AUT: Re: Re: Fortunati

["cwright" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Tahir.

My take is that Fortunadi was describing the increasing independence of
prostitutes from pimps, ie from male control and that the independence of
female prostitutes from male bosses.  I took that, the increased autonomy of
prostitutes, as the threat, not prostitution per se.  I took it this way
because she situates prostitution clearly as the process of sexual
reproduction of labor power in her overall perspective.

On the other hand, maybe you can go into why you think the first quote poses
prostitution as threatening to capital because I don't think I see it yet.

Cheers,
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 3:09 AM
Subject: AUT: Re: Fortunati


> Chris
>
> Here are a couple of quotes that you might like to comment on. The first
one, from page 39, seems to me to be quite unambiguous:
>
> "... male/female inequality, far from being a relic of barbarism, is
inherent, inborn and necessary for the functioning of the capitalist mode of
production. Under capitalism, men and women cannot be exploited equally;
capitalist society is built upon the inequalities of power between and
within the class."
>
> This next one, on prostitution from p. 44-45, is more open to
interpretation but certainly contains the idea of prostitution as a threat
to capital as I mentioned earlier:
>
> "The division in the female job market between prostitute and
non-prostitute is thus blurring. Entering and leaving the two markets has
become far easier than in the past, and prostitution has risen above
capital's optimum levels. The rise in prostitution, coupled with women's
increased absenteeism from housework, is dangerously changing the face of
male worker's consumption, where his consumption of housework should not
only be complementary but also fundamental to his consumption of
prostitution work, and vice versa. In response capital has intensified its
efforts to regain its quantitative control over the supply of prostitution
work. The wave of repression of prostitutes is in reality capital's attempt
to re-establish the complementary aspects of the exchange, and to once more
place prostitution work in a secondary position to housework in terms of the
male worker's quantitative consumption of it."
>
> Regards
> Tahir
>
> >>> cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 08/22/02 05:29PM >>>
> Hey Tahir,
>
> Long time no hear.  I just read the book a few weeks ago and walked away
> with a completely different take.  I did not find her to believe that the
> family had to take one form at all.  Of course, I just read Mariarosa
Dalla
> Costa and Selma James' Women and the Subversion of the Community, which
took
> that up, so maybe I am mixing them up, but I don't think so.  Nor did I
see
> Fortunadi as saying that prostitution posed any kind of threat to capital,
> but that it was the other side of the process of reproduction of labor,
pure
> sexual reproduction in a near-wage form.
>
> Now, alternative lifestyles might be a threat to capital, as a form of
> social struggle, in so far as they fail to ensure reproduction.  This is
> part of the implicit and explicit hostility to homosexuality, though
capital
> is most certainly finding ways to adjust, in part because gays and
lesbians
> have forced the situation, in part because bourgeois sexual relations are
so
> solidly entrenched.  I think that attempts at alternative lifestyles form
> part of the web of continuous class struggle, and are therefore
> contradictory.  But then again it depends on what you mean by 'alternative
> lifestyles', too.  I assume you are including co-op housing, different
> family types, etc.
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tahir Wood" <twood@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 7:19 AM
> Subject: AUT: Fortunati
>
>
> > I've been reading the Fortunati book, Arcane of Reproduction, and I
> wondered if anyone else has been doing likewise recently. Obviously this
is
> an essential work in understanding gender, but I must say that I've
> experienced a bit of disappointment as I've been proceeding with it. I'm
> almost finished now with a careful reading of the book and I wanted to
make
> a couple of quick critical comments. It seems to me that the author
> seriously overstates the functionality of the family and its gender
> relations for capital. She would like to show that alternative lifestyles,
> prostitution, etc. are somehow threatening to capital. I started out as
> being fairly sympathetic to this sort of idea and became less and less
> convinced the more I read. I am more and more seeing these different
> positions, conservative pro-family and progressive pro-choice (in the
matter
> of lifestyle and sexuality), as being a conflict internal to capital and
> perhaps even equally functional for capital. Am I wrong? Comments needed.
> > Cheers
> > Tahir
> >
> >
> >
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