Why does Female Prostitution pose a problem for feminism and what, if anything, should be done about female prostitution?.
Prostitution poses many problems for scholars of feminist research because of the many opposing views on prostitution throughout the different branches on feminism. Even within the same school of thought, there are often contradictions in their research and others from the same feminist way of thinking that do not agree with the research of another. One of the main problem feminists face is the fact that they wish to be fully supportive of sex workers themselves but also most believe that prostitution is not only illegal but inappropriate behaviour of a woman and intrinsically wrong. This can often show up in their explanations of prostitution and ideas can often be illogical and contradictory.
Out the many forms of feminism there are five that have expressed strong but almost always differing views on prostitution. These are Liberal, Radical, Marxist, Socialist and Existentialism feminism. .
Radical feminists condemn prostitution as a foundation of male oppression of women. I believe this could only be true if prostitution was solely women and clients were solely men as then prostitution could be truly seen as oppression by men. As it is not, male prostitution exists and so do female clients therefore prostitution does not essentially raise a question for equality of the sexes. Problems of sexual equality could exist actually in the institution of prostitution itself for example, why is there so little literature on male prostitution, and are they treated differently in the eyes of the law? However, the radical feminists object to prostitution in its entirety not only to the inequalities prostitution creates. This poses problems for feminism as the argument, when thought about logically breaks down. .
Bibliography.
English Collective of Prostitutes, (1996), Campaigning For Legal Change, in G Scrambler and A Scrambler, (Editors), Rethinking Prostitution: Purchasing sex in the 1990s, Routledge, London.
