Tag: sex work
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Transphobia, whorephobia and (as) capitalist-colonial gender
This is the first of a series of blogs I will write following the webinar on my book Me, Not You: the trouble with mainstream feminism. This was broadcast on April 7th to over 100 attendees, who asked some fantastic questions! Because I didn’t get a chance to answer all these during the session, I…
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Feminists fighting sexual violence in the age of Brexit and Trump
This piece is based on a talk delivered as part of the University of Birmingham School of Social Policy seminar series in January 2019 and as the annual lecture of the University of Bristol Gender Research Centre in April 2019. It brings together much of my recent work on feminist activism against sexual violence both…
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Whose Personal is More Political?
The text below is from a guest blog I wrote for the journal Feminist Theory, to launch my article ‘Whose Personal is More Political? Experience in Contemporary Feminist Politics’, forthcoming in volume 17(3). At present the full text of the article is available from the journal free and can be accessed here. If for any…
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Why the ‘Nordic Model’ sucks (with references)
One aim of the recent Home Affairs Committee Prostitution Inquiry seems pretty clear. The first question contributors were asked to answer is ‘whether criminal sanction in relation to prostitution should continue to fall more heavily on those who sell sex, rather than those who buy it’. This leading formulation offers a choice between two modes of criminalisation…
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Why sex workers should be part of sexual violence campaigns
CN: some of the articles this piece links to contain extremely offensive ideas about sex workers. I have been asked a number of times how my work around ‘lad culture’ and sexual violence in higher education corresponds to my support of sex industry decriminalisation. The implication, which elicits arguments commonly made by abolitionist feminists, is often that…
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‘You’re not representative’: Identity politics in sex industry debates
Alongside ‘listen to survivors’, ‘you’re not representative’ is a key refrain from abolitionist quarters in feminist debates about the sex industry. Most recently, this mantra was chanted in the furore around Amnesty International’s draft policy on decriminalisation, where in addition to claims that the organisation was acting to protect the rights of ‘pimps’ and ‘Johns’,…
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‘Listen to survivors’ and the fetishisation of experience
The debate over Amnesty International’s draft policy supporting the decriminalisation of sex work has been heated. Although the organisation developed the policy following extensive research with sex workers and consultation with key stakeholders, it has been accused of wanting to protect the rights of ‘pimps’ and ‘Johns’ to buy or profit from the sale of…
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‘Disappearing’ sex workers in the Amnesty debate
Originally published in Open Democracy The international council meeting of Amnesty International which starts today in Dublin will consider a resolution urging that sex work be decriminalized. This is accompanied by a draft policy on state obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of sex workers. The document is clear – the rights of…
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Why feminism needs trans people and sex workers
Originally published in the New Statesman, 24th November 2014 There are several stories circulating about what happened at this year’s London Reclaim the Night march. The Sex Worker Open University have criticised the organisers for including a speaker from Object, a campaign group they claim oppresses those in the sex industry by picketing their workplaces and…
Ali Phipps 