Strange bedfellows: Building feminist coalitions around sex work in the 1970s

No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism

Volumn , Issue , 2010, Pages 246-272

  Gilmore, Stephanie ^a  

^a DICKINSON COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 84858315739     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (108)

1. Elise Chenier, "Lesbian Sex Wars", glbtq: n Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, www.glbtq.com/social- sciences/lesbian-sex-wars.html, accessed October 3, 2007;
2. see also Lisa Duggan and Nan Hunter, Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture (New York: New York University Press 1995)
3. Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality", in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin (New York: Routledge, 1993), 3-44.
4. Ellen Carol DuBois and Linda Gordon, "Seeking Ecstasy on the Battlefield: Danger and Pleasure in Nineteenth Century Thought", Feminist Studies 9, no. 1(1983):7-25;
5. Brian Donovan, White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender, and Anti-vice Activism, 1887-1917 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007);
6. Mary E. Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);
7. Elizabeth Clement, Love for Sale: Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
8. Clement, Love for Sale; Marilyn Hegarty, Victory Girls, Khaki-Whackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2007);
9. John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (1988; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
10. Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant, Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography (North Melbourne, Victoria: Spinifex Press, 2004);
11. Jill Nagle, ed., Whores and Other Feminists (New York: Routledge, 1997);
12. Mark Benjamin, "Fall Girls", Ms., Summer 2008, online: http://www.msmagazine.com/Summer2008/fallgirls.asp;
13. Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, eds., Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World without Rape (New York: Seal Press, 2008).
14. Lisa Duggan, "Feminist Historians and Antipornography Campaigns: An Overview", in Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture, ed. Lisa Duggan and Nan Hunter (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 69.
15. Joan Nestle also comments on the use of this terminology in "Wars and Thinking", Journal of Women's History 15, no. 3(2003):49-57.
16. By using the language of "prosex" and "antisex" as well as "sex-positive", sex radicals claimed and defined the language of the debate. Duggan and Hunter, Sex Wars;
17. Rubin, "Thinking Sex";
18. DuBois and Gordon, "Seeking Ecstasy";
19. Jane Gerhard, Desiring Revolution: Second Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920-1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
20. Chenier, "Lesbian Sex Wars"
21. See also Christine Stansell and Ann Snitow, eds., Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983);
22. Adrienne Rich, Joan Nestle, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Mattie Richardson, and Alison Kafer, "Women's History in the New Millennium: Adrienne Rich's 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, '" Journal of Women's History 15 (Fall 2003);
23. Adrienne Rich, "A Response", Journal of Women's History 16 (Spring 2004);
24. Donna Guy, "Sex Work and Women's Labors around the Globe", Journal of Women's History 15 (Winter 2004); Duggan and Hunter, Sex Wars.
25. Rubin, "Thinking Sex";
26. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, eds., Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement (New York: Basic Books, 2000);
27. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, "Second Wave Feminism", in The Blackwell Companion to American Women's History, ed. Nancy A. Hewitt (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999);
28. Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York: Viking Penguin, 2000);
29. Sara M. Evans, Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End (New York: Free Press, 2003);
30. Duggan and Hunter, Sex Wars. Much of this analysis is from the perspective of white women, although women of color were grappling with women's sex and sexualities beyond the boundaries of so-called second wave feminism. In the context of sex work per se, see Mireille Miller-Young, "A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography" (Ph. D. diss., New York University, 2004).
31. Stephanie Gilmore, "Bridging the Waves: Sex and Sexuality in a Second-Wave Organization", in Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women's Movement, ed. Jo Reger (New York: Routledge, 2005), 97-116.
