Globalization, Bio-power and Trafficking in Women1
Paper prepared for IPSA RC 19 workshop on “Globalization, Democratization and Gender”
To be presented 1 August 2000 at 13:30.
By Elina Penttinen
Department of political science and International Relations
FIN- 33014 University of Tampere
Tel. + 358 3 215 7637
Fax + 358 3 215 6552
Email elina.penttinen@uta.fi
Introduction
In mainstream international relations research there is seldom focus on how global processes affect
individuals, or how they affect women. Similarly the questions of power are seldom challenged in
mainstream approaches. The focus has been on interaction of states and macro-level agents in
simplified models in which liberalist power analysis has been most often the starting point.
Foucault’s theory of power has often been deemed unaccountable for issues rising within
international relations. Foucault’s theory of power has been seen applicable to only specific sets of
issues within limited spaces, and international relations could not be comprised in such a manner,
involving a changing and open arena for relations of power among the agents. Foucault’s concept of
power as a form of technology that produces subjects would then be a matter of specific
institutional context which international relations could not be seen consisting of. The network of
power underlying and constituting the relations of domination would be a matter of those specific
contained spaces. However, this is only one aspect of how power functions according to Foucault,
meaning the categorization of individuals through certain discursive practices within medical or
penal institutions. Foucault has especially emphasized how power subjectifies through language and
processes of signification and moreover how power subjectifies according to self-knowledge, and
moreover how an individual ties him/herself to specific identity through self-identification within a
regime of truth constituted by the dominating ideology.
This last method of subjectification is what brings it relevant to the study of globalization of the
world-economy. It has been often pointed out how globalization represents a dominating ideology
of the global market, how it is a form of hegemonial discourse overriding any other forms of
discourses. It has been also pointed out how through globalization the role of the nation-state is
weakening in terms of protecting its citizens from globalization and in terms of how loyalties of
individuals are being formed (Ferguson Mansbach 1999, Appadurai 1997). We are all being
globalized and affected by globalization (Bauman 1998, Scrase 1995). Indeed, it can be argued that
we are being subjectified by globalization, and that this subjectification is gender-specific.
1
I am indebted to my supervisor Prof. Jyrki Käkönen for encouragement in dealing with difficult and sensitive issues
and for instruction in making theoretical choices. I am also grateful to Seastar Project workers, who have helped me to
get ‘inside’ prostitution research and provided me with valuable information. This research is funded by the University
of Tampere and conducted at the Department of political science and International Relations. Many thanks also to
Professor Osmo Apunen, Head of the Department, who had the courage to believe in this research.
Foucault’s theory of power has been as often contested as embraced by feminist theorists. Foucault
has been accused of being gender blind in his analysis of how power subjectifies individuals to
specific identity, and from the blindness to the difference in which power subjectifies men and
women follows that Foucault’s notion of power is male-centric and unaccountable for feminist
analysis (MacNay 1992). In Foucault’s writing on history of sexuality there are only small
references to how the through the notion of sexuality men and women are subjectified differently.
Also Foucault’s repressive hypothesis lacks the recognition of how it constitutes gendered and not
only sexualized subjects. Yet, Foucault’s attention of subjectification as a process of becoming a
subject has provided tools for the feminist to criticize the prediscursivity assigned to gendered
subjectification (see Butler 1990, 1995), and thus opened the debate on how gender is constituted as
form of self-knowledge.
In this paper the Foucauldian notion of power is incorporated with feminist standpoint in the
analysis of how globalization of the world economy affects individuals in gender specific manner.
Globalization is seen here as constituting a technology of power, which subjectifies and objectifies
individuals according to the logic of global capitalism and moreover that this process of
subjectification is different among men and women. Through the globalizing processes of the world
economy there are fundamental changes taking place in social spaces (Käkönen 1998). This means
that globalization of the world-economy is a system, which provides new opportunities as well as
challenges (Mittelman 1997), and more specifically that these are different for men and women.
While globalization of the world-economy provides affluence for selected few, development for
certain countries, it also casts many developing countries into a state of “sustained
underdevelopment” (Ibid.).
It is recognized here that within those who are marginalized by globalization, it is the women who
are most often in the weakest position. There are many examples and researches done how
globalization according to neoliberal principles has affected women negatively and resulted in
outright feminization of poverty (Peterson & Runyan 1993, Pettman 1996, Khotkina 1994). These
examples of negative effects on women of structural adjustment policies, and transnationalization of
production are covered by wide range of literature on women’s situation in developing countries
(see for example Benería 1982, Mies & Shiva 1993). However, this is not the objective in this
paper. Instead I am going to focus on area that is less covered, and this is how globalization
produces gendered subjectivities through bio-power. Here then the object is how men and women
have personified globalization of the world-economy and how this globalization not only requires
certain types of bodies, but also produces certain types of bodies.
As an example of this type of globalization, is the trafficking in women for the purposes of
prostitution. In this example are apparent the ways in which globalization not only marginalizes, but
also produces the possibility for international prostitution. It is these women, who most often facing
a situation in their home country that they can no longer support themselves or their family that take
on the opportunity of international prostitution, and thus use their bodies as means for exchange.
This can be seen as a form of structural violence taking place that in a situation of impoverishment
and unemployment women are ‘forced to choose’ their own sexual exploitation (Doezema 1998).
Also globalization functions by the universalization of consumer culture, meaning an
institutionalization of a logic that pertains consumerism as a highest form of activity, and producing
also the commodification and commercialization, not only of diverse forms of culture, or ideologies
but in specific ways individual bodies (Bauman 1998). This commodification of individual bodies
for the use of consumer capitalism can be seen as an effect of the operation of globalization as a
form of bio-power. This operation of bio-power as subjectifying and objectifying form of
technology of consumer society is discussed in more detail below. Further the trafficking in women
is overviewed, by looking at how globalization of the world-economy constitutes the push and pull
factors for trafficking in women, and how this phenomenon draws on these processes of both
marginalization and commodification of individuals. Last these aspects are shortly discussed in
terms how international prostitution is taking place between Russia and Finland, more specifically
by giving attention to the voices of Russian prostitutes in order to understand the processes of
subjectification within globalization.
