimed that there was an increase in crime and a correlating decrease in their property value, and they united to fight the “problem” of sex work in their communities. Emi Koyama collected documents that demonstrate their anger toward sex workers and bolsters these artifacts with some social justice commentary, raising arguments that protect the rights of all women and advance a more holistic view of community development. This booklet uses the 82nd Avenue case study as an example of how multifaceted problems cannot be solved via law enforcement but through broader advances in social and economic justice.

Countering the arguments of outraged neighbors near 82nd Avenue, Koyama’s documents describe the harm PFZs do to women who work in the sex industry. The fliers in the collection address the underlying causes of sex work, and explain that improved access to housing, employment, and treatment services are a better response than criminalization. The documents also catalogue the efforts of anti-prostitution advocates who focus on educating men about the social dangers of purchasing sex. This was the most interesting part of the compilation to me, since many anti-prostitution feminists are pushing educational programs as a way to end sex work. Koyama’s work shows that decreasing the demand for sex work, while a seemingly laudable goal, actually harms women. Decreasing demand also reduces the price for services, so sex workers have to do more acts for less money, and it pushes sex work to more remote areas, causing potential dangers for workers. Also, johns who are rational regarding risk taking will be taken out of the pool, leaving a group of riskier men purchasing the services of sex workers. These men are more likely to act violently towards sex workers and are less likely to take safe precautions during sex.

As someone who recognizes that the problems associated with sex work have no simple solutions, I am thankful that Koyama lays out these rebuttals to anti-prostitution groups. Criminalizing and even reducing the amount of sex work will do little to address the more serious problems in our communities. Sadly, the deeply rooted social, racial, and gendered inequities that necessitate sex work too often go unnoticed by policymakers, concerned citizens, and others trying to improve their communities.

As a human rights lawyer, I am personally outraged at the discriminatory attitudes of too many in the 82nd Avenue community regarding the end of PFZs, and I am somewhat embarrassed that I had not known about these events before reading this collection. Many local stories of civil rights conflict, of discrimination, and of survival often don’t reach further than the affected community. By effectively curating a compilation of documents from the 82nd Avenue community, Koyama demonstrates the importance of capturing a historical moment in the trajectory towards justice. The fliers, newspaper articles, notices about community meetings, and email messages Koyama collected were probably designed to be temporary, but in this small archive they combine to tell a powerful story of the strength of community activism.

Written by: Andrea Gittleman, August 18th 2010

Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Nicholas Terpstra

Johns Hopkins University Press

Founded in 1554 by a group of charitable women who called themselves the Compagnia della Pietà, the Casa della Pietà, or Compassion House, was built in Florentine to shelter girls who had been orphaned or abandoned by their parents. The goal of the home was to keep children and adolescent girls from turning to (or being forced into) prostitution in the absence of familial support, and to provide them with the possibility of a dowry and marriage. Despite these good intentions, only 202 of the 526 girls and women who resided in the home survived their stay. As Nicholas Terpstra repeatedly asks in Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence, “What was killing the girls of the Casa della Pietà?”

Terpstra sets out to solve this 456-year-old mystery using the limited documentation still available about the home, as well as other documents that discuss contemporaneous Florence. Throughout the text, Terpstra explores and elaborates upon various theories about what was killing the residents of Casa della Pietà, weaving these theories within the story of the home and the conditions of Florence of the era. In telling this story, Terpstra touches on topics such as the work available for adolescent girls, birth control and abortifacients (and the abortion debate), prostitution, and religious fundamentalism. Although the book is structured as somewhat of a mystery, Terpstra’s question about the fate of the residents is only one part of what is ultimately a social history of the Casa della Pietà and Renaissance Florence.

In terms of women’s history, the book is interesting in two ways. First, it discusses the challenges and options an orphaned or abandoned girl could anticipate facing at the time, even when external support was provided. Second, as was previously mentioned, a group of women established the Casa della Pietà. This was not the norm at the time. Although Terpstra warns against overly romanticizing these women, it is somewhat difficult not to, particularly when the author outlines the differences between the way the Casa della Pietà admitted girls and the way that contemporaneous shelters did, and when he compares Casa della Pietà under the guidance of Compagnia della Pietà to the way it operated once the founding members ceased their involved. As Terpstra notes, “these women challenged more than just the sexual politics of Renaissance Florence—they challenged its political and ecclesiastical establishment.”

