2. “„Charity Girls‟ and City
Pleasures: Historical Notes on
Working Class Sexuality 1880-
1920”
3. Author Background
• Kathy Peiss
• American History professor at University of
Pennsylvania
• Published several books on American sexuality,
women, and gender
4. Strengths and
Weaknesses
• Strengths
• Focused view on a relatively unexposed subculture
• Puts the information into a valid cultural context
• Weaknesses
• No first-hand sources
• Lack of diversity
• Mish-mash of sources
• Unanswered questions
5. Methodology
• Methodology
• The majority of this information was gathered from
diaries, letters, memoirs, observations, and labor
investigations
• These sources are not cohesive, but offer small
details about the social lives of working class women
6. Argument
• Distinction between prostitutes and “charity girls”
• “Charity Girls” – women who accept gifts, treats, and
a “good time” from men with the unspoken promise
that the men will receive sexual favors
• Did not accept direct monetary payments – did not
consider themselves prostitutes
• Unspoken “exchange system” – see pages 83-84
7. Changing Female
Sexuality
• Positives
• Freedom of choice
• Economic freedom
• Sense of female identity outside of marriage
• Social freedom – dance halls, parties, social events
• Negatives
• Stigma of the working-class woman
• Dependence of physical attractiveness
• Occasional prostitution became commonplace
• Lack of options – vertical movement
• Sexual harassment
8. Sexual Respectability
• Fluidity of sexual respectability
• Sexual respectability was embedded in the social
relation of sex and gender
• Steady boyfriends vs. Hookups
• Charity girls were sometimes looked down upon for
premarital sex outside of committed relationships, while
premarital sex was often accepted with a “steady”
boyfriend
9. Questions
• What is the current stigma surrounding working
class women? Is there one? How do you think this
stigma came to be? (focusing on the reading at
hand)
• Do you believe that female attractiveness is a
positive or a negative in the working class world?
• Why would two women, both giving sexual favors
in return for money, be seen differently? How does
race, class, and social context play into this
scenario?
11. Author Background
• Elizabeth Bernstein
• Associate Professor of Sociology
at Barnard College
• Studies sexuality, gender, late-
capitalist transformations of
intimacy, feminist theories of the
state
12. Strengths and
Weaknesses
• Strengths
• First-hand interviews with sex workers
• Useful fieldwork, first hand observations
• Weaknesses
• Lack of diversity in the subject group
• Lack of negative experiences – did not mention any
serious downsides to sex work
• Limited outside resources
14. Summary
• Day jobs were “boring,” low-paying
• Sex work was interesting, exciting, way to make
money quickly
• Socioeconomic conditions led people into work as a
sex professional
• One sexual identity – sense of pride? Loss of shame?
• Automatic support group, sense of identity
• Middle class – becomes a matter of choice rather than
necessity
15. • Emotional bond through the client
• “legitimate interpersonal connection”
• Differentiation:
• Charity girls: don‟t look for emotional support
(boyfriend, husband), looking for a good time
• Sex Workers: their business requires them to
encourage an attachment, maintain a partnership to
guarantee success
16. • “Finally, there are community websites with classified
listings, where advertisements for sex workers simply
appear in the „services‟ section, sandwiched
unobtrusively between the headings for computer help,
event planning, skilled trades and real estate.”
• Business Frame
• The women focused upon in this article see themselves as
businesswomen
• Word choice – Sex worker (or sex professional) instead of
prostitute
• Sense of community and partnership – strip club as a
workers co-op
17. Argument
• The freedom and privileges that come with the
middle class mean that middle class women have
the freedom to become sex workers without the
stigma that often accompanies lower-class
prostitution
18. Questions
• Middle class sex workers and charity girls view
their roles in the sexual exchange market very
differently. How, if at all, are their roles different or
similar, and why do you think so?
• How does your view of sex work change based on
different titles? How do you see a prostitute as
compared to a “sex professional?”
• Compare the sex workers of this article and the
travestis of Brazil. How do they see their work?
How do they see themselves in the context of their
work?
23. Definitions
• Female Chauvinist Pig:
Defined by Levy as a post-
feminist that gives into the
stereotypes of female
sexuality
• Loophole Woman:
Exception to the male-
dominated field, whose
presence supposedly proves
its penetrability
24. Argument
• Women are willing to embrace a hyper masculine
identity, thereby embracing a “raunchy”
presentation, in order to raise themselves to a
place of power – i.e., masculinity
25. Summary
• Pg. 107 – Either way, women are feeding into one role
or the other.
• Standards of what it means to be a woman in this time
period are socially constructed
• Women feel that sex symbols have more power
• The liberation of female sexuality is all contextual, and
can still be used to oppress women
• Liberating oneself by oppressing women
• No backlash if one‟s not moving forward
26. Questions
• What is your opinion of Female Chauvinist Pigs? Do
you have any experiences with them, and how did they
strike you? Do you feel that they represent a “modern”
woman, or do you think that they promote a regression
into female oppression?
31. Argument
• Prostitution, and the life that accompanies it,
varies greatly over time and place, proving that it
is socially constructed
• The prostitutes of Shanghai focused upon in
Dangerous Pleasures are referred to as
courtesans
• Courtesan: A woman prostitute whose clients are of
a high social rank or economic level
• Again, we see a distinction in class and respectability
based upon word choice
32. • As seen on page 6, the fight against prostitution
usually wound up harming the prostitutes more
than it helped them
• Led to ostracism, clandestine prostitution, increased
harassment of working-class women, and the need
for pimps
• Marked difference between the lower class and
upper class workers
33. • There was a strict protocol surrounding the
“courting” of a courtesan
• Involved making “trial calls,” following proper
entertaining etiquette, maintaining certain standards
of presentation
• Enforced the idea of respectability – courtesans who
did not follow proper etiquette were not respected by
patrons or fellow courtesans
34. Questions
• Is there a benefit to making prostitution legal? Is
regulation of prostitution a positive thing for sex
workers? How so?
• How does the social class of the courtesans tie
into their public image? What were the parameters
of their sexual respectability?
• How do the courtesans of Shanghai compare to
charity girls? (Look at this especially in terms of
expected lifestyle)
Editor's Notes
Page 83-84: Exchange relationship “an attractive but ‘proper’ working womanDefinition: page 81Did men offer money?
AbstractTalk about the way that these positives and negatives play into the current role of women
Pg. 84, last paragraph
Transition: while sexual fluidity was rigid for the middle class in the time of Charity girls, much of the sexual fluidity previously seen in the working class can be seen in the sex workers of the middle class, our next article
Page 9Page 13
Transition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm9ORzoer50
Page 9: who doesn’t want to be looked at as a sex symbol