Bio-power of the global age: subjectifications and objectifications
Foucault’s theory of bio-power mainly described how power institutionalizes certain imaginary
ideal body, which then individuals accept and begin to reproduce in their actions and everyday
lives. The Bio-power of modern capitalism required efficient and orderly bodies to benefit the
productive system (Foucault 1998). Bio-power was also exemplified by prison structure, by the
concept of Panopticon, in which surveillance of the prisoners was operated so that the prisoners
would begin to surveil themselves, as they could not know when they were being monitored
(Foucault 1980). Bio-power constituted a form of power that is inscribed on bodies and which
becomes visible on the body, in other words; it is a form of power that activates and acts on a
subject (Butler 1990). Power is seen then as productive, meaning that it constitutes a regime of truth
about individuals and their environment and which, through subjectifying processes, is internalized
and reproduced by the individuals. The prison as the place, where bio-power is produced can be
understood as a metaphor of the way in which bio-power produces the body as its effect (Butler
1997). Foucault explains that establishment of bio-power required confined and ordered space.
Thus, the bodies in factories, schools and prisons, through discipline and surveillance would
internalize imposed disciplines and reproduce in their enactments, and thus the soul that is subjected
imprisons the body to serve the structure.
Foucault also argued that the development of bio-power required the concept of humanity linked
with the concept of social body. This means that bio-power is both operated on individuals
singularly and as a whole. The development of humanity as concept that all human beings belong to
was important for the successful institutionalization of modern capitalism, for this facilitated also
the subjectification into the imaginary ideal of modern capitalism. Foucault claims that capitalism is
precisely based on the discipline of the social body to fit the needs of the production and economic
processes (Foucault 1998: 100). Capitalism is also an example of how bio-power subjectifies
individuals in particular and en masse, being linked to the development of the idea of the social
body in the nineteenth century (Foucault 1980). The social body was to be ordered, disciplined and
protected by the state. The discipline involved a benevolent power. The extending functions of the
state, which were both individualizing and totalizing, were to lead in benefit of individuals and of
the society as a whole (Foucault 1983, 1988, 1991). This development of governance of the state
amounts to a form of governmentality. The governmentality of a nation-state would extend the
guidance and discipline to single private economies (households) and be produced at a more
totalizing level of the liberal state. This required the notion of the social body, which was attached
with norms of morality and health (Foucault 1980) and also certain disciplining and training of the
body.
It can be argued that becoming a subject involves that the individual understands him/herself as a
meaning-giving self in a social environment (Butler 1990). Foucault argues that, this understanding
takes place by the internalization of the three modes of objectification that are the categorization of
individuals, through language, and subjectification through self-knowledge (Foucault 1997).
However, Foucault claims that these categorizations and subjectifications are produced in a
repetitive manner. It is through this repetition of the subjectifications that given identities are
naturalized and normalized. But the repetitiveness implies also that the produced subjectifications
are not exhaustive, implying that the individual not only accepts them time and again, one may also
alter them, and refuse them time and again. Therefore, understanding power as productive means
that it is not simply a form of power-over, or dominating system that unilaterally subjectifies
individuals to a specific identities, but inheres its own resistance as well as reversal of systems of
objectification of the subject. Therefore in discussing bio-power as a form of subjectification it has
to be also brought in mind that these processes are not simply oppressive, but that there can be, and
there is, active forms of resistance to and reinterpretation of imposed identities. Foucault wants to
put emphasis on the marginalized and excluded subject. It is the definition to the position of
otherness that the operations of the network of power become visible. It is also in these definitions
into the margin that breaks from unified and universalized subject appear. Foucault stresses that the
imposed individualization can always be reversed and altered by the subjugated by giving new
meaning to the identity or category one has been assigned to. This brings us to the gender-specific
subjectifications in the global-age. In this context it is most often women who are marginalized and
placed into the position of otherness. This is exemplified in the discussion on international
prostitution and trafficking in women.
Globalization of the world-economy has altered the ways in which bio-power is produced and
implemented. Thus, also the rationalization of bodies has taken different forms and especially
different scope in the global-age than during the development of modern capitalism. The bio-power
of globalized world-economy overrides the nation-state as the primary determinant of the
government of individualization and produces a new totalizing and individualizing global and
globalized governmentality, which subjectifies individuals directly. What ties together the
governmentality of modern capitalism and the governmentality of the globalized world economy is
the underlying regime of truth, grounded in liberalist notions of the individual. The governmentality
of the global capitalism ties the individual by the rationalization of the subject according to labor,
capacities and innovation for the mass-production and mass-consumption processes. The liberalist
ideology that is the grounds of neo-liberalist global governance of corporate capitalism is driven
and institutionalized by a new transnational class, multilateral institutions and state managers
(Axtman 1998, Rupert 1997). These institutions set global rules influencing national policy-making
and aiming to construct a free-trade based world market system, which for some may seem, more a
system of neo-constitutionalism (Gill 1995) or a system of bureaucratization that erodes national
sovereignty in the face of corporate elites, and for the benefit of transnational capital (for discussion
see; Rupert 1997).
The new system of rules and institutions exemplified by treaties such NAFTA or GATT, subjectify
individual directly by the changes in the governance structure by the formation of expanded
neoliberalist discipline. The governmentality also draws individuals as subjects and objects through
the established global consumer culture that requires also commodification of labor and consumerist
subjectification. In this sense the governmentality of the global-age constitutes the forms of market
lead international governance with the ideology of consumer society. These inhere the
subjectification of individuals according to liberalist principle of both rationalism and consumption.
The subjectification is derived from active participation in the globalized system of consumer
culture. This is one of the concerns here in terms of subjectification. Yet I want emphasize the
subjectification of individuals within globalized world-economy happening, roughly categorized, in
two levels; First, by the institutionalized neoliberal governmentality of globalized world-economy,
meaning the forms of governance, established institutions and treaties, methods of surveillance and
discipline of global capitalism, containing the ideology of liberalism of growth and progress for all
harnessed through neoliberal practices and global policies. Second, as this governmentality of
global capitalism leaves very little room for active agency of individual people, they are subjectified
in terms of needs of production, being resources as labor and more importantly as consumers of the
mass-produced goods and global culture. The dynamic is then between the global and local, and the
nation-state looses importance in terms of subjectifying power and in terms of means for individual
agency. The subjectification can be seen happening in the dynamic of global forces with local
responses.
