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Compromised positions : prostitution, public health, and gender politics in revolutionary Mexico City
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Compromised positions : prostitution, public health, and gender politics in revolutionary Mexico City

Author: Katherine Elaine Bliss
Publisher: University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press, ©2001.
Edition/Format: Book : State or province government publication : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:

To illuminate the complex cultural foundations of state formation in modern Mexico, Compromised positions explains how and why female prostitution became politicized in the context of revolutionary social reform between 1910 and 1940. Focusing on the public debates over legalized sexual commerce and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the first half of the twentieth century, Katherine Bliss argues that pol Read more...

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Details

Material Type: Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Katherine Elaine Bliss
ISBN: 027102125X 9780271021256 0271021268 9780271021263
OCLC Number: 45708154
Description: xv, 243 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Responsibility: Katherine Elaine Bliss.

Abstract:

To illuminate the complex cultural foundations of state formation in modern Mexico, Compromised positions explains how and why female prostitution became politicized in the context of revolutionary social reform between 1910 and 1940. Focusing on the public debates over legalized sexual commerce and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the first half of the twentieth century, Katherine Bliss argues that political change was compromised time and again by reformers' antiquated ideas about gender and class, by prostitutes' outrage over official attempts to undermine their livelihood, and by clients' unwillingness to forgo visiting brothels despite revolutionary campaigns to promote monogamy, sex education, and awareness of the health risks associated with sexual promiscuity. In the Mexican public's imagination, the prostitute symbolized the corruption of the old regime even as her redemption represented the new order's potential to dramatically alter gender relations through social policy. Using medical records, criminal case files, and letters from prostitutes and their patrons to public officials, Compromised positions reveals how the contradictory revolutionary imperatives of individual freedom and public health clashed in the effort to eradicate prostitution and craft a model of morality suitable for leading Mexico into the modern era.

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