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First published online June 17, 2016
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Neither ‘Free’ nor ‘Equal’ Work: A Marxist-Feminist Perspective on Prostitution

Malini Bhattacharya [email protected]View all authors and affiliations
Volume 1, Issue 1
https://doi.org/10.1177/2455632716637914

Abstract

This article has been written as an intervention into the on-going debate on the decriminalization of commercial sex and uses some of the writings of Marx and Engels as a starting point for the inquiry into the relationship between the so-called ‘sex-work’ and other kinds of work within the capitalist system. From a brief analysis of the evolution of commercial sex in human society, of the question of choice for the woman involved in the trade and its links with trafficking networks particularly in the neo-liberal era, the article seeks to show that licensing of sex trade cannot empower the women caught up in its toils, but can only make the system more exploitative than before.

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Biographies

Malini Bhattacharya was a professor of English at Jadavpur University and retired in 2003. She also served as the Director, School of Women’s Studies, at the same University; was a member of the National Commission for Women in 2005–2008; and Chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Women in 2008–11. She has authored several books in English and in Bengali and has written plays on women’s issues which have been performed by women’s organizations and translated into English. She is at present the All-India President of All India Democratic Women’s Association. Rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked women is an area in which she has been engaged as an activist.
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