The book contains fascinating, and sometimes shocking, information about Terpstra’s topic. I appreciated that Terpstra does not exclusively limit himself to the subject of Casa della Pietà, but uses the mystery of what happened to the home’s residents as a way to examine related issues. Admittedly, some of these discussions were less interesting to me than others. For example, although the section that discusses the textile work done by the home’s residents and the wool and silk industry in general is necessary to have as complete an understanding of the home as possible, I did find it difficult to get through because it is a topic in which I have little interest. This is my bias, however, and I appreciated the level of detail Terpstra demonstrated in this section when he turned this focus to topics that were more in line with my interests.

Overall, despite containing a few sections that were less interesting to me, the text puts forth considerable fascinating information. Perhaps most importantly, the text both taught me about a shelter I had never before heard of, and made me want to learn more about the topic and the social climate of Renaissance Florence and its impact on women and girls.

Written by: Erin Schowalter, July 29th 2010

Women Without Men

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Shirin Neshat

Indiepix

The story of director Shirin Neshat is almost as compelling as her first feature. Born in religiously conservative Qazvin, Iran, Neshat has been using visual art to explore gender relations under Islam for nearly two decades, traveling back and forth between the States and Iran to enrich her perspective. But because her work has been so politically outspoken, Neshat has been exiled from her native country since 1996.

A visionary as courageous as she is condemned, Neshat is perhaps the most likely candidate to direct Women Without Men, an adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur's sweeping novel. The scope of Parsipur's story is both epic and intimate, juxtaposing the Western imperialist invasion of Tehran with the intertwining lives of four Iranian women during the tumultuous summer of 1953. To call such a project ambitious would be an understatement.

The connection between this political upheaval and the four characters in question is unmistakable; just as the people of Tehran have decided to come together and fight to maintain democracy, these four women have reached an impasse in their own lives. Nearing thirty and still unwedded, Munis (Shabnam Toloui) seeks to escape the oppressive hand of her older brother; Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), a rape victim, must flee to avoid condemnation; long-time prostitute Zarin (Orsolya Tóth) is finally ready to leave the life behind; and middle-aged Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad) has grown weary of her stifling, loveless marriage. The greater struggle of the revolution provides a moving counterpoint to the individual struggles of these characters to achieve solace.

Both the book and the film use elements of magic realism to tell their story. In order to be free of her brother and reinvent herself as a revolutionary, Munis either fakes her own suicide or actually commits suicide and comes back to life; it's unclear which. While roaming the woods, Faezeh sees a surreal reenactment of her rape. Though the device isn't consistent, it still manages to be effective when used.

It helps that the film is beautifully shot, with careful compositions and a palpable tone and style. Neshat uses a metallic palette throughout, giving the film an appropriately imprisoning feel. The film is also remarkable for its avoidance of graphic imagery, with the exception of a disturbing scene in which Zarin scrubs herself raw in a public bath, but this is more to emphasize her diseased, nearly skeletal body, and needless to say, this lone image has a lingering impact.

In fact, it is Zarin's story that ends up being the most effective, while some of the others seem a bit heavy-handed at times. Fakhri's husband chides, "A woman hitting menopause shouldn't be flirting anymore," while Munis' brother declares, "A woman's body is like a flower. Once it blossoms, it quickly withers away." It's not that these sentiments aren't believable, but pairing them with a sheer lack of sympathetic male characters makes it all seem intentionally exaggerated.

From the film's final disclaimer, it seems that Neshat's primary objective was to focus on the revolution, but the way Women Without Men unfolds makes the political aspect of the story more of a backdrop than a feature. It is quite poignant, however, to realize that, in the end, our four main characters have been afforded a rebirth of some kind, even if it's through death, while the Iranian people have failed to achieve the one for which they've so bravely fought.