32. Ronald Weitzer, "The Politics of Prostitution in America", in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry (New York: Routledge, 2000), 176.
33. Valerie Jenness, Making It Work: The Prostitutes' Rights Movement in Perspective (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993), 70-76, quotation on 73.
34. Heather Miller, "Trick Identities: The Nexus of Work and Sex", Journal of Women's History 15(Winter 2004):145-152.
35. See also Eileen Boris, Stephanie Gilmore, and Rhacel Parrenas, eds., "Sexual Labors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives toward Sex as Work", Sexualities (forthcoming).
36. See Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love, "Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot?" in Radical Feminism, ed. Barbara Crow (New York: New York University Press, 2000), esp. 319.
37. Stephanie Gilmore and Elizabeth Kaminski, "A Part and Apart: Lesbian and Straight Activists Negotiate Feminist Identity in a Second-Wave Organization", Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, no. 1(2007):95-113. Jenness and Weitzer do acknowledge NOW in formal, "paper" coalition with COYOTE, but it is scant; in the case of Weitzer, it is also dismissive.
38. Albert Hurtado, "Settler Women and Frontier Women: The Unsettling Past of Western Women's History", Frontiers 22, no. 3(2001):1-5.
39. Gilmore, "Bridging the Waves"
40. Eileen Boris and Rhacel Parrenas, Intimate Labors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Domestic, Care, and Sex Work (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming).
41. On NOW's origins and early history vis-à-vis economic discrimination, see Evans, Tidal Wave; Rosen, The World Split Open; Myra Marx Ferree and Beth Hess, Controversy and Coalition, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000);
42. Cynthia Harrison, On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945-1968 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989);
43. Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004);
44. Maryann Barakso, Governing NOW (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005);
45. Stephanie Gilmore, Groundswell: Grassroots Feminist Activism in Postwar America (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
46. On NOW and legal battles against AT&T, see Lois Herr, Women, Power, and AT&T (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003).
47. On NOW and fights against Sears, see Emily Zuckerman, "The Cooperative Origins of EEOC v. Sears", in Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, ed. Stephanie Gilmore (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
48. "No Secret Anymore", DVD, 2003; Marcia Gallo, Different Daughters (New York: Seal Press, 2006).
49. Gail Gifford, "A Commentary by Gail Gifford", 29 October 1976, part of "Press Kit", 1976, "WEF", Femina Collection, Charles Deering Library, Northwestern University (hereafter cited as Femina).
50. Gifford, "A Commentary by Gail Gifford"
51. Gina Allen, "Prostitutes and Politicians", 29 October 1976, part of "Press Kit", Femina.
52. Flyer, "Come to a Women's Conference on Prostitution", n. d. [1971], New York City NOW papers, Series VII, Box 27, folder 25, Tamiment Library/Robert L. Wagner Archives, New York University.
53. Susan Brownmiller, "Speaking Out on Prostitution", 1971, Femina.
54. See also Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery (New York: New York University Press, 1984).
55. Brownmiller, "Speaking Out on Prostitution"
56. "Feminists Forum on Prostitution", excerpted from Goodbye to All That, no vol. no., 1971, 5, Femina.
57. Brownmiller, "Speaking Out on Prostitution"
58. On grassroots activism that operated within, but also beyond, this governance structure, see Gilmore, Groundswell; Jo Reger and Suzanne Staggenborg, "Grassroots Organizing in a Federated Structure: NOW Chapters in Four Local Fields", in The U. S. Women's Movement in Global Perspective, ed. Lee Ann Banaszak (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
59. Margo St. James, "Preface", A Vindication of the Rights of Whores, ed. Gail Pheterson (Seattle: Seal Press, 1989), xvii-xx, quotations on xvii.
60. Jenness, Making It Work, 32. On the ACLU, see Weitzer, "The Politics of Prostitution in America", 176; he states that decriminalization of prostitution "is a very low-priority issue for the ACLU" (176).
61. See www.now.org for stories and details.
62. In 2005, a resolution proposed by Stacey Cleveland called for a public and unified stand against pornography and its harmful effects on women (text can be found at http://www.bestpracticespolicy.org/subpage1.html);
