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1 – 10 of 372The paper aims to explore the road to independence of the less-fortunate women in early Hong Kong society and their means in passing of wealth after death. In the 1970s, about 400…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the road to independence of the less-fortunate women in early Hong Kong society and their means in passing of wealth after death. In the 1970s, about 400 Chinese wills from the 1840s to the 1940s were dug up on a construction site in Hong Kong. One-fourth of these were from women who had held a substantial amount of property. How they obtained this property intrigued us because, at that time, women were seen as subordinate to men and excluded from the labor market. Why they had wills led to further questions about Hong Kong society of that time and the role of women in it.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis of this paper is based on archival data gathered from the Hong Kong Public Records Office. These data include 98 women’s wills filed from the 1840s to the 1940s and a 500-page government investigation report on the prostitution industry released in 1879. The former recorded valuable information of brief testators’ family and personal life history, amount of assets, and profolio of investment, etc. The latter included testimonials of brothel keepers and prostitutes and their life stories and the background of legalizing prostitution in early Hong Kong. Apart from basic quantitative analysis on women’s marital status, number of properties, nature of wills and number of brothels, qualitative analysis is directed to review the testator’s life of self-reliance, wealth accumulation and reasons of using wills for arranging wealth transmission after death.
Findings
In this paper, the authors found that because the colonial government declared prostitution legal, and only women could obtain employment by becoming prostitutes or brothel keepers, they earned their own livelihood, saved money and finally became independent. However, because these professions were not seen as “decent”, and these women were excluded from the formal marriage system, intestacy could cause problems for them. Through their socio-business connections, they became familiar with the Western concept of testate inheritance. So, they tended to use wills – a legal document by which a person assigns someone to distribute his or her property according to his or her wishes after his or her death – to assign their property.
Research limitations/implications
Because only archival data are chosen for analysis, the research results may lack generalizability. Follow-up researches to examine whether the studied women acquired their wealth through their own work or simply as gifts from others are required.
Originality/value
This paper explores the understudied women’s life and method of estate passing after death in the early Hong Kong society. It fills the academic gap of women’s contribution to Hong Kong’s success and enriches our understanding on the important factors that could attribute women’s real independence.
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Sexual politics, in other terms, affecting sexuality to a political attribution can be traced back to the rise of class society. Politics may be defined as the methods, tactics…
Abstract
Sexual politics, in other terms, affecting sexuality to a political attribution can be traced back to the rise of class society. Politics may be defined as the methods, tactics, and strategies applied to maintain the continuity of a system. When sexual politics are handled in the context of the subject of this work, the relationship between the sexes manifests itself as the domination of one gender (masculine) on the other (feminine). The patriarchal ideology, which determines the relationship between women and men, has also a deeply rooted sexual culture on how the sexual relationship between two people (hetero or homosexual) should be interpreted. In this work, the sociological meaning of offering sexuality against money or any other benefit will be questioned. In this study, a total of 44 women have been interviewed in depth, 31 of whom work in brothels, and 13 on the street. In this perspective, the working conditions of the women in the prostitution market have been considered on the bases of pimp-woman, lover (dost)-woman, and client-woman relations. Based on the study findings, the assumption that the exploiting of women will be eliminated by improving the working conditions in the prostitution market means not only normalising the public thought which will expose the women to all kinds of use, but also disregarding the mechanisms that force women to practice prostitution and remain helpless, and creating gender inequality.
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This paper aims to shed light on the spatial constraints of sex work in Greece. The objective is twofold: to illustrate the intertemporal stance of the Greek state to push sex…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to shed light on the spatial constraints of sex work in Greece. The objective is twofold: to illustrate the intertemporal stance of the Greek state to push sex work at the edge of both the city and the law produces sex workers as always already marginal subjects and to identify how a spatial-based understanding of sex work could help in acknowledging sex workers’ full community citizenship.
Design/methodology/approach
This article examines the legal geographies of sex work in modern and contemporary Greece. The author is a doctoral student in critical jurisprudence with a professional background in urban planning law, who also works voluntarily with Athens-based sex worker’s organizations. Law’s materialization within space (Bennet and Layard, 2015, p. 406), namely, the implication of law in the discursive and material production of place, is examined through archival research with primary and secondary sources, including legislations and LGBT publications such as Amfi and Kráximo from the 1980s and 1990s found in the Archives of Contemporary Social History (ASKI) in Athens. Additionally, as the author is currently conducting fieldwork with people who are working or have worked in the past in sex in Greece as a part of her PhD dissertation, the paper contains data provided by ten interlocutors to highlight their own personal experience. The researcher has used the critical oral history method, as it is committed to recording first-hand knowledge of experiences of marginalized community members who are often unheard or untold, with the additional goals of contextualizing these stories to reveal power differences and inequities (Lemley, 2017, Rickard, 2003).
Findings
The paper provides insight into how regulationism establishes the brothel – a metonymy of prostitution – as a heterotopia within the urban space. Contemporary approaches, such as LULUs and broken window policies, are used to indicate the historically marginal placement of sex work.
Research limitations/implications
The interviews presented here were conducted in the summer of 2022, in the context of the author’s PhD research. Despite her six years of activist-level involvement with sex workers’ rights organizations, due to ethical constraints, only the findings of interviews conducted up to the writing of this paper are presented here, while details of private discussions with members of these organizations are omitted.
