Loyola Feminist Lecture Series
- March 14, 2018
- 12:00 PM - 1:00 CST
- Piper Hall, 2nd Floor
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Women's Studies and Gender Studies
Women's Studies and Gender Studies, wsgsprogram@LUC.edu - Free
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Faculty, staff, students, and alumni
Open to the public. - Add to calendar
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Details
In the spirit of community consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, the Women's Studies and Gender Studies program aims to create a space where community members facilitate dialogues and learn more from each other around essential topics of contemporary feminism. Our inaugural lecture series provides an opportunity for the Loyola community to foster an environment in which feminist ideas thrive. Our presenters are current and former students, staff, and faculty addressing topics and issues impacting both our campus and the larger Chicago community.
Sex Work, Feminism, and the Anti-Trafficking Narrative
The anti-trafficking narrative is a popular topic in feminist circles, although the roots of the narrative, which focus primarily on sex trafficking, provide fodder for debate. Through Cassandra's work doing substance use and behavioral health interventions in Chicago, her work with the Sex Workers Outreach Project - Chicago, and research in this area, she questions the popular perspective viewing all participants in the sex trade as victims. Instead, she views the issue from a systems lens, focusing on sex worker rights and harm reduction. She also explores why victimization occurs, what contributes, and what work we may have to do as a culture to change our institutions to change this reality. While agency is complicated in a capitalist world, acknowledging structural and cultural stigmas and using strengths-based and trauma-informed interventions provides space to reduce revictimization by formal systems claiming to protect *trafficking victims.*
Presented by Cassandra Damm