As already mentioned the development of global consumer culture is an important means of
individual subjectification, agency and moreover of objectification of individuals. There are
extensive studies of the production and establishment of global consumer society and culture (see
Bauman 1998, Baudrillard 1988). To summarize the points, consumer society is a society in which
existence of individual subjectivity is established through continuous consumption. Consumption
does not serve the satisfaction of desire or need, but rather is a self-perpetuating process. One
consumes in order to assert difference and status, to gather sensations in ‘hyper-reality’, which is a
system of floating signifiers without actual referents, (Baudrillard 1988, See also Rodaway 1996),
in which it is the moment of consumption that matters not the consumed products itself or
satisfaction. Then the consumer society is not about satisfying needs but of consumption itself, and
the needs that individuals have are fabricated, yet essential for the workings of the productive
system.
The universalization of consumer culture facilitates also the commodification and
commercialization of counter-cultures (Scrase 1995), ideologies and even individuals themselves.
The universalization of consumption for its own sake, for gathering of sensations is different from
consumption for satisfying needs, and allows the extension of consumption into new areas. A
crucial point here is that this consumer society is mainly expression of masculinist desire, allowing
for the commodification of women in specific forms and on global scale. The dominant ideology of
rational individual is crucial element of the rationalization of individual bodies for consumption.
This is evident in the growing international sex trade that is an expression of how globalization
produces and requires certain types of bodies and thus affecting individual lives and identities.
Through consumer culture the rationalization of individual bodies as objects of exchange is
legitimized. The dominating discourse of consumerism, institutionalized as a system of power,
produces the possibility of buying and selling individual bodies, even body parts in the global
market (Truong 1999, See also Mies 1993, Kimbrell 1996). This commodification of bodies is part
of the dominating marketization taking place, where value means exchange value.
What has to be noted is, who are the individuals that are the material for commodification in the
global market. These are mostly women and also children of countries that are going through
economic transition to market economy (Truong 1999). Then, those who are the objects of
exchange, bought and sold in the global market, are from different economic positions, and gender
than those who are the buyers, or traffickers, of these individual bodies. This brings us to another
means by which the bio-power of consumer culture is globalized; the global mobility, or flow, of
people across borders and continents. Trafficking in women for purposes of prostitution is an
example of the larger trend of flows of people, yet it is also a more precise example of the way in
which individuals are objectified and commodified on the grounds of global capitalism.
Now more than ever there are women on the move looking for better lives and means for survival.
Jindy Pettman has emphasized how “ the increasingly global economy shapes the new international
division of labor along state, national, racialized, ethnicized and gender divides” (Pettman 1996:
264). These ethnic, and gender divides also determine the flows of people. The sending countries
of women migrants have been also changing from movement from Asian, South American and
African countries to western countries and recently from former Soviet states to Europe. Appadurai
(1997) has explained the movement of people as ‘ethnoscapes’ that are also gendered, meaning how
in globalized world different ethnicities constitute landscapes contributing to the shifting and deterritorialization of the world. The huge population movements induced by the globalization of the
world-economy can be seen constituting a globalized movement of bodies. This refers also to the
embodiment of globalization and its reproduction through individual bodies, thus showing through
these movements what kind of deep system of meaning is at work. Through the movement of
bodies the bio-power power of global capitalism is made visible. Moreover, these movements of
bodies are gendered, as apparent in the increasing numbers of women trafficked for prostitution.
Trafficking of women is only one example of the movement of laboring populations to wealthier
societies. Also flows of refugees and migrant workers contribute to formation of ethnoscapes. Yet
important point of the movement in bodies of women is their sexualization and objectification in
globalized sex-trade.
However, globalization is not simply gendered in a sense that it objectifies women, or marginalizes
them through gender-blind or discriminatory economic policies, but that women are also the ‘silent
agents’ and ‘contributors’ of globalization. The women working in ‘global assembly line’
producing goods for the global market with the use of their ‘nimble fingers’ and ‘fine motor
development’ (Rhiecholsoon 1999) are certainly contributing to globalization and producing it
through their work with the use of their bodies. International sex-work takes similar form, although
there the workings of bio-power and global governmentality become even more crystallized.
Women’s role in global production is nevertheless important in terms of understanding how
globalization requires certain bodies as well produces certain bodies. Women as consumers are also
essential for the production of globalized world-economy and universalization of consumer culture.
Woman consumer can also be understood through bio-power, by looking at how globalization is
embodied through consumption, and how through this gender-specific consumption a certain type
of globalized femininity is reproduced by and inscribed on the body of a woman.
Globalization can be seen as a gender-specific process of subjectification and objectification as
shortly explained above. This is discussed in more detail below by reflecting on trafficking in
women for purposes of prostitution as an example of gendered subjectification, focusing on Russia
as a sending country. It is shown below, how liberalization in Russia has meant sexualization and
objectification of women (Posadskaya 1994, Khotkina 1994). The bio-power of globalized worldeconomy that becomes visible on the bodies of international prostitutes then is not simply produced
by marginalization of women, or producing them as ‘otherness’ but through the imaginary ideals of
sexualized women so apparent in the growing sex trade. It is shown further how this sexualization
of women is also ethnicized constituting a racist and colonialist form of objectification.
Trafficking in women: an example of governmentality and bio-power of the global market
Although Foucauldian theory of power has been accused of being gender-blind it is nevertheless
employed here as a starting point at which the trafficking in women in context of globalization is
analyzed. Approaching globalization of the world-economy as a form of governmentality allows
analyzing it in terms of system of power. In terms of international prostitution this approach allows
a shift from attention to simplistic push and pull factors to an understanding of the how this system
of power individualizes and totalizes into international prostitution. Globalization as a form of
governmentality then reveals the underlying regime of truth or ‘deep system of meaning’ of
globalization of the world-economy. In order to avoid simplistic and contradictory approaches to
trafficking in women this approach is necessary. Then the focus is here on how globalization of the
world-economy produces the truth about individuals and their environment in such a way that
commodification of sexual services takes place on global scale; and especially influencing the
growing demand of sex-workers from Russia and Newly Independent States in western countries
and an increasing flow of women moving and being trafficked to fulfil this demand.
Trafficking in women is a complex issue that raises many debates and contradictions reflecting
attitudes towards prostitution and women’s sexuality in general. These include debates over the
different reaction to international prostitutes and prostitution, whether prostitutes have ‘chosen’
their occupation or whether they have been forced to prostitute themselves by third parties such as
pimps, boyfriends, criminal networks and so on. Within the forced and voluntary debate echo old
abolitionist and prohibitionist as well as pro-prostitution standpoints. The debate contain discussion
whether a prostitute is selling herself or simply her sex, the former standpoint reflecting a
patriarchal ideology that associates woman’s identity with her sex and which values virginity and
chastity as woman’s highest value (Doezema 1996, 1998). It has been criticized that understanding
international prostitutes as victims whether of direct force or poor economic situation is a discursive
means to reclaim these women’s honour and which then indirectly condemns all prostitution as bad
and as violation against all women. This attitude however silences those prostitutes who refuse to be
victimized and do not feel degraded by the sex-work they do. Yet the women, who have chosen to
work as prostitutes in a foreign country may find themselves forced to work in slavery-like
conditions, have difficulty having their human rights recognized, since they have consented to
prostitution. Unfortunately, working as a prostitute is seen as a negative factor, when a woman is
pressing charges of abuses committed against her (Ibid.).
