This research considers how gender and power are implicated in the making of prostitution policy. Prostitution in England and Wales is patterned by gender: sex buyers are overwhelmingly men, and most of those who sell sex are women. Yet asking how and why this patterning prevails rarely provides the starting point for the development of prostitution policy. In addition, while there is an established literature on feminist or gender analysis of public policy, it is less often considered whether and how gender and power operate within the policy-making process itself. Using the proposal to criminalise the purchase of sex in England and Wales as a case study, and Clause 13/14 of the Policing and Crime Bill 2008-2009 in particular, I analyse almost 60 UK Parliament documents to explore how gender and power are implicated in who speaks on prostitution policy; in what they say; and in how prostitution policy is translated from its initial proposal to its enactment in law. This documentary analysis draws on Mazur (2002) in exploring the relationship between gender representation in Parliament and the gendered content of policy; on Connell's work (1987, 2002) on 'gender regimes' and 'hegemonic masculinity'; and on Freeman's proposal for 'policy translation' (2009). This work offers careful and comprehensive evidence that the making of English prostitution policy is consistent with hegemonic masculinity. This is demonstrated in particular in how criminalisation is discursively contested by policy makers and in how its potential application is narrowed significantly during its translation through the policy process. The analysis also highlights some of the methodological and conceptual difficulties in identifying - and therefore challenging - gender and power in action.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:685434 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Mulvihill, Natasha |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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