Written by: Caitlin Graham, June 5th 2010

Chloe

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Directed by Atom Egoyan

Sony Picture Classics

A retread of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 film, Nathalie, I walked out of the theater feeling rather disappointed with Chloe.

Julianne Moore plays Catherine Stewart, a successful gynecologist who is married to a college professor named David (Liam Neeson). After David misses a flight home, Catherine looks through his phone and finds a rather questionable photo. Catherine then becomes consumed with the suspicion that David is cheating on her. After a chance meeting with Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a young escort, Catherine decides to hire her to seduce her husband, ostensibly to determine what makes him tick and turns him on. Chloe accepts the assignment with alacrity, sharing with Catherine the explicit details of her rendezvous with David.

It is at this point that I began scratching my head. If Catherine thought she had proof of David’s extramarital dalliances, why didn’t she just confront him outright? Or hire a private detective to look into his activities? Or go through his things and check credit card statements, emails, and call records to uncover more evidence? Isn’t that what usually happens in real life when women think their husbands are double dipping? Unfortunately, this isn’t the only poor—or poorly explained—choice Catherine makes.

To up the confusion factor, Catherine’s behavior toward Chloe is often inexplicably maternal. She advises her to get checked for STI’s, expresses concern over Chloe’s health simply because Chloe sneezes, and all but kisses her boo-boo when Chloe takes a spill on her bike and skins her knee.

Chloe enjoys being nurtured and obviously views Catherine as a mother figure. This is impressed as she repeatedly tries to give Catherine a hairpin that belonged to her real mother. Telling viewers about Chloe’s mother could have provided this limp story with some interesting wrinkles; however, Chloe’s back-story is never properly explored. How she ended up becoming a call-girl and exactly what drives her obsession with Catherine is left unexplained.

None of the characters are suitably fleshed out, for that matter. We know David is a flirt, but Liam Neeson’s anemic performance would have you believe that his behavior is merely reflexive. The fact that Catherine seems halfway willing to accept that meager explanation makes it even harder to understand her choices. The couple have obviously had problems in their marriage in the past but we never find out exactly what they were or how (or even if) they got resolved.

And what’s up with their son? Michael (Max Theiriot) feels an obvious hostility toward his mother and his trips to a therapist’s couch are alluded to several times, but this character never comfortably inhabits the world of this story. Throwing all of Michael’s footage on the floor and making a few changes to the story would have helped this film immensely.

To make matters worse, the filmmaker’s decision to violate the show-don’t-tell rule further undermined this enterprise. Newsflash! Stories told by unreliable narrators pack more of a punch when the audience initially believes what it’s been told. Moviegoers should never be able to anticipate plot twists.

Properly executed, Chloe could have been an erotic thriller par excellence. Instead, the filmmakers never actually decide what they want this film to be. Is this movie simply a portrait of marriage where the thrill is gone or a glimpse into a career woman’s mid-life crisis? Is it an indictment of prostitution—a trade where workers are purchased, used, and ultimately discarded—or a metaphor for how some mothers collude with father-daughter incest? Maybe this movie is treatise on how sexual passion and jealousy are almost always inextricably linked.

Chloe, manages to be all of these things and none of these things. It is undone by its slack pacing, under-developed characters, depressive tone, and somewhat implausible story. If you are a fan of any of the featured actors, I would suggest that you wait until this film becomes available on DVD. Chloe just isn’t worth the price of full admission.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, March 27th 2010

The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Jean-Luc Hennig, translated by Ariana Reines

Semiotext(e)

Writing a review for a book like The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal is not a simple task by any means. On the one hand, I want to be as straightforward as possible and simply give my impressions of this one particular piece of writing without going into the issue of prostitution and whether or not it degrades women. On the other hand, it seems impossible not to when taking into account the fact that Réal was a world-famous and revolutionary “whore” and writer who argued that prostitution was not only a choice, but a free-will decision. In my opinion, all sweeping generalizations ever do is discount legions of women whose experiences don’t fall in line with a particular argument; it’s as if they’re being told they don’t exist. So I stay out of it the best I can, though I am supportive of sex workers—no matter the circumstances or choices that led them to their line of work.

