Sexploitation: Sexual Profiling and the Illusion of Gender

243 Pages·2015·0.86 MB·English

by  Michèle Alexandre

Sexploitation: Sexual Profi ling and
the Illusion of Gender
Michèle Alexandre’s innovative study examines how sexual profi ling
represses, oppresses, and hinders various aspects of life for both genders and
explores the ways in which the law and the community can help eradicate
the practice of sexual profi ling. Alexandre defi nes “sexploitation” as the
perpetuation of myths and stereotypical notions regarding men and women
in order to further an agenda of oppression and subordination in certain
spheres of society. The most popular means through which this sexploita-
tion is achieved is through a method Alexandre coins as “sexual profi ling.”
She argues that sexual profi ling ultimately stifl es the growth of our society
by creating ineffi cient as well as oppressive systems, and that its eradication
can help increase the productivity and morale of society.
Alexandre opens the book by exploring in detail the various ways in
which normative views of gender are constructed and perpetuated through
media and societal norms. She then focuses on the ways in which recent
legal opinions and cultural developments contribute to perpetuating these
restrictive and oppressive norms. Finally, Alexandre outlines a plan to help
eliminate the presence of these destructive norms and attitudes from differ-
ent sectors of society.
Michèle Alexandre is Professor of Law and Jessie D. Puckett, Jr. Lecturer
at the University of Mississippi School of Law. The fi rst black woman vale-
dictorian of Colgate University, she earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard
Law School. She has received Fulbright and Watson Fellowships. Professor
Alexandre’s prior professional experience includes serving as a civil rights
attorney with Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Pettaway, Campbell, & Albright
L.L.C. in Selma, AL—where she worked, among many discrimination cases,
on both iterations of the Black Farmers class action suit. She served as an
Associate in the Corporate Real Estate Department of the Debevoise &
Plimpton law fi rm and as a Law Clerk for the Hon. John P. Fullam, U.S.
Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania. Alexandre was named one of Ebony
Magazine’s Top 100 infl uential African Americans of 2013 and one of the
50 “Most Infl uential Minority Law Professors 50 Years of Age or Younger”
by Lawyers of Color Magazine.
Routledge Series on Identity Politics
Series Editor: Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., Rutgers University
Group identities have been an important part of political life in America
since the founding of the republic. For most of this long history, the central
challenge for activists, politicians, and scholars concerned with the quality
of U.S. democracy was the struggle to bring the treatment of ethnic and
racial minorities and women in line with the creedal values spelled out in the
nation’s charters of freedom. In the midst of many positive changes, how-
ever, glaring inequalities between groups persist. Indeed, ethnic and racial
minorities remain far more likely to be undereducated, unemployed, and
incarcerated than their counterparts who identify as white. Similarly, both
violence and work place discrimination against women remain rampant in
U.S. society. The Routledge series on identity politics features works that
seek to understand the tension between the great strides our society has
made in promoting equality between groups and the residual effects of the
ascriptive hierarchies in which the old order was rooted.
Black Politics Today Barack Obama and the Myth of a
The Era of Socioeconomic Post-Racial America
Transition Edited by Kevern Verney, Mark
Theodore J. Davis Jr. Ledwidge, and Inderjeet Parmar
Jim Crow Citizenship American Identity in the Age of
Liberalism and the Southern Obama
Defense of Racial Hierarchy Edited by Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Marek Steedman and Richard L. O’Bryant
The Politics of Race in Latino New Body Politics: Narrating
Communities Arab and Black Identity in the
Walking the Color Line Contemporary United States
Atiya Kai Stokes-Brown Therí A. Pickens
Conservatism in the Black American Exceptionalism and the
Community Remains of Race
To the Right and Misunderstood Edmund Fong
Angela K. Lewis
The Political Uses of Motherhood