In talking about trafficking in women in context of globalization of the world-economy, I don’t
want distinguish between forced and voluntary prostitution, as this is many times an impossible
task. I do not either want to enter the debate whether prostitution should be regarded as any other
type of work suggesting that the stigma associated with prostitution removed, or on the other
prostitution being inherently immoral, or a form of violence against all women. Instead I want to
focus on structures and discourses that produce both the possibility of this type of interaction taking
place, which produces the possibility of commodification of women as well as commodification of
sex, within certain system of power, which can be seen as determined by masculinist desire. I want
to emphasize that the different realities of prostitutes, those who have chosen the occupation and
make a comfortable living, those who have been tricked into prostitution by false promises by
trafficking organizations, or those who have been working as prostitutes but find themselves
entrapped by criminal organization as they choose to try their occupation in a foreign country, or all
variations between and beyond these groups, belong to one setting and system of power. This
system of power can be recognized in terms of gender-specific governmentality and bio-power of
globalized world-economy.
The trafficking in women can be associated with the overall process of international labor migration
that has taken on different scope and scale due to globalization of the world-economy. This process
of labor migration is also evidently a gendered process. From this position women on the move to
work in sexual labor are only one fraction of larger trend of women moving to find work
opportunities in other countries. This brings focus again, how the push and pull factors for
international prostitution have been created. Helen Péllerin (1996) wants to emphasize that labor
migration should not be seen simply in economic terms of supply and demand, since this is an
individualistic approach that suggests that migrants are rational actors subjected to structural forces.
This means migrants go to those that countries, where there is a demand for new migrant workers.
Instead the focus should be on historical nature of the structures that affect the migration process. In
terms of international prostitution the simplistic model is to see the basic reason behind prostitution
is that the women need the money (Doezema 1996). This again points to individualistic account of
rational actors who choose the best options for their survival in difficult conditions. Pellérin (1996)
points to many complex reasons why people choose to migrate, and stresses that sometimes there
are conditions for people that they have no control over, and also that these people are agents of
social change taking place on global level. This also goes for international prostitutes, as they are as
much subjects of globalization as its agents.
There have been extensive accounts how globalization of the world-economy marginalizes women
(Pettman 1996, Peterson and Runyan 1993, Steans 1998). The impoverishment of women that is the
result of neoliberal globalization can be seen as a major push factors for international prostitution.
This points to the ‘women need the money’ analysis, yet it is not as simple as this. In the event that
globalization of the world-economy results in the impoverishment of women in certain location can
be seen happening an institutionalization of masculinist globalization. Feminists have pointed out
how principles on which the globalization of the world-economy is based reflect a masculinist bias
(Pettman 1996, Mies 1993, Bakker 1999). This means primarily that the ideology behind
globalization is gender-blind, and being thus is unable to account for how the principles and policies
affect men and women differently. More precisely this means that women’s position, their work and
relations in communities are not considered of importance. In many situations globalization
processes has meant the worsening of living conditions and work prospects especially for women,
as men have been better able in coping with transition (Khotkina 1994).
What is meant here as globalization processes is the universalization of the market logic worldwide, resulting in privileging privatization over state-run welfare system, neoliberal economic
policies imposed on developing countries tying them to export lead industries, the
transnationalization of production in terms of cheap labor resources and moreover the breakdown of
Soviet Union and resulting in the financial crisis of Russia and Newly Independent States struggling
with transition to market economies. These overall processes result in fundamental structural
changes worldwide, which can be seen as constituting a structural violence against women. It is
clear that the impoverishment and limited possibilities of women in countries going through
economic transition influences them to seek opportunities that would benefit them financially.
However, in this situation of lack in finding work in one’s own field prostitution may seem as an
attractive option. Clearly sex-work in many situations pays better than working in service of global
production. Proponents of prostitution often point out that the work that is available for women,
such as sweatshop labor, are most often a life-threatening occupations. It seems that working as a
prostitute is a better option than working in an environment of toxic fumes doing, monotonous work
for long hours for minimal salary and with no labor protection (Wijers 1998). From this point of
view it seems that prostitution is for women an easier and healthier way to make a living.
The masculine bias within globalization of the world-economy is institutionalized in numerous
ways. One such aspect is the invisibility of women’s labor as well as women’s reproductive labor in
macro-economic budgets (Bakker 1999). In terms of push factors for international prostitution it
means that the policies by which economic transition is directed disregard women’s role and special
needs in transition and tend to favour men in terms of the way in which new work opportunities are
created. This results in vulnerability of women in economic transition. For, example In Russia
women have been the first laid off, and unemployment can be seen as women’s problem. The most
jobs women had during Soviet time, where made redundant by the transition to market economy
(Khotkina 1994). Women’s unemployment in current Russia is a manifold problem, including
historical and structural reasons, as to how and in which areas women have been employed,
combined with the current attitude towards women in market-lead Russia.
Russia and newly independent have become major sending countries of prostitutes to WesternEurope, United States and Japan (GSN Report 1997). The connection with Finland is discussed
below. According to official records there are 50 000 women leaving Russia each year, unofficial
records claim that this number is closer to 500 000 women (GSN Report 1997). The obvious reason
for leaving is the socio-economic situation in Russia. Since the transition to market economy,
unemployment has become almost solely women’s problem. It has been estimated that the
unemployment rate of women in Russia is close to 70-80 percent and in some regions even 90%. It
is clear then that it is very difficult for these women to find employment in their fields, or any
employment at all. For young women who have graduated from universities it is also difficult to
find work. The options that are available for women are in the new economy are secretarial work,
and women trained as engineers or economists face retraining (Bridger, Kay, Pinnick 1996).
