What to Wear for Whiteness? ‘Whore’ Stigma and the East/West Politics of Race, Sexuality and Gender

Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, the other among young Russian-speaking migrants in Finland, we interrogate how the construct of Eastern European female body is positioned in relation to the norm of (Western) Europeanness and white fem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIntersections Vol. 6; no. 3; pp. 116 - 132
Main Authors Krivonos, Daria, Diatlova, Anastasia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Budapest Centre for Social Scinces Institut for Minoriti Studies 01.01.2020
MTA Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont Kisebbsegkutató Intézet
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences
Subjects
Gender
Gender Studies
Identity of Collectives
Race
Sexuality
Social differentiation
Sociology of Politics
White people
Women
Europe
sexuality
gender
racialisation
whiteness
Europe
Russianspeaking women
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Summary:Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, the other among young Russian-speaking migrants in Finland, we interrogate how the construct of Eastern European female body is positioned in relation to the norm of (Western) Europeanness and white femininity. We show how Russian-speaking migrant women in Finland learn of their ‘Russianness’ and ‘Easternness’ through the circulation of the ‘whore’ stigma. We analyse these processes of racialisation and sexualisation in the context of the Finnish national project based on gender equality and women’s liberation norms. While normative Western Europeanness has recently been constructed through emancipated sexuality and the exclusion of non-Western Others as sexually repressed, the bodies of Russian-speaking women are perceived as sexually excessive and in need of toning down. Focusing on the (self-)policing of Russian-speaking migrant women’s bodies and the ways they navigate acceptable and unacceptable forms of gendered self-presentation, we demonstrate how these women are construed as not emancipated enough and hence not quite white. The article thereby contributes to understanding hierarchies of whiteness within the East/West dynamics of race as they pertain to gender and sexuality.
ISSN:2416-089X
2416-089X
DOI:10.17356/ieejsp.v6i3.660