Originality/value
The paper examines a significant and timely matter of place making and spatial justice. Unlike earlier research on prostitution in Greece that focused on the brothel either as a heterotopia or as an undesirable land use, the novelty of this paper is that it highlights the intersections between policing, planning, public hygiene, anti-immigration policies around the regulation of the sex market. By critically discussing the implications of the de facto illegality of sex work in Greece, the study highlights the importance of including the voices of sex workers in decision-making and contributes to the debate around the decriminalization of sex work in Greece.
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Dirty workers occupy jobs and perform tasks that are unpleasant and considered distasteful or “tainted” to other members of society. However, while they experience challenges in…
Abstract
Purpose
Dirty workers occupy jobs and perform tasks that are unpleasant and considered distasteful or “tainted” to other members of society. However, while they experience challenges in managing stigma, they are generally successful in creating positive self-identities. Among these dirty jobs is prostitution. As dirty workers, women sex workers in American history have been treated with humor, ridicule and derision. This study aims to explain the social contexts and the limited economic choices these women faced and examine how they may have managed their dirty work’s stigma to create positive self-identities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses primary and secondary sources to examine a 53-year period of American history and to frame these women’s stigma management within a “dirty work” perspective.
Findings
The author suggests that sex workers in riskier roles (e.g. street walkers, crib workers or “upstairs girls” in saloons) would have been less able to effectively manage stigma and create positive self-identities as compared to brothels workers, due to the brothel’s strong social support, healthier work culture and richer resources.
Social implications
While sex work has changed significantly in the past century, the principles of identity management in this difficult and dirty work remain. Understanding the economic, social and individual challenges faced by these dirty workers will aid our understanding of the difficulties confronted by today’s sex workers.
Originality/value
Sex work is nearly absent from scholarly management literature. The lack of historical perspective and knowledge in this field limits a full understanding of how various types of dirty workers manage stigma.
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This paper explores the role that the control system – understood as a set of financial and non-financial mechanisms – introduced by the Ministerial Decree of 15th February 1860…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the role that the control system – understood as a set of financial and non-financial mechanisms – introduced by the Ministerial Decree of 15th February 1860 played in promoting the ethical tolerance of prostitution in the Kingdom of Italy.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research method was adopted. Specifically, this study draws on literature on accounting and deviant behaviors and on Suchman's theories of legitimation (1995) to interpret empirical evidence collected from archival primary sources as well as secondary sources.
Findings
The paper highlights how the accounting mechanisms introduced by the law were molded to limit the serious consequences of prostitution from a public health standpoint and to demonstrate that the State neither profited from prostitution nor used public money to fund it. This should have stimulated ethical tolerance of the law itself and, consequently, of the prostitution that was regulated.
Originality/value
This paper opens a new research avenue in the field of accounting history by exploring the connection between accounting and prostitution. Moreover, unlike the extant literature on accounting and deviant behaviors, this study delves into the role played by accounting mechanisms to promote ethical tolerance rather than to activate normalization processes.
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Everett S.P. Spain, Lissa V. Young and Russell P. Lemler
The authors believe the theoretical foundations for this case study lie in the following two disciplines, primarily, but could be expanded to religion and organizational…
Abstract
Theoretical basis
The authors believe the theoretical foundations for this case study lie in the following two disciplines, primarily, but could be expanded to religion and organizational culture:i. Ethical decision-makingii. Cross-cultural competenceiii. Leadership
Research methodology
This is an actual case, and the fact pattern and timeline occurred as depicted. The first author is the protagonist, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Shawn Browning. The names of case characters have been disguised. The second and third authors are colleagues of the first author. This case was tested in three undergraduate organizational behavior and leadership classes at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Case overview/synopsis
This disguised case follows US Army Officer LTC Shawn Browning, leader of a prominent US Army base located in Germany. As the commander of US Army Garrison Schweinfurt, LTC Browning was responsible for the health and welfare of 10,000 residents, including soldiers, family members and civilian employees. A community member lodged a complaint against a brothel named Haus One (a legal establishment under German law) located adjacent to the base and near family housing and the base elementary school. LTC Browning had the authority to render the brothel off-limits to US personnel, and he took the necessary steps prior to rendering a decision, including the appointment of a review board to investigate the situation and provide a recommendation. The board recommended not placing Haus One off-limits. The case focuses on LTC Browning’s values and his desire to ensure the welfare of his community while adhering to local legal and cultural norms. Cross-cultural and ethical issues surface throughout the case, which concludes with LTC Browning’s pondering of how to make a final decision.
Complexity academic level
The authors believe this is targeted at undergraduate students with some background in ethical decision-making, organizational culture and cross-cultural competence.
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In the UK the indoor sexual marketplace of brothels, saunas and massage parlours has historically been left to manage itself, with limited regulation from policing agencies. This…
Abstract
In the UK the indoor sexual marketplace of brothels, saunas and massage parlours has historically been left to manage itself, with limited regulation from policing agencies. This paper examines the current nature of the indoor sex markets in light of the Home Office's co‐ordinated prostitution strategy. It looks critically at the impact of ‘disrupting sex markets’, and examines the arguments for rejecting a system that regulates the indoor sex venues. It also discusses the proposal to change the law to enable ‘two (or three)’ women to work together indoors and plans to minimise exploitation through an action plan on trafficking and the implications for practitioners and policy are assessed.
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The trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation has become a global business operated by organised crime groups and is now viewed as having reached ‘critical…
Abstract
The trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation has become a global business operated by organised crime groups and is now viewed as having reached ‘critical proportions’. Trafficking exists to meet the market demand for women who are used in brothels, the production of pornography and other aspects of the ‘sex industry’. It is nothing less than a modern day slave trade.