The Post-Racial Society is Here in America
Recognition, Critics and the Nation Cynthia Stavrianos
State
Wilbur C. Rich Sexploitation: Sexual Profi ling and
the Illusion of Gender
Race and the Politics of the Exception Michèle Alexandre
Equality, Sovereignty, and American
Democracy
Utz McKnight
Sexploitation
Sexual Profi ling and the Illusion of
Gender
Michèle Alexandre
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of Michèle Alexandre to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Alexandre, Michèle, 1975–
Sexploitation : sexual profi ling and the illusion of gender / Michèle
Alexandre.
pages cm. — (Routledge series on identity politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sex role. 2. Sexism. 3. Sex discrimination. 4. Identity politics.
I. Title.
HQ1075.A389 2014
305.3—dc23 2014031057
ISBN: 978-0-415-82750-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-52259-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To my mother, Rose Marie Claudette Alexandre, who saw
a better life where others saw only limitations. Through her
actions, she taught me the transformative power of resistance
and self-affi rmation against oppressive efforts. She is my
family’s pioneer organic gender equity activist.
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Contents
Contents vii
Terminology ix
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction
1 Sexual Profi ling Defi ned 1
PART I
Roots and Tools of Sexual Profi ling
2 De-Gendering Men: Sexual Profi ling and Masculinity 27
3 Ground Zero of the Battle: Sexual Profi ling in the K–12 Setting 38
4 The Body Revisited, Again 48
5 What Is in a Name? Who Are You Calling a B****? 66
6 Prostitution and the Madonna/Whore and Men/
Effeminate Dichotomies 81
PART II
The Legal Legitimization of Sexual Profi ling
7 When the Ideal of Womanhood and Criminal Law Collide:
Portrayal of Vulnerable Women as Deviant 94
8 Rape Law and Sexual Profi ling 112
9 Employment Law and Sexual Profi ling 126
viii Contents
10 Other Forms of Profi ling in Employment—Grooming Standards 145
11 Family Law and Sexual Profi ling 156
12 Inheritance Law and Sexual Profi ling 175
PART III
Now What? A Cross-Sectional Model for Reversing the Status Quo
13 A Proposal for an Organic Gender Equity Model 187
14 Moving Forward 194
Epilogue: Toward Individual Accountability 203
Bibliography 207
Index 219
Terminology
Body protest: use of body or manner of dress to convey messages or resis-
tance to patriarchal and/or gendered restrictions.
Cross-sectional: a perspective that requires that groups and individuals
seek to understand how their disparate experiences parallel and share
points of commonalities with others who seem different from them.
Gender equity movement(s): refers to the group(s) fi ghting to provide
substantive gender equality to various spheres of our society. This
term is used here deliberately as an inclusive terminology that focuses
on alliance and rallying together of disparate interests for the common
cause of equity.
Nonconforming: to deviate from or run counter to gendered social expec-
tations. The term is used here solely for descriptive purposes. Ulti-
mately, the idea of being nonconforming entails using a problematic
social barometer as a threshold. While this word is useful for descrip-
tion of the status quo, the idea of conformity (whether one way or the
other) itself needs to be eradicated in order to rid society of destructive
and unhelpful gender pressures.
Organic gender activists: refers to grassroots individuals who fi ght for
gender equity in everyday life outside the scope of the law and the
mainstream gaze. These activists are organic activists because they
fi ght for justice in everyday life and interaction without necessarily
being part of a formal structure or organization.
Otherly gendered: individuals or groups whose body identity and perfor-
mance do not align with the illusory male/female gender binary.
Sexploitation: name given here to the legal and social structures that
facilitate and, even tacitly, promote gendered norms and ideals via
sexual profi ling.
Sexual profi ling: the tool used to institutionalize and systematically per-
petuate gender stereotypes.
Spectrum theory of consent: proposes that consent be viewed as capable
of being given or rescinded at any time during a sexual encounter. This
stands in contrast to the fi nite theory of consent employed in current
rape adjudication and discourse.