The transition to market economy has strongly changed the attitude towards women’s role in
workplaces from the ideals of the Soviet time. The transformation of the ideal image of Russian
woman is produced by the increase in the sexual imagery in the press and advertisements. In market
economy Russia the ideal woman is defined by femininity and juxtaposed against the asexual Soviet
woman. The woman-comrade is now portrayed in highly negative terms. Currently, the woman
question is also interpreted in relation to the women’s emancipation in the Soviet time, which is
seen as being the root of the problems in families. The communist emancipée that was before
valued is blamed for the masculinization of women and feminization of men, resulting in an
imbalance between the sexes. Lipovskaya (1994) argues that attachment of these negative
characteristics of communist emancipée to career women, has made young Russian women
concerned for not being defined by those characteristics. These women want to distance themselves
from the Soviet past, and are willing to undertake the feminine role that is now emphasized as the
ideal. Lipovskaya (Ibid.) explains that a negative slang word ’Sovok’ can now be applied to
anything that represents a Soviet person and culture. A Sovok is defined by asexuality, masculinity
and professional orientation. The opposite of Sovok is of course a woman who is defined by her
natural mission, which is determined by biology. There has been a lot of discussion in the Russian
mass media, what the real or a true woman is or should be. Since the period of Perestroika the
image of ideal woman has been defined in terms of ‘madonna’ and ‘whore’ opposition. According
to Voronina (1994) both of these images are defined in terms of domesticized women and their
relation to the man as the head of the household. The ideal woman should be a combination of the
binary opposition, having qualities of seductive whores, and being self-sacrificing a mothers. A real
woman is thus defined in relation of servitude to her husband. Lipovskaya points out ironically that
then the women, who are widowed, divorced or single mothers cannot fit the description of the real
woman, since they do not have men to attend for. In all the hype of the ideal housewife, it is
forgotten that is that one in four women is a sole breadwinner for the family and in majority of
single parent households, women have provided the whole income (Samarina1997).
In the Russian media the sexist and misogynist attitude prevails. The emphasis on women’s natural
mission has been used to legitimize women’s lay offs and their lower salaries and positions in
employment (Voronina 1994). Men’s control over the family has also been stressed in the media.
This has become clear in the texts, which claim that men should be given a wage increase, so that
women could handle their biologically determined natural work. Women’s professional activities
are emphasized as secondary and women’s shortened workday is promoted as the answer (Ibid.).
These claims have to be placed in a context, where also men face unemployment, and recognize the
reality of those numerous women who are single providers for their families. Yet the domestication
of women is offered as a solution to men’s unemployment, and to the social problems that are now
claimed to be the result of women’s emancipation during Soviet time. The sexist and misogynist
ideologies are reflected also in the way in which sex business is currently sympathized. The
negative stereotyping of women has enforced the possibility of commodification of women. As the
ideal woman is defined as sexualized, willing, tender and passionate according to male desire, also
the abundance of pornographic images in the media and the flourishing sex trade become
naturalized. Woman is thus defined by male desire, to fit the masculinist needs of authority, control
and sexual aggressiveness.
This is an example of the discursive means by which women are produced as certain types of
bodies. The imposed identity of the new Russian ideal woman is a combination of patriarchal values
and liberalist attitude toward sexuality. What can be seen as happening is a form of liberation of
sexuality from the repression of Soviet time, yet this sexuality is strictly defined from the point of
masculine desire, requiring women as objects of this desire. Since the transition to market economy
women have faced uncertainty and have no chance in being reemployed, on the other hand there is
the growing sex business that offers women work and considerable income. But the transition of
how femininity is understood is crucially linked to the commodification. What happens is that the
sexualization is tied with the rationalization of individuals according to market logic, meaning
individuals are seen as self-interested agents aiming for financial profit, yet simultaneously women
are subjectified as sexual objects and primarily given the opportunity to assert this subjectivity by
participating in the sex business.
The availability of sex work can also be used to explain why so many women do turn to sex
business as an occupation. In the climate where sexual freedom is promoted, although in
masculinist terms, it may also be easier to participate in sex business. Work in glamour modeling or
sex business was not possible during Soviet Union. Now that this type of work is available and
other alternatives for making a living are practically inexistent for women, it seems as a smart thing
to do. Also the work is considerably better paying than other professions, and the work is less
strenuous as compared to manual labor in industries. According to a research done in 1992, 1 out of
10 young people under 25 years of age saw prostitution as an acceptable and legal way of making
money (Afanasyev 1996).
Another important aspect connected to the growing sex business is the changes in consumer culture.
It has been argued that young Russian women are well aware of western consumer goods and
fashion items that are available in Russia. These items are desired and consumed also in order to
assert difference from the past and difference from the Soviet women (Pilkington 1996). Yet, these
goods are very expensive and unaffordable for many women. Choosing sex business, or simply just
by participating in an eroticized beauty contest may seem as an access to have consumerist lifestyle
or a possibility to some luxury.
This is not to say that women turn to sex business for its glamour or because it gives the possibility
for luxurious lifestyle, but that these aspects are in some discourses associated to especially elite
prostitution. Yet this image may influence young women to turn to prostitution, although the real
life of prostitution would not be of elite standard. Yet it is not only young women who work in
prostitution, although modeling and beauty contests are directed at younger women. The reasons for
choosing sex business are numerous and varied, but the main cause is definitely the lack of other
alternatives for sources of income. The reasons for choosing sex work are in women’s
socioeconomic conditions, mainly in the impoverishment and unemployment, as well as in the
sexist and discriminatory environment in possible workplaces. What makes this alternative possible
is the promotion of free sexuality as an expression of liberalism. Then it is obvious that for many
women engaged in sex work there is now glamour in it, but this line of work is chosen out of need
for an income. Thus prostitution constitutes a strategy of survival the difficult conditions in Russia.
It has to be noted that an important factor that causes women to turn to sex or beauty business is the
growing demand for them to work in this field. Then the main cause for the increasing international
prostitution is rather the pull factors than the push factors.
Indeed, there is a growing demand of Russian women for prostitution in western countries (GSN
report 1997). Here an important point is their exotism and novelty to the market. The demand for
international prostitutes is very much a question of exotism, this way these women are ‘marketed’
to fulfill special needs that is characteristic of their ethnicity. Through these discourses Asian
women are marketed as subservient, African women as sexually active and so on. The Russian
women are considered to be very feminine and having traditional values that support patriarchy
(GSN Report 1997). This representation of women shows how the demand constitutes for these
women constitute racist and colonialist discourse that constrain women to certain identities. These
demands for ‘other’ women for sexual services then strongly constitute also the movement of
bodies that trafficking organizations take advantage of. For the traffickers these women are objects
of exchange, commodities to be bought and sold, bodies to make profit from. The individual woman
leaving her home country for sexual labor abroad embodies these discourses of globalization and
the underlying system of power.
