Sexed Work: Gender, Race, and Resistance in a Brooklyn Drug Market (Clarendon Studies in Criminology)

Rating:
Summary: A well research book on a fascinating topic
Review: In my research on drugs and sex work (prostitution to the politically incorrect) I have found that Maher's work, based on years of research in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York, is some of the best work around. Maher has empathy for the women she studies, but this does not take away from her ability to show how they hussle their way through life. Ultimately, this is a rather depressing subject, since many of these women are doomed to a life on the bottom of society from which they can never escape except through death, and some of her subjects may already have escaped in this way. Maher's main theoretical ocus is through the prism of women's studies, and her concern is to understand how these women's lives are located within our patriarchal society, as crack consumers, petty dealers, sex workers and girlfriends. Unfortunately, their location in each case places them on the very bottom. This book is currently out of print, which is an absurd commentary on the book industry in this country. It is far too good to be left unpublished.

Rating:
Summary: A great resource for anyone who works with this population
Review: This is a very interesting and enlightening book, not just from an anthropological point of view, but from a psychological one as well. I work as a therapist with this population of women in a drug treatment facility in NYC and this book helped me gain insight into the lives of the clients. This is a thoughtful and insightful study of women addicts and Ms. Mahler's empathy does not negate her objectivity. Her writing is usually clear enough so that people without a sociological or anthropological background can understand.