Neon Wasteland - On Love, Motherhood and Sex Work in a Rust Belt Town

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-520-26690-2
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 518 g

This path-breaking book examines the lives of five topless dancers in the economically devastated “rust belt” of upstate New York. With insight and empathy, Susan Dewey shows how these women negotiate their lives as parents, employees, and family members while working in a profession widely regarded as incompatible with motherhood and fidelity. Neither disparaging nor romanticizing her subjects, Dewey investigates the complicated dynamic of performance, resilience, economic need, and emotional vulnerability that comprises the life of a stripper. An accessibly written text that uses academic theories and methods to make sense of feminized labor, Neon Wasteland shows that sex work is part of the learned process by which some women come to believe that their self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dewey, Susan

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Familiensoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Feminized Labor and the Classed Body

3. Everyday Survival Strategies

4. Being a Good Mother in a "Bad" Profession

5. Pseudointimacy and Romantic Love

6. Calculating Risks, Surviving Danger

7. Body Work and the Feminization of Poverty

8. Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Susan Dewey is Assistant Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and adjunct in International Studies at the University of Wyoming. She is the author of Making Miss India Miss World: Constructing Gender, Power, and the Nation in Postliberalization India and Hollow Bodies: Institutional Responses to Sex Trafficking in Armenia, Bosnia, and India.