Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution (New

Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution (New England Gender, Crime & Law)
- Used Book in Good Condition
For nineteen years, Olivia lived the shadowy life of stripper, streetwalker, and heroin addict on the fringes of society. Leaving a troubled home at age sixteen to land a seemingly glamorous job at a Chicago stripclub, she became trapped in a web of prostitution and drug addiction that eventually forced her onto the streets and into a world of hardship at the hands of abusive men. But Olivia, a resourceful, vibrant woman of color, ultimately escaped the prostitution lifestyle and is now director of addiction services at a community counseling program, working to support drug-dependent women.

Listening to Olivia is the compelling account of her descent into poverty and abuse together with her hard fought recovery. By assimilating new research on the women and girls in prostitutionâ€”in addition to their male customersâ€”Jody Raphael discovers that experiences like Oliviaâ€™s are alarmingly common and argues that the sex trade as an institution promotes violence against women. Smashing both the common stereotype of the depraved streetwalker and abstract feminist arguments legitimizing prostitution as the sexual liberation of women, the author uncovers an emerging multimillion-dollar global trafficking industry that detains women in a violent cycle of exploitation and dependence. Oliviaâ€™s own insights on her turbulent childhood, stripping in clubs, soliciting on the street, drug addiction, brutal pimps, her three pregnancies, and her extraordinary transformation highlight important new questions: who are the men who buy sex from such poor, strung out women; and why are so many of these men so violent?

Oliviaâ€™s story gives a human face to the overwhelmingly low-income, non-white, and unempowered young women in prostitution today. Combined with a wealth of new findings, this gripping and accessible study challenges the academy, the legal system, and society as a whole to wake up and listen to the women like Olivia.
Country USA
Brand Northeastern University Press
Manufacturer Northeastern University Press
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781555535964
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Northeastern University Press
Manufacturer	Northeastern University Press
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781555535964
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution (New England Gender, Crime & Law)

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