Sex Work In The Workplace

Sex work is seemingly an important topic in regards to women and the economy. It is defined as a type of labour that sells sex as a product/service. Subsequently, there are many different types of services within sex work, such as prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, etc. (Mavin and Grandy 2013, pg. 237). And many women, most of who are poor and working class women (Brooks 2005, pg. 15), choose to enter this occupation to financially support themselves and their families. However, though this form of work present high demands, it fails to share similar economic, social, and cultural practices like occupations in the “mainstream labour market” (Mavin and Grandy 2013, pg. 237). In turn, workers face stigmatization and exploitation due to

301) and men considerably are granted positions that exude the most authority. In addition, male managers exert hyper masculinity and are considered to be “ubiquitous” parts of sex work (Besbris 2016, pg. 711). While female employees in the club (i.e. dancers, waitresses, shooter girls) are required to complete stereotypical women’s work through performing direct customer service to service their customers needs, men posses the privilege to oversee positions which exert power and control (i.e. managers, bouncers, DJ’s, etc.) and require less customer interaction, as a result as being deemed as “innately masculine” (Besbris 2016, pg. 712). In fact, many men in this industry believe that women are “economically incapable” and men are innately better at business than women; therefore, they believe they must be granted positions that exert dominance and have the power to hire and fire employees, set prices and schedules, etc. to “save” women (Besbris 2016, pg. 714). Undoubtedly, in a profession that is dominated by women, men in this industry depend on the labour of women and must exert and “reclaim” their dominance and avoid being actually dominated by women (Besbris 2016, pg.

Interestingly, though women perform the most work at the club and directly interact the with customers, men are still allowed to be in charge of where women must perform their labour (i.e. exotic dance clubs) and how women must perform in order to cater to “hegemonic male desire” (Besbris 2016, pg. 720). Hence, this happens to be important to women and the economy because women’s labour manages to go undervalued despite required great sacrifices from women and also requires women to adhere to hegemonic ideals to generate a “successful” career in exotic