The use of law in feminist activism: a governmentality analysis of the legal answers to problems of transactional sex

In several forms of contemporary feminist discourse, the law is presented as both a vital and useful response to problems associated with transactional sex. Several critics have argued that this emphasis on the law as a useful response is theoretically naive and disconnected from the lived realities of sex workers. Such research has contended that, as a result of its over-reliance on the law, feminist activism has had deleterious effects and been co-opted by projects of (neo)liberal governmentality. This thesis aims to develop and complicate these insights. It investigates how feminist relationships with the use of law regulates the possibilities of its activism. The thesis specifically asks: How is the law rationalised to be useful by feminist activists? Do these rationalisations of law's utility affect the subjectivities, practices, and political objectives of feminist activism itself? Deploying a methodology based on Michel Foucault's governmentality and Sara Ahmed's recent work on 'use' the thesis analyses a diverse range of feminist activist writing over the past 50 years. Case studies considered by this research include: the feminist publication and collective Spare Rib; online expression from (neo)abolitionist feminist communities; and, the contrasting engagements with the use of human rights law by Sisters Uncut and Reclaim These Streets. This analysis finds that the use of law plays a key role in facilitating contemporary associations that are important to feminist practices. Specifically, it demonstrates how these relationships have encouraged the emergence of feminist expertise and practices of servile virtuosity, whereby activists display willingness to be governed and assessed as compatible with parochial standards of gender and sexual performance. As a result, relationships with the use of law are found to have extensively regulated and sustained limited forms of activism, that have historically closed off meaningful critique, disobedience, and the possibility of other socialities. However, the thesis also contends that alternative futures are actively pursued and made possible through recognising the importance of law’s use in efforts to be governed differently.