For such a fascinating title, The Little Black Book doesn’t pack much of a punch. The book is basically a series of interviews between Réal and journalist Jean-Luc Hennig, as translated by Ariana Reines. Réal’s “whoring” is discussed in great detail, though none of her anarchist activities are. She mentions writing papers and being politically active quite casually several times, though it’s usually only in reference to one of her clients asking about papers she has posted on her bedroom walls. The last portion of the book is quite literally Réal’s little black book, in which she’s written down the names of all her customers, what they’re into sexually, what they look like, and how much they pay her.

Nothing that Réal says in the interviews is politically charged in any way; there are no arguments about prostitution, no defending of her life’s work. For the most part, it’s just account after account of client after client. Did you know that many men secretly like getting a finger up their ass when receiving oral sex? Did you know that men need to be pampered and mothered and showed affection when seeing a prostitute? Yes, no? Don’t care? Me either. I was hoping to get a feel for this woman, the famous Grisélidis Réal who was a survivor and took to prostitution in order to support her children; who earned her living on her back until she was in her sixties.

But you never really get a sense of her; just hints of her personality. I would have liked to learn more about her opinions on her work and her life and less about her depressing decades long relationship with a severely abusive man and the boring sex she endured for years with men who Réal believed simply needed to fulfill their sexual desires—because apparently sex with a woman is a God-given right, and men will be damned if they go without.

In several interviews, Réal contends that the men that come to see her have something wrong with them; that normal men do not go to see prostitutes. She says that prostitution is lonely, heartbreaking work. She says that “fundamentally what [men] want isn’t to hurt you or kill you or bore you; what they want is for you to be nice” so in turn the women “must be totally amorphous, emptied of their substance, emptied of all their strength…” I don’t know why a women would defend and even champion a line of work and lifestyle that requires that of women, but then, prostitution is a complicated issue. After reading The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal, I can say—mysterious anarchism aside—that Réal was a complicated woman.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, March 4th 2010

Things Fall Away: Philippine Historical Experience and the Makings of Globalization

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:32:00 +0000

By Neferti X. M. Tadiar

Duke University Press

Things Fall Away is a scholarly book, not composed for easy reading or comprehension. Tadiar writes as an expert in the areas of political science, anthropology and economics. Consider the following: _Refurbished as well as unreconstructed nationalism and transnationalisms, battles for state power and civil liberties, identity-based claims to political and economic enfranchisement, liberal-democratic ideals of civil society—such are the familiar trajectories of world-historical agency in these times, trajectories from which all other manner of human and parahuman lives, pasts, presents, and futures, cultural imaginations, and virtual realities are jettisoned. These things fall away…_Yet Tadiar writes poetically at times and offers beautifully detailed and researched explanations of the dangers and losses we face as the world undergoes a new transformation: globalization. Given the current economic and political struggles we face, Tadiar’s examination of the post-colonization period of the Philippines and the knowledge it offers about the process we are undergoing is particularly timely as well as brilliant. She brings heart to her explanations as she illustrates the role of literature and poetry in providing a picture of effects of these changes on the subaltern.

She views global politics and economics through the lens of feminist theory. Her description of how Philippine women, since the beginning of the military dictatorship in 1972, became the primary economic asset of the country is eye opening. In chapter one, she offers a joke that circulated in the Philippines in the 1980s: “Gas, rice, sugar—everything is going up! The only things coming down are panties!”

While lamenting the misogynist view, the author describes the role of prostitution as a prospering industry for the country. Tadiar sees a parallel in the Philippines being a hostess nation, servicing the needs and desires of her clients.

The author writes graphically about the effects of economic and political transformations. She will not let that history die or disappear and she warns of the consequences of building a culture on human wounds.

Tadiar offers the concept of global tragedy, a general feeling that there is no hope and efforts to change the world of the subaltern have failed. She also speaks of divine sorrow and the hope that change is still possible.

Written by: Karyn Hall, October 15th 2009

Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la Braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers)

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:54:00 +0000

Directed by Rithy Panh

[Paper Cannot Wrap up Embers] provides a numbing portrait of the everyday lives of young Cambodian women who have been forced into prostitution in the aftermath of decades of war and genocide. Their lives are characterized by drug abuse, chronic health problems, and violence and brutality experienced at the hands of their “clients.” The film opens with scenes of a girl crying and shows the women sleeping and eating lunch with their babies at their sides.

