Let me being by first just saying how incredibly different this book seemed after reading Ulysse. I think she might have ruined ethnographic studies for me forever.
Throughout the book, Brennan makes constant mention of children and motherhood, not least of which crediting motherhood as one of the main reasons women choose to pursue sex work. However, there is only one subsection dedicated solely to the children ("Sex Workers' Child Care Arrangements" 127). The section on gossip is longer, despite the fact that caring for ones children featured strongly throughout the book. The observation that all but two of the sex workers she encountered were mothers goes relatively unexamined; Brennan explains "how it is," that once girls (Inevitably?) become mothers, they become adults independent from their parents, without questioning why this is the case. In the discussion of how sex workers care for their children, she spends little time on the emotional repercussions for the mothers who have to leave them behind or spend little time with them. There is only a short mention about how sex tourism in Sosua affects the kids who live there, making it difficult to study or encouraging them to be attracted to fast money (85). If children factor so strongly in sex workers lives, why are these brief observations left uninterrogated at the tail end of a chapter? In the chapter "Performing Love," Brennan observes that "For Andrea, who wanted her children to grow up in comfort and to get a good education, love takes a backseat to financial concerns...a network of female family members, such as this cousin and her two children, depend on Andrea...her successful performance of being in love is directly tied to her family obligations," (109). While I understand that Brennan is discussing romantic love in the context of sex workers' extended relationships with their clients, I find it curious that in a chapter dedicated to love she speaks of family and children as "obligations," when in fact, love has EVERYTHING to do with it. Given the recurring importance of motherhood in this ethnography, I think this work would benefit from a closer investigation of the sex workers' relationships with their children, the circumstances through which motherhood became seemingly inevitable in Sosua, and perhaps interviews with the children themselves besides the one from Elena's daughter Mari in the introduction.
Yes, I too wondered about the role of the mother, more so in the ways that it leads to perpetuation of certain gender roles and patriarchy. I found it so frustrating that women in general are the main child-rearers in this society, yet there still seems to be such an issue with males offering little to no assistance. I wonder in what ways are male children being raised by these women that they feel, as adult males, as if it is fine to leave a woman to raise their children alone. Do the sex workers teach their girl children ideas about Germans or other European males?
ReplyDeleteYes, it would have been beneficial for her to go more in detail about the child-rearing practices.
Exactly, it's like she just accepts the fact that the men leave the women and that's that no questions asked.
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