Putafeminista: A Manifesto of Sex Worker Feminism

A pioneering manifesto from Brazil about the centrality of sex workers to feminist struggle.

As long as feminism has existed as a movement in Brazil, sex workers have taken to the streets in solidarity--despite the fact that mainstream feminist discourse positions sex work, and the "putas" who enact it, as detrimental to women's rights. In Putafeminista, activist and sex worker Monique Prada calls for feminists to retire this hypocrisy and embrace putafeminism: a working class women's movement that rejects whorephobia and its classist, colonial dimensions.

Drawing on her firsthand experiences with sex work and movement building, Prada argues for the validity of sex work as feminist labor and tracks the innovations introduced by Brazilian sex workers to feminist internet discourse, street actions, and governmental advocacy. For readers seeking the glimmers of tomorrow's feminism, Prada places that future with putafeminists, naming the brothel a "final frontier" for all women to gather, reform, and revolt.

Monique Prada is the author of Putafeminista, published in 2018 in Brazil. She is a militant defender of sex worker rights, creating the blog Mundo Invisível (Invisible World) in 2012 and participating in popular debates. She also served as president for the Central Única de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores Sexuais (CUTS), member of the UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group, and advocated for Bill 4211/2012 by Federal Deputy Jean Wyllys, which sought to regulate the profession in Brazil. She lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Amanda De Lisio is an assistant professor of physical culture, policy, and sustainable development in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, executive member of CITY Institute, and codirector of the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England, Mitacs Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and published in academic and popular presses in English and Portuguese. She is based in Toronto, Ontario.