As is common for documentaries these days, the film is not narrated and consists entirely of interviews and scenes of women going about their daily lives: eating, sleeping, putting on make up, and taking “ma” (methamphetamine) in order to anesthetize themselves enough to go to work. In the absence of contextualizing narration, and lacking an understanding of the recent history of Cambodia, it was difficult for me as a viewer to feel I had more than a very superficial understanding of the socio-political situation that has prompted such poverty and misery to become part of daily life. Instead I was simply struck by the overwhelming resignation felt by most of the women.

The women understand the reason this has happened to them is because they were born poor and they don’t see any way out of it. This is the most striking and disturbing aspect of [Paper Cannot Wrap up Embers]. Even as the women describe enduring horrific situations (and there are many in this film), they tend to do so with either an air of detachment or else with raw physical pain, as in the scene when one of the women comes back from a painful abortion and can’t stop crying, saying “It feels like my uterus has been ripped to shreds.”

In one of the few mentions of the Khmer Rouge, one woman’s mother stops by the brothel and describes how much worse poverty was during that time: “You think your life is tough? You have to put up with it! If you’d been born under the Khmer Rouge, you’d have starved to death or been executed. Today you sell yourself to buy rice by the kilo. When will all this end? I feel helpless.”

This documentary is difficult to watch because it leaves the viewer feeling helpless as well. Part of me wishes they would have ended on a more hopeful note, or suggested ways for the viewer to get involved to better the lives of these women. Films like this can be overwhelming to some people and make them prefer ignorance because of the feeling of powerlessness over the situation.

On the other hand, I think the filmmaker portrayed the situation honestly and realistically, and sometimes reality is very painful to watch. I hope [Paper Cannot Wrap up Embers] inspires some viewers to learn more about life in Cambodia and about the global problems of prostitution and sex slavery. If nothing else, perhaps it offers a shred of dignity to these women by giving them a medium through which they can speak for themselves.

Written by: Liz Simmons, September 21st 2009

Briarpatch Magazine: The Gender & Sexuality Issue (March/April 2009)

admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:41:00 +0000

Edited by Dave Mitchell

At first glance, Canada's Briarpatch Magazine reminded me of American feminist magazine Bitch; the content is similar, the overall message is similar, and, hell, even the font in the logo seems similar. What I love about Bitch is that although it’s an American magazine, it covers issues from all over the world, so I can keep up on feminist issues all over just by checking in one place. Briarpatch does not cover such a distance, as it seems to be primarily a Canadian-focused magazine; however, I still learned a lot about some of Canada’s different subcultures.

This issue was billed as “the gender and sexuality issue,” so the topics covered were about polyamory, sex working and transsexual issues. First, I learned about Canada’s health care system in relation to transsexuals undergoing or wanting to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Unlike the United States, Canada has a government-funded health care system. It is apparently extremely difficult to get coverage for something such as this type of surgery. This was an interesting, in depth look at one man’s personal journey through this ordeal. It was inspiring, yet also sad with the hoops he had to jump through in order to become the gender he felt comfortable with.

Briarpatch also educated me about sex workers in Canada through an interview with Kara Gillies, co-founder of both the Canadian Guild for Erotic Labour and the former Toronto Migrant Sex Workers Advocacy Group. Gillies also does work for Maggie’s, an organization run by sex workers. Maggie’s includes all aspects of sex work in their attempts to advocate for these workers’ rights, such as individuals involved in pornography, phone sex workers, and dominatrixes, to name a few. It is Gillies' work with Maggie’s that is the primary focus of the article.

The most interesting thing I learned from this was that in Canada, the act of prostitution itself is actually not illegal and never was. What is illegal is negotiating for services in a public place or even somewhere that’s open to public viewing such as parked or moving cars or bars. So it’s fine to go and do the deed elsewhere but not to discuss anything such as protection, payment, or even specific services beforehand if it’s in a public area. But you also can’t technically go anywhere because your work site, if used for this purpose, could be classified as a ‘bawdy house’ and under the bawdy house law, that’s illegal too. In addition, if you participate in someone else’s activities, it falls under the procurement law. This means that you can’t do such things as advertise someone else’s services or even offer to protect them personally. But, again, the actual act of prostitution is totally legal!

