'Meu Corpo Igual': Black Women, Power, and the Defence of Choice in the Putafeminista Movement in Brazil

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My PhD will rethink the incompatibility of prostitution and feminism embedded in Global Northacademic scholarship by revising the analytical concept of choice feminism through an explorationof Brazilian putafeminismo. Choice feminism declares women are empowered through the activechoices they make, a key tenet for Brazilian putafeministas. A focus on Brazilian forms ofputafeminismo not only offers broader conceptualisations of choice feminism through Global Southperspectives but enables a more inclusive framework that critically engages with Brazil's vibrantLGBTQIA+ activism, colonial legacies of racial sexual slavery, and pervasive systematic racism thatdeepen disparities in access to healthcare, education, and income-generating opportunities.Since the late 1960s and the start of second-wave feminism in the Global North, scholars have beendivided over the compatibility of feminism with prostitution. Sociologist Julia O'Connell Davidsonand philosopher Carole Pateman, for example, cannot reconcile prostitution with empoweredfeminist action and argue it must be due to a lack of alternative options or coercion (Davidson:1998; Pateman: 1983). Contrastingly, other scholars recognise sex workers can be active decisionmakers who freely choose prostitution (Ericsson: 1980; Simmons: 2018). Historiographicaltreatments of prostitution have explored these debates on coercion, consent, and moral panicssurrounding sex work in various historical contexts (Wyers: 2017). Blanchette and Silva's workexamining the historical trajectory of putafeminismo's ideologies has been formative in directingnascent scholarship on the movement (Blanchette and Silva: 2018). By blending the ideologies ofputafeminismo with broader historiographical and conceptual research, I will historiciseputafeminismo's philosophies of prostitution in ways that draws the movement into wider conceptual debates and enables a revision of vital analytical tools used across different disciplines.Global South voices are key to driving more inclusive understandings of prostitution and feminism,which to date have been produced predominantly in the Global North.