Stripping as Sex Work: Feminist Debates about Erotic Dancing
Feminists have long debated the impact of sex work on women. Some feminists argue that any form of sex work is degrading and dehumanizing to all women, others see sex work as potentially empowering, while others analyze it in the context of labour relations.
Required Readings
Bruckert, C. (2004). The world of the professional stripper. In A. Prince & S. Silva-Wayne (with C. Vernon) (eds.), Feminisms and womanisms: A women’s studies reader (pp. 321-330). Toronto: Women’s Press.
Ross, B.L. (2003). Striptease on the line: Investigating trends in female erotic entertainment. In D. R. Brock (ed.), Making normal: Social regulation in Canada (pp. 146-175). Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning.
Barton, B. (2002). Dancing on the Möbius strip: Challenging the sex war paradigm. Gender & Society, 16(5), 585-601. Retrieved from http://gas.sagepub.com.
This short assignment is a first step towards the preparation of your final assignment, the Long Essay. Please now look ahead to the Long Essay page in this Assignment section so you can plan for the topic presented there.
For this Essay Proposal assignment, you will prepare and develop the introductory paragraph that you will eventually use in your long essay. This introductory paragraph will contain your thesis statement.
Introductory Paragraph and Thesis Statement
In this assignment you will prepare and develop your thesis for eventual use in your Long Essay and, also, examine the main sources that you will use in your Long Essay. Remember that a research paper (the Long Essay) is more than a series of factual statements about a certain topic. You will not have a solid paper if you simply recount the basic facts about a certain issue. Rather, a good research paper explores and explains the significance of the topic of choice, and such typical questions as: who, what, where, when, and, most importantly, why.
Your Long Essay will have an argument in support of the thesis you introduce and develop here in your Essay Proposal. Your thesis is not the same as your topic; your topic is simply what your Long Essay is about. A thesis is a statement that reflects what you have concluded about the topic under consideration. It is based on the critical analysis and interpretation that you develop when you read the sources for your paper. A thesis will inform your reader about the conclusion you have reached on this topic, its meaning, and its significance. You are trying to present the reader of your paper with a convincing argument, so remember that the thesis is the central point to which all the information in the paper relates.
Your thesis statement will be embedded in an introductory paragraph. In your introductory paragraph you should:
Let your readers know the topic of your paper.
Put the topic of your paper into context.
State your thesis (the position you will take on the topic).
Provide some sense of the main ways that you will attempt to argue your paper.
Try, as much as possible, to attract your readers’ attention and interest.
Some things to keep in mind for your introductory paragraph:
Don’t open with a global statement, such as “From the beginning of time, women and men have always.…” These kinds of statements are huge generalizations, and so broad that they are meaningless.
Remember that your thesis statement is the heart of your paper and, thus, of your opening paragraph. It is best to keep your introduction short (one paragraph), and to state your thesis clearly within this.