This, too, was an inspiring although frustrating piece because while some of the facts were new to me, unfortunately, the overall story and public perception seems to be the same all over. On the whole, I enjoyed getting an in-depth look on another country’s struggles with the same issues as are faced in the United States, and Briarpatch was a very enjoyable read.

Written by: Jen Klee, September 6th 2009

Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China

admin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:56:00 +0000

By Tiantian Zheng

University Of Minnesota Press

On one occasion, gangsters walked into the bar, grabbed me by the arm, and started dragging me up the stairs toward a private room intended for hostesses’ sexual encounters with clients. The women were also sometimes raped there by gangsters. I quickly realized what was going on—that I was in real danger... Whereas safety was a major issue, hygiene was another. Living in a filthy karaoke bar room without bathing facilities, I had lice in my hair and over my whole body. However, by living and working closely with hostesses in the bar, I gained their recognition and friendship.

Ethnographers always get their man (or woman... or both) even if they have to use their bodies as instruments of data collection and analysis. Ethnographers usually become participant-observers during fieldwork to facilitate rapport and to capture what people actually do as opposed merely to what they say they do, but as these snippets suggest, such can lead to squeamish feelings and harrowing experiences. Zheng participated in activities that male ethnographers could only have observed. Her analysis of sexual networking is consequently first-rate because she moves easily and persuasively from person to state, capital to labor, ideology to practice.

Red Lights is a beautifully written account of the emergence of new femininities and masculinities in post-socialist People’s Republic of China. Zheng analyzes the growth, structure, registration and functions of the karaoke bars now dotting the landscape and in which are played out the social and economic contradictions of class, heterosexuality, ethnicity and gender. In often grim detail, she shows how Communist Party bureaucrats, gangsters, and small business owners (literally) patronize young, unmarried females. In so doing, the former make money, express obeisance to their own social superiors, and get back at Mao Zedong for allegedly having sapped their masculinity during the Cultural Revolution. Women escape poverty (sort of), find boyfriends (ditto), manipulate men as best they can, and experience female solidarity. Her male informants freely express their disturbing misogyny while also confessing their sexual anxieties and class resentment. Confucianism, capitalism and communism each but differently punish women for alleged sexual promiscuity while rewarding men for theirs.

Many tens of thousands of Chinese women have migrated from economically and socially stagnating rural areas to the strip clubs and karaoke bars, back rooms, and guest houses of urban centers such as Dalian, where they “choose” forms of employment that entail grotesque subservience, daily humiliation, squalid working conditions, and social leprosy. Dalian was long ago hailed as an oasis of economic development during the period of Occupation by the Japanese military in the 1930s and 1940s. Its morally unsavory status today as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah—but whose economic function is central to post-socialist China—reveals the social and economic contradictions of Confucianism, patriarchy, communism, Western media forms and capitalism. “In Dalian,” Zheng writes, “taxes paid by the entertainment industry are the largest source of local revenue.”

Red Lights opens with Zheng’s painful personal stories of growing up a filial daughter in a sex-negative and patriarchal Chinese household. It continues with her painful humiliation in a U.S. college classroom regarding her views of gender relations. It proceeds to detail the humiliation of Chinese women. Her extremely sorrowful Afterword, entitled “From Entertainer to Prostitute,” shows the inexorable logic of patriarchy and capitalism and gives the lie to pro-sex work activist positions that can neglect or ignore specifically gendered humiliation in sex work. Her Acknowledgments section deeply moved me in recounting the joys and pains of scholarly work. It exemplifies the beauty and honor of academic collaborations that break through barriers of geography, language, culture, theory and gender but that are nevertheless mindful of them.

