Boundaries of feminist empowerment

Sourced from Joy 94.9 podcast on ‘Sex Work and Feminisms’ (click image to play)

While starting my Masters in Gender and Development at the Institute of Development Studies, I’m also completing my Honours research project at the University of Cape Town, looking at ‘Sex Work and Feminism: What it means to be an African sex worker feminist in Cape Town’. Working with a sex worker feminists’ group called ‘AWAKE! Women of Africa’ my research touches on questions of ‘Who can identify as a feminist?’, and ‘Who is entitled to the empowerment that feminism proclaims?’. Below I explore some of my initial findings through the participants’ voices.

According to Andrea Cornwall, ’empowerment is not just about enlarging the boundaries of action’ (2010: 3). In her recent seminar she expanded on this notion by explaining that empowerment is also about allowing people to set their own boundaries, and even go beyond them, in terms of how they think and feel about themselves (their self-consciousness) [1].

I found this sense of empowerment in a response by one of the participants in the above described research project, when asked if self-identifying as a feminist had had any impact on her work as a sex worker:

C: Uhmmm…. Yeah – you know? Umm… Yes, because when before I was a feminist I used like, okay – he pays me. I have to listen to him what he wants. But now bull! He pays me, but if I don’t wanna do that, I don’t wanna do that. Because I am a feminist. So he can rather take his money and fock off, I don’t give a fuck, but I know the next person [will appreciate what I’m offering]… You know? So for me it has been, its gave me that knowledge that, it doesn’t mean that he pays me, he has to ask for whatever he wants. But I have to stand for myself and say, ‘No- it’s either you take it or you go. Because I believe that this is my job – you know? And I will need you to respect my job because I think you also would like me to respect your job. So please’[2].

For this participant, setting the boundary of what she was or wasn’t prepared to do was a signal of her empowerment. She set the terms of engagement, and was willing to stand by them, even if that meant losing a potential client. I took her response to mean that perhaps should a client ask for a sexual act/condition she was uncomfortable with (for instance unprotected sex), then she would be able to decline. What is important to note here is that she set this boundary for herself.

This response was echoed by other participants in the research, who did not view sex work as oppressive/exploitative; who in fact felt they had not only gained economic independence through it, but also sexual liberation. Indeed, these participants illustrate that a ‘deliberate action that [seemingly] contravenes a social norm may constitute as an act of empowerment’ (Cornwall 2010: 3).

‘Mutual [liberating] empowerment’
Cecília Sardenberg makes a clear distinction between ‘liberal’ and ‘liberating’ empowerment (2009). She argues that ‘“liberal” empowerment depoliticises the process by taking the “power” out of the equation, whilst “liberating” empowerment keeps power as the central issue’ (2009: 2). The notion of ‘power as empowerment’ is considered the ability to act out decisions that not only positively transform one’s own life, but also the lives of those around them (Sardenberg 2009: 11). In feminist discourses ‘power as empowerment’ is often referred to in relation to ‘mutual empowerment’ (Sardenberg 2009: 11). In articulating their understanding of feminism the research participants repeatedly identified solidarity as an integral component of feminism. When asked to explain what she understood by feminism one participant responded:

F: It just like solidarity. The people that… How can I put it… If we can come together, and do things together we can go forward. We won’t ever fall down[2].

It is evident in the above response that this participant’s self-identification as a feminist is strongly embedded in her affiliation with not only the sex worker feminists’ group, but other feminists (in general) as well.

Facilitating instead of defining empowerment
‘AWAKE! Women of Africa’ was formed as an empowerment group for sex workers who felt empowered in their work, but dis-empowered in feminist spaces. The group, who self-identify as sex worker feminists, felt it was necessary to come together and (re)define for themselves what feminism means.

Sardenberg also reminds us that ‘empowerment cannot be bestowed by a third party’, although the process can be initially facilitated (2009: 11). As feminist development agents I get the impression that we sometimes struggle with relinquishing some of our own power, even when it might mean the empowerment of those whose lives we wish to improve. We tend to enter projects with preconceived ideas of what empowerment means. However, when we silence the clamouring notions in our minds of our so-called ‘expert knowledge/theories’, or ruminations of ‘oh, but would I ever really sell sex?’ – that is when the noise dies down low enough for us to hear our beneficiaries’ actual voices. That is when we are reminded that it really isn’t about us, so our interventions need to be based not on what we learned in a lecture, seminar or literature, but what our beneficiaries tell us empowerment means to them.

That is when the sleeves are rolled up, and the real work begins.

References and endnotes:
Cornwall, A & Edwards, J (2010) ‘Introduction: Negotiating Empowerment’, Negotiating Empowerment, IDS Bulletin 41 (2). Brighton: Blackwell Publishing .

Sardenberg, C (2009) ‘Liberal versus liberating empowerment: conceptualising empowerment from a Latin American feminist perspective’, Pathways Working Paper 3. Brighton: IDS Publications.

[1] ‘Theoretical Perspectives in Gender and Development’ lecture/seminar on ‘Power, empowerment and social change’ at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), on 14 November 2014.

[2] Quotes from participants of my Honours research project on ‘Sex Work and Feminism: What it means to be an African sex work feminist in Cape Town’ (University of Cape Town, 2014).

Joy 94.9 podcast on ‘Sex Work and Feminisms’ (31 October 2013). Available http://joy.org.au/thevixenhour/2013/10/sex-work-and-feminisms/. Accessed 24 November 2014.