The bio-power is most clearly present in trafficking in women for forced prostitution in western
countries. Women are lured into forced prostitution by false promises on the line of work she is
supposed to do in the destination country, as well as the working conditions. These women may
agree to repay the debt that is constituted from the expenses of trafficking by their labor. Yet the
interest rates accumulating from the debt may make in impossible to pay back (LEFÖ Report 1997).
The trafficked woman may have her papers confiscated, or be entrapped making it impossible for
her to leave and turn to authorities. These women work in slavery-like condition unable to make a
considerable amount of money that they have been promised; instead the profit they make goes to
the procurers and traffickers. The trafficking organization is a sophisticated network in a way it ties
the woman to enslavement. This is constituted from the accumulating debts, threats of violence and
also having a number of traffickers involved from sending country to destination country (LEFÖ
Report 1997) The response of local authorities to trafficked women plays also a factor in the
possibility of trafficking organizations to carry on. In such a situation the woman coerced to
perform sexual labor is for the traffickers a commodity that is bought and sold in the global sex
market for exotic ‘other’ women. This is bio-power of globalization in extreme, as these women are
reduced to profit-generating bodies to be consumed by western men.
Yet trafficking for forced prostitution is only one aspect of international prostitution. Yet this form
of violence is increasing. Also the responses of western countries to foreign prostitutes are such that
it strengthens the power of trafficking organizations. This is due from the measures taken to prevent
prostitutes from eastern Europe and Russia in entering European Union countries, or by the risk of
deportation the prostitutes face if they come in contact with authorities, or in general the difficulty
in entering western countries legally. Yet due to globalization there has been an environment
created that makes it possible for women to travel and seek work in western countries. In
considering options that for example a Russian woman might have, facing discrimination,
unemployment or sexual harassment, sex work abroad can still be a viable and attractive option. In
making the choice to leave, she is thus also taking advantage of the opportunities provided by
globalization. The possibilities in traveling to other countries through different routes were not
possible before globalization of the world-economy. Yet this might mean she takes on the role of
sexual object as a form of performance, by engaging in sexual labor to serve masculine desire. Yet,
sex work for many women may also simply provide the means of survival for the time being. In this
sense engaging in prostitution might by seeing globalization as a future process in which benefits
will be attained in different ways, and which for the time being is through sex work in a western
country. These are the ways in globalization is produces bodies and is inscribed on the surface of
bodies. Yet it brings to mind the question of globalization for whom and from whose standpoint.
From the analysis of globalization and trafficking in women for sexual labor it seems that
globalization is a masculinist concept and that this is already inherent in the liberalism that is its
grounds.
The space-time compression characteristic of globalization (Kellner 1998) is also evident in the
contact with the foreign prostitutes and their clients. Globalization has made possible the connection
of distant locations and cultures. This points to the aspect of globalization producing pluralities of
identities and positions of the subjects, showing that globalization is not simply a homogenizing
process of marketization. Yet, the positions for agency for women are still limited. Sex work
provides means for survival and independence. In the global age international prostitution is
characterized by the movement of bodies, the formation of ‘ethnoscapes’, and also of deterritorialization. Yet these movements also are an effect of the system of power that dominates the
production of globalization of the world-economy.
Globalization embodied: Russian and Baltic sex-workers in Finland
Prostitution in Finland takes special form. It is very closely linked with social and economic
changes both in Russia and in Finland. The way prostitution has developed in 1990s in Finland is
greatly influenced by economic recession in Russia and in Finland and in the development of new
sex culture. Before the recession in early nineties there were no street prostitution in Finland as
there has been in other European countries. Another major change was also the emergence of erotic
bars, which number rapidly increased by 1995 (Kauppinen 1999). The wave of erotic bars took also
a special geographical element. It was in fact in the northern part of Finland where first erotic bars
emerged, but the new tendency quickly also moved to the South. The number of erotic bars reached
its peak in 1995, after which the number has decreased some and the attention to these bars
somewhat settled. Yet in this development of new sex culture of liberalist attitude towards sexuality
and eroticism there was one striking element and that is ethnicity of the women working.
The women, who worked as strip tease dancers in these new erotic clubs, were almost only of
Russian or Baltic in origin. These women were called in public as ‘Itätytöt’ (East-Girls), which
implied an association with ethnicity and gender that were less value than Finnish or European.
With the arrival of ‘East-Girls’ in Finland the sex business took a totally different turn. The EastGirls started engaging in prostitution in the streets of Helsinki, in erotic bars in all over the country,
they came by busses to motels in the northern and eastern border regions serving men over
weekends and also integrated in hotel nightclubs attracting customers in every larger city in
Finland. Simply put the ‘east-girls’ made prostitution, and sex business, in general highly visible,
what had previously been mediated discreetly by adds in newspapers offering ‘afternoon coffee’.
The problems started to arise from the fact that those who engaged in this visible and very public
form of prostitution were of different ethnicity than the discreet Finnish prostitutes. Thus, in the
public media prostitution was ethnicized, and the ‘east-girls’ were accused of bringing prostitution
in Finland alongside with all the social evils associated with prostitution. The Finnish prostitution
was conveniently forgotten, since it had not offended anyone. Yet, there were also favorable
responses to the Russian prostitutes. These responses stressed liberalist individualism in everyone
having the right to do what they wish in terms of earning an income as well as in terms of
expression of sexuality. The latter remark rather refers to the public debate on the Finnish men now
finally having the possibility to satisfy their sexual needs, with feminine and subservient women as
opposed to independent Finnish women. The new sexual culture that involved the advent of not
only erotic bars, and public prostitution, but also the advent of sex-phonelines and sex-shops, were
seen as a form of liberation that was especially important for Finnish men whose sexual needs were
seen as being suppressed (Ronkainen 1999). It was widely discussed how lonely men in the
countryside were now able to be with a woman in rational terms, and that these Russian and Baltic
women were able to offer something Finnish women could not. The positive responses towards
‘east-girls’ reflected very much the general liberalist attitude towards sexuality in a way that the
commercial sex was naturalized in terms of consumer culture and as such as a form of liberation
from precedent pragmatic attitude towards sexuality. Sex business was then part of a ‘fun-culture’
were the objective is to seek for sensations and pleasure in rationalist terms made possible by the
market.
