Putes Feministas’: Inclusive Language and Social Media Activism
Presenter Title/Affiliation
Elon University
Start Date
22-5-2021 4:45 PM
Event Name
Panel discussion
Panel Number
18
Panel Chair Name
Michelle Marzullo
Zoom URL to Join
https://ciis.zoom.us/j/96704974821
Zoom Meeting ID
967 0497 821
Abstract
This research centers on Ammar, a union of sex workers to examine sexual politics in the post-colonial capitalist state. Ammar advocates for the legalization of sex work in order to contest the social stigma attached to sex work and improve their working conditions. They demand labor rights and benefits such as healthcare and retirement funds, identifying themselves as distinct from sex-trafficking victims. Ammar emphatically insists that maintaining sex work in the realms of illegality not only prevents them from enjoying workers’ rights but also exposes them to increased institutional violence. Feminist-Marxist theorist Silvia Federici has provided a historical account of the criminalization of sex work and its ties to the emergence of the capitalist mode of production (Federici 1998). Under current capitalist conditions, the advent of social media platforms has channeled sex work to novel forms of representation and community-building that resist criminalization. While feminist debates have long concerned themselves with sexuality as a possible avenue of political liberation, scholars have yet to address the ways in which sex workers inform the plurality manifested in the “feminismos populares” that characterize Latin America today and play a part in the development of inclusive language. Inclusive language in Argentina has replaced the x with an e (Latine, todes, amigues) to include gender non-conforming individuals. These recent changes in linguistic expressions of sexual politics incarnate and confront structural inequalities based on assemblages of gender and sexuality. Using critical discourse analysis, this research dissects how sex workers challenge constrictive notions of gender and sexuality through the use of inclusive language in social media (Friedman 2017). Through this framing, contemporary definitions of citizenship, labor, and desire coalesce in the Global South to identify the specific ways in which organized sex workers advance gender equity.
Presenter Contact
lsavloff@elon.edu
Putes Feministas’: Inclusive Language and Social Media Activism
This research centers on Ammar, a union of sex workers to examine sexual politics in the post-colonial capitalist state. Ammar advocates for the legalization of sex work in order to contest the social stigma attached to sex work and improve their working conditions. They demand labor rights and benefits such as healthcare and retirement funds, identifying themselves as distinct from sex-trafficking victims. Ammar emphatically insists that maintaining sex work in the realms of illegality not only prevents them from enjoying workers’ rights but also exposes them to increased institutional violence. Feminist-Marxist theorist Silvia Federici has provided a historical account of the criminalization of sex work and its ties to the emergence of the capitalist mode of production (Federici 1998). Under current capitalist conditions, the advent of social media platforms has channeled sex work to novel forms of representation and community-building that resist criminalization. While feminist debates have long concerned themselves with sexuality as a possible avenue of political liberation, scholars have yet to address the ways in which sex workers inform the plurality manifested in the “feminismos populares” that characterize Latin America today and play a part in the development of inclusive language. Inclusive language in Argentina has replaced the x with an e (Latine, todes, amigues) to include gender non-conforming individuals. These recent changes in linguistic expressions of sexual politics incarnate and confront structural inequalities based on assemblages of gender and sexuality. Using critical discourse analysis, this research dissects how sex workers challenge constrictive notions of gender and sexuality through the use of inclusive language in social media (Friedman 2017). Through this framing, contemporary definitions of citizenship, labor, and desire coalesce in the Global South to identify the specific ways in which organized sex workers advance gender equity.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/saturday/29
