Socialist, Marxist and Suffragette: Sylvia Pankhurst in the Development of Feminist Consciousness Towards Prostitution

Abstract

This article starts from the idea that the current debate on prostitution presents a serious lack of knowledge regarding the history of feminist struggles against prostitution and trafficking of women. From our perspective, viewing prostitution as a patriarchal form of domination is part of the origins which have shaped feminist consciousness. During the nineteenth century both suffragist authors and militants of the Women"™s Suffrage movement with Enlightenment roots, as well as socialists, agreed when conceptualizing prostitution as an institution based on gender and also class exploitation that could and should be abolished in a society of equals. Sylvia Pankhurst denounced the situation of prostituted women in society and the attempt to introduce a system of state regulation of prostitution in Britain during the First World War. Her contributions to this debate as a feminist and a socialist are analyzed in this paper.