I want to emphasize here the importance of the ethnicity of the women that were the objects of this
new sexual culture. Of course there are many Finnish women engaging in sex business in one way
or the other, yet the outstanding majority is Russian or Baltic in origin. This takes the focus in why
there are so many women entering Finland to engage in sex work from former Soviet countries. The
main reason is simple, and it is not because they are sexually more active or morally loose than
Finnish women as they have been accused of, but because of the economic and social conditions in
Russia and Baltic states. From this perspective the new ‘liberated’ and commercialized sexual
culture in Finland is linked to wider economic changes. The unemployment and impoverishment of
women is the major factor that pushes them to Finland to seek work. Yet, the field of work were
there is the greatest demand for them is in the sex business.
This is the point in which one can see how globalization influences, creates and constrains
individual identities and choices. The new sexual culture can be associated with the globalizing
processes, meaning basically the universalization of consumerist ideology and the rationalization of
individual within consumer culture. The flows of information, people and ideas that compress space
and time also characterize globalization together with the fundamental economic changes. The
transition to market economy in Russia is also one element of these processes of globalization. This
all leads into a situation in those who are polarized and marginalized by the globalization of worldeconomy have also new possibilities and opportunities that are opened up for them. During Soviet
time working in Finland as a prostitute, or simply travelling to Finland would not have been
possible the way it is now. Also before the changes in 1990s there was not even a demand for these
exotic and feminine ‘east-girls’, or the cultural changes that allow and legitimate especially foreign
prostitution in Finland.
The links with organized trafficking or forced prostitution are also unclear. There have been many
cases raised against procuring of Russian women and the prosecuted have been mainly Finnish by
nationality. It seems that the Russian women working in Finland, although they might have pimps,
are independent and have quite a lot of freedom in doing their work. Prostitution in Finland that is
visible, that takes place in nightclubs, sex bars or in motels seems at first glance to be operated by
independent women. Yet, according to Sea star workers, who offer social and psychological help to
these women, all women working in Finland in prostitution do have a pimp. In Finland there have
been no cases of forced prostitution as in there have been in other European countries. The
prostitutes have quite a lot of freedom in terms of working with clients and in their work
environment. This is especially so in Helsinki, where most Russian prostitutes work in nightclubs
and service clients in their apartments or hotel rooms.
Foreign prostitutes also work through adds in the paper, in these cases also the procuring is more
evident, for it is the procurers who offer the apartment, or the phone, for the woman to use and take
also part of the earnings. There has been a case made public were two Finnish men organized
prostitution from Estonia, by recruiting women from Tallinn and Tartu to work in Turku and
Tampere for three weeks at the time. This also characterizes foreign prostitution in Finland very
well, since an important factor is the mobility of women. Women enter Finland with tourist visas,
they may only stay for one weekend, come for three weeks or stay six months. The numbers of
women entering in Finland are therefore very difficult to determine, more relevant is the mobility
and exchange of different women entering the country.
Current legislation has made it also more difficult for Russian and Baltic women to enter Finland.
Prostitution as such is not illegal in Finland, but since May 1999 women from non-EU memberstates are not allowed to engage in prostitution. With this new legislation the aim is to tackle
organized crime associated with international prostitution and trafficking. However, one could
argue that this only places more control in the hands of traffickers, for now women need false
papers and visas to enter the country. Also, due to this new legislation the number of different
women entering the country increases. This results also in women taking risks in choosing
intoxicated clients in the fear of the police2. Also in December 1999 a new Helsinki city code was
issued that banned street prostitution. As expected this did not abolish street prostitution, but the
women changed location to a neighbouring city Tikkurila. This was also informed in newspapers,
which was commented by women as good advertisement of their changed location.
This information is based on the current fieldwork done concerning Russian prostitutes and sex
workers in Finland. I have been in contact with Russian prostitutes in Helsinki and strip tease
dancers working in Tampere3. The issues raised previously on globalization and rationalization of
consumer culture are raised in many ways in their voices. Although there are similarities in their
talk, there are also differences according to each woman. They all explain the reason for getting into
the business is because they needed the money, and in their home country there were no
opportunities. The financial gains make women interested in taking part in the sex business. The
income made from prostitution, or stripping, is incomparably higher than what these women get
from engaging in their own professions in their home country, if they had a job. This comes out in
their speech very clearly. Yet, after stating the financial situation as the reason for prostitution, the
expression on the work takes many different forms. The emphasis on the financial gains takes the
form of legitimation and rationalization of the sex work done. It is also a way to naturalize it and
make it understandable and rational. In concerning the clients and working environment more
individual expressions arise.
Many women have a pragmatic attitude towards their work. They say they have a business to run,
or refer to themselves as businesswomen, thus employing a language that is generally used in
economics. Yet, on the other hand they stress that the work is temporary for the time being and as
such do not like being referred to as sex workers4. They do not thus identify as sex workers or
prostitutes but rather as having a temporary job, or having their own business. The attitude towards
2
This information is based on the fieldwork done with Seastar workers done in September 1999.
This research is ongoing, and will be extended to concern also Northern and Eastern border regions of Finland. The
interviews have been semi-structured and often the conditions and situation has been such that there has been a lot of
freedom in terms of the issues the women have wanted to share.
4
This is based on the experience of Seastar workers in Helsinki. They gave out pamphlets on the services provided to
foreign sex workers. Women who they approached told that they resented being called as sex workers or prostitutes and
suggested that the language on the pamphlet would be changed.
3
work also differs between striptease dancers and prostitutes. For the striptease dancers the
temporality of the work is probably clearer. The striptease dancers are often in their early twenties,
and have plans for the future. Yet, they might stay longer working as dancers, than planned in the
beginning. Russian women engaging in prostitution, although some are very young, the majority of
Russian prostitutes in Helsinki are middle-aged. These women are the ones who have lost their jobs
in the transition to market economy and been faced with the lack of new opportunities in their home
country. Working in prostitution in Helsinki is then an opportunity to make earnings to support a
family. The income they make in one month in prostitution is several times higher than what they
would make being a doctor or an engineer in Russia.