63. Stacey Swimme, a NOW member and sex worker, circulated a petition and resolution by sex workers rejecting the original resolution in favor of one protecting free speech and proposing that NOW recognize "that women who work in the sex industry, including pornography and prostitution, are entitled to the same basic human rights as other women" (http://www. bestpracticespolicy.org/subpage.html). Neither resolution has been passed at the national meetings, but they are evidence that some feminist sex workers in NOW are still fighting for rights as workers.
64. Priscilla Alexander, "Working on Prostitution", California NOW, July 1983, Wilcox Collection. Although this paper was written in 1983, Alexander noted that these restrictions had been in place since the licensing law was passed in Nevada in 1970; these restrictions remain in place.
65. Weitzer, "The Politics of Prostitution in America", 177, emphasis in original.
66. Jean Haley, "Farmer's Daughter Fighting for Prostitutes", Kansas City Times, 20 April 1976, Wilcox Collection.
67. David Zeeck, "Prostitution Law Racist, Sexist", Kansas City Star, 20 April 1976, Wilcox Collection.
68. Robert L. Carroll, "Leave Us Alone, Prostitutes Say", Kansas City Times, 30 April 1976, Wilcox Collection.
69. "Proposal for a NOW National Task Force on Prostitution", pamphlet, 1979, California NOW, Wilcox Collection.
70. Lisa Fenton, "Some of My Best Friends Are Streetwalkers", Coyote Howls 3, no. 2(1976):2. COYOTE newsletters are housed in the organization's papers at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge. MA; my copies of COYOTE newsletters are from the Femina Collection.
71. Fenton, "Some of My Best Friends Are Streetwalkers"
72. Coyote Howls 3, no. 1(Summer 1975):5, Femina.
73. Coyote Howls 4, no. 1 (Winter 1977), Femina.
74. Coyote Howls 4, no. 1(Winter 1977):1, Femina.
75. "Feminists Forum on Prostitution"
76. Coyote Howls 4, no. 1(Winter 1977):1, Femina.
77. Coyote Howls 4, no. 1(Winter 1977):10, Femina.
78. Coyote Howls 4, no. 2(Autumn 1977):12, Femina.
79. Coyote Howls 4, no. 2(Autumn 1977):11.
80. Priscilla Alexander, "The Houston Conference", Coyote Howls 5, no. 1(1978):4, Femina.
81. "Presence in Houston", Coyote Howls 5, no. 1(1978):5, Femina.
82. "NTFP", Coyote Howls 5, no. 1(1978):6, Femina.
83. Galloping Horse, "Chief Shots", Coyote Howls 5, no. 1(1978):7, Femina.
84. Galloping Horse, "National Tattle", Coyote Howls 4, no. 2(1977):5, Femina.
85. Janine Bertram, "Hookers' Convention", off our backs, September 30, 1974, 12.
86. First quotations from "Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics: A Loose Woman's Organization", Femina;
87. last quotation from Haley, "Farmer's Daughter Fighting for Prostitutes"
88. "Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics: Loose Woman's Organization", Femina.
89. Association of Seattle Prostitutes, newsletter, vol. 1, no. 1 (June 1974), Femina.
90. In Vancouver, prostitutes were also mobilizing against city lawmakers who were driving them out of the city's West End. Becki L. Ross, "Sex and (Evacuation from) the City: The Moral and Legal Regulation of Sex Workers in Vancouver's West End, 1975-1985"
91. in Eileen Boris and Rhacel Parrenas, Intimate Labors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Domestic, Care, and Sex Work (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming).
92. Coyote Howls 3, no. 2(Summer 1976):1, Femina.
93. Coyote Howls 3, no. 2(1976):6, Femina.
94. Coyote Howls 5, no. 2(1978):7, Femina.
95. Quotation from Jenness, Making It Work, 73.
96. on the Spanish and Portuguese campaigns, see Coyote Howls 6, no. 1(1979):1, Femina.
97. Coyote Howls 5, no. 2(1978):10, Femina.
98. Priscilla Alexander, "ERA Strategy", Coyote Howls 6, no. 1(1979):15
99. Femina, quoted in Jenness, Making It Work, 73.
100. Jenness, Making It Work, 73.
101. Priscilla Alexander, "Kiss and Tell Campaign: A Question of Ethics", Coyote Howls 6, no. 1(1979):7, Femina.
102. Jenness, Making It Wor, 74.
103. "The Big Apple", Coyote Howls 5, no. 2(1978):10, Femina.
104. Alexander, "ERA Strategy", 15.
105. Alexander, "Working on Prostitution", 15.
106. Nagle, Whores and Other Feminists; Frederique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander, eds., Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Industry (San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1987);
107. Miller-Young, "A Taste for Brown Sugar";
108. Siobhan Brooks, "Feminist and Antiracist Organizing at the Lusty Lady", in Feminism and Anti-racism: International Struggles for Justice, ed. Kathleen Blee and France Winddance Twine (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 59-70.