Red Lights would make a fine addition to graduate-level courses in social theory and fieldwork, but could be used in upper-division courses in gender studies and ethnography, too. It is a major contribution to ethnographic explorations of gender, sexuality, and prostitution, and to Asian Studies, too, which has enabled too few participant observation-style studies of sexual networking.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., August 7th 2009

I-5: A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:10:00 +0000

By Summer Brenner

PM Press

Sexual slavery is a serious problem in the world. While the numbers vary between agencies, the most commonly reported statistics are from the U.S. State Department’s 2005 report on trafficked persons, which estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders, with 14,500 to 17,500 trafficked to the U.S. These numbers include all forms of forced labor, but sexual slavery has the highest percentage, affecting both women and children. Women are lured with the promise of jobs in other countries, but are subjected to sexual servitude. Summer Brenner’s novel I-5 follows the story of Anya, a young woman from Russia, who is stuck in prostitution in the U.S., unable to get out.

Anya’s story is gritty, and not for the weak of heart. Brenner delves deep into the character, creating a realistic narrative. Because of the subject material, there are scenes that are explicit, but it only strengthens the story. Brenner takes a powerful stance in telling Anya’s story. Anya is not shown as a victim; rather, she is a strong woman who has taken her situation and used it in an attempt to secure her freedom. While Anya tells the reader that she enjoys sex and is good at it, she does not like being ordered to service strange men, and desperately wants her freedom.

As the story progresses, Brenner includes flashbacks to Anya’s childhood, and Anya further explains how she ended up in the U.S. as a sexual slave. Besides describing Anya’s story, Brenner also goes into detail about the men who control the “market.” This gives a deeper insight into how women are drawn in, and taken to foreign countries for sex work. In addition, it sadly shows how women who try to retaliate are broken into submission. Brenner does an excellent job portraying this dark world to a chilling degree.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, June 29th 2009

Tapologo

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:34:00 +0000

Directed by Gabriella Gutierrez Dewar, Sally Gutierrez Dewar

Tapologo is a full-length documentary shot in Northwest Province, South Africa. Directors Gabriella and Sally Gutierrez Dewar chronicle a handful of the 20,000 displaced African refugees in a squatter camp called Freedom Park. Here we are exposed to life and death in a place where fifty percent of the women are infected with HIV.

The film is divided into two parts. Part one opens inside the shack of an emaciated woman receiving care from two local nurses. The woman is dying from Tuberculosis, and for a moment she glances directly into the camera lens with brown eyes that appear to have lost all innocence and hope. As we get to know other patients and nurses who inhabit the park, we see that most of the women have slept with men for money, many have contracted HIV, yet only some are receiving anti-retroviral treatment. All of them are either dying or fighting to survive. Personal accounts from the women are interlaced with stunning visual images that are both emotional and relevant, and the intensity never lets up.

The second part begins with desolate music by Joel Assaizky and shots of people walking across train tracks, sitting on sides of roads, just standing around watching each other. This time is spent contextualizing the squalor of Freedom Park in the apartheid aftermath. In a place where the alternative to starvation is sexual exploitation, it’s impossible to ignore the political history.

Then we learn about Tapologo, a collective of female caregivers who self-organize and treat the hopelessness of their immediate surroundings. Before this network existed, individuals were left alone with their chronic diseases as poverty and pain devoured them. Now these strong women, many of them diagnosed with HIV themselves, have begun to administer anti-retroviral treatment and provide bedside and hospice care. As a result, a community has begun to form, and with the help of Brother Joe, Sister Georgina, and bishop Kevin Dowling (Catholic community leaders and activists who share relatively progressive ideology), Tapologo has begun to break Freedom Park's cycle of poverty, patriarchy and an overall loss of dignity.

One scene in particular illustrates the spirit of this film. A nurse named Thimbi (a former sex-worker and HIV victim) pays a visit to the shack of a helpless woman and her infant. She says confidently, "Filth can make the illness worse," and begins to wash dishes and floors on her hands and knees. For Thimbi and others, volunteering with Tapologo gave them a chance to believe in themselves, to find beauty within, and to be proud of life's small victories. This moment, and this film, is a great reminder to step out of our daily comforts and confront real issues facing real women.

Written by: Katy Pine, June 25th 2009