There is also difference in how the foreign sex workers see themselves and their opportunities in
terms of the country of origin. The women coming from Baltic States, such as Latvia and Estonia
tend to be more optimistic in terms of future plans; yet Russian women seem often nostalgic of the
past and see the current situation as degrading. As one young Russian prostitute stated to my
Georgian assistant during interview “Don’t you miss Soviet Union?”5. There is also a strong
opposition on the part of the Russian prostitutes towards Finnish people and culture. This can be
part explained by nationalist feelings and the hierarchy that Russians have felt culturally towards
Finland. In many occasions the prostitutes state, how they would never normally live in Finland or
work there, because people are cold and culturally backward. There have also been comments on
Finnish men as either easily duped or as perverts, reflecting on how these women assert their own
agency and identity in terms of the clients. They do not see themselves as sexual objects, but rather
in terms of taking advantage of simplicity of Finnish men. In a striptease club in Tampere where
there are also domina sessions provided, the women interviewed approached their work in
pragmatic terms; they make the money from these perversities. Yet, one woman also stated: “What
is all the money worth, if you have to put up with these kinds of things?”6, and explained that she
could not imagine the things possible that she has seen during these three weeks that she had
worked as an erotic dancer in Finland.
Yet, the emphasis on the ‘sickness’ of Finnish men clients can also be seen as a way to distance
oneself from the work done. Another dancer emphasized how sex work is only a role for herself and
in private life she acts and dresses differently than in the bar7. She also stressed how working, as a
striptease dancer was the means to make enough money so she can have fun and buy nice clothes.
She had also been working in Norway and Island and preferred Norway for the skiing. These
dancers often stay the three weeks in one country, and as in the case of Tampere work in Sex shops
during the day doing private shows, and in the erotic bars at night. They have also managers that
organize these trips and the workplaces. As one woman explained her life “I work in Finland, live
in Tartu and go for shopping in Russia”8. Another woman also explained that through striptease
dancing she has “established herself as a woman”, meaning that she found beauty in her work and
could offer and intercultural experience to the male clients 9. She also stressed that men come to
these bars especially to have an experience with ‘an eastern woman’.
Yet, there are also women who are living in Finland and are married here that work in erotic bars or
in prostitution. These women have long experience with Finnish society as they have been living
here for several years. It is often in these women’s voices that most resentment towards Finnish
system arises. They resent the lack of opportunities possible in Finland, since it has been very
5
During fieldwork in Helsinki, nightclub Mikado 4.2.2000.
During fieldwork in Tampere, erotic bar Eroztic Showroom 12.1.2000.
7
During fieldwork in Tampere, Eroztic Showroom 12.1.2000
8
During fieldwork in Tampere, Eroztic Showroom 12.1.2000
9
During fieldwork in Tampere, Eroztic Showroom 12.1.2000
6
difficult in finding other jobs apart from the sex work. Also these women have encountered racist
attitudes toward them. But, as one Russian prostitute in Helsinki stated in referring to working in
Finland “Why should I work in ‘normal’ work, earning 7000 finmarks per month and pay taxes,
when I can earn the same amount in one week and it is all for me?”10, explains why incorporation to
Finnish society might not either be an attractive option in terms of income. Yet, this statement
might also be made to emphasize that she does not have a pimp. The women are careful not to refer
to pimps and vaguely tell how they learned about which bars or towns to go to and emphasize their
independence in organizing travel and location. The women have explained how they have heard
about the opportunities in where to work in prostitution from friends, who have worked before in
Finland. This comes through not only in interviews or contacts with help workers, but also in police
hearing documents, where women have been heard as witnesses in cases against procures11.
The emphasis on independence in terms of income has also been an important theme in the
interviews. Sex work is for the women an opportunity that they make the best of. They do not
identify themselves as ‘east-girls’, for this is a demeaning identity, and respond to Finnish culture
with resentment. It seems that they take and tackle the opportunities and challenges that they are
faced with due to globalization of the world-economy. This is clear how they rationalize their work
and assume roles through which their work can be successful, in terms of attracting clients and
satisfying them. Sex work, or prostitution is not an identity for all of them but a role, a form of
performance. They have a business to run and take advantage of the market provided in Finland for
this business, and it is their bodies that are their working medium and sexual service that is the
object of exchange.
Concluding remarks
Foucault has stated that: “the body is the inscribed surface of events (traced by language and
dissolved by ideas), the locus of dissociated Self (adopting the illusion of a substantial unity), and a
volume of perpetual disintegration” (Foucault 1984). Then, what kinds of events are surfaced on the
prostitute’s body, or what kind of disintegration takes place in her body. I have argued in this paper
how globalization of world-economy produces certain types of bodies and requires certain types of
bodies. The trafficked or international prostitutes body is one such body that is both produced and
required by globalization. It is produced through liberalization of sexuality in terms of
commercialization and commodification and required in terms of demand for exotic and ‘other’
women and through the gender-specific marginalization resulting in economic transition. The
opportunities and possibilities for international prostitution are also provided by the globalization of
world-economy. The women from former Soviet countries are now able to travel to western
countries and attain information that in small towns in Finland such as Kitee, Utsjoki or Riihimäki
there are nice settings for sex work, easy going clients and prospects of good income. These links
were just inexistent before 1990.
The new sex culture in Finland also conforms into a wider European context, where there is demand
for exotic women, who are feminine and subservient to men. The sex workers are thus
commercialized in terms of ethnicity, showing the sexist and racist aspects that characterize
international prostitution in globalized context. Are Russian women more subservient and feminine
by nature? Or are they sexually more creative, because they are Russian? Clearly these aspects
cannot be reduced to ethnic origin.
10
During fieldwork in Helsinki, in Erotic Bar Alcatraz 4.2.2000. 7000 finmarks is about 2000 in Canadian dollars, a
typical ‘lower’ salary in Finland.
11
Hearing documents from Tampere police station in 1997 and Riihimäki in 1998.
Yet, this representation of Russian women is also what the Russian prostitutes take advantage of in
conducting their business in prostitution or erotic dancing. They know how to attract more clients
and thus make more money. They take on the role as a form of performance to entice clients in bars
and distance themselves from the work by considering these men a bit simple or stupid, who buy
into their act. In their performance and bodily gestures they embody globalization discourses by the
corporeality of their work. They rationalize the work in terms of the financial benefits and also
rationalize the use of their body in a similar manner. They maybe put in a difficult position due to
economic changes, but they seem also be taking advantage of the only available alternative for
them, and participate in production of commercialized sex culture, which demands the exotic
eastern women. The prostitute’s body becomes a surface of events of power in a globalizing world
as she embodies the marked ideology and incorporates the dominating consumer culture in her
sexual labor, and thus materializes how globalization constitutes and constrains gender-specific
identities.
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