Abstract
Drawing on two ethnographic projects, one among Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, the other among young Russian-speaking migrants in Finland, we interrogate how the construct of Eastern European female body is positioned in relation to the norm of (Western) Europeanness and white femininity. We show how Russian-speaking migrant women in Finland learn of their ‘Russianness’ and ‘Easternness’ through the circulation of the ‘whore’ stigma. We analyse these processes of racialisation and sexualisation in the context of the Finnish national project based on gender equality and women’s liberation norms. While normative Western Europeanness has recently been constructed through emancipated sexuality and the exclusion of non-Western Others as sexually repressed, the bodies of Russian-speaking women are perceived as sexually excessive and in need of toning down. Focusing on the (self-)policing of Russian-speaking migrant women’s bodies and the ways they navigate acceptable and unacceptable forms of gendered self-presentation, we demonstrate how these women are construed as not emancipated enough and hence not quite white. The article thereby contributes to understanding hierarchies of whiteness within the East/West dynamics of race as they pertain to gender and sexuality.
Highlights
Racialised markers of Europeanness have been intimately connected with the politics of sexuality and gender (Fanon, 1965; Stoler, 2002; Fassin, 2010)
These representations have hardly changed, as research on the representation of Eastern European women as overly sexualised, traditional and eroticised subjects demonstrates (Stenvoll, 2002; Andrijasevic, 2007; Sverdljuk, 2009; Diatlova, 2016). We argue that these depictions should be located within a colonially graded understanding of the European space (Boatcă, 2006; Wolff, 1994; Tlostanova, 2012; 2015), which maps onto the politics of gender and sexuality
Previous discussion has focused on the role of sexuality in constructing the European self and the non-white Other, and the colonial formation of these depictions (Fanon, 1965; Scott, 2007; Fassin, 2010)
Summary
Racialised markers of Europeanness have been intimately connected with the politics of sexuality and gender (Fanon, 1965; Stoler, 2002; Fassin, 2010). This article, by contrast, locates their racialisation and sexualisation within a debate on colonial formations of Europeanness, where the ‘inferior’ position of Eastern Europe in an internal East/West hierarchy exacerbates their sexualisation We analyse these processes in the Finnish context, which is characterised by exceptional achievements in gender equality and the ideology of the (in)visible norm of whiteness (Keskinen, 2013). For inclusion in the European project, rather than needing to become available to the male gaze by unveiling, as argued in the literature on Muslim women (Fanon, 1965; Scott, 2007; Farris, 2017), the bodies of Eastern European women must be ‘liberated’ by toning down their excessive sexuality and femininity in accordance with Nordic norms of gender equality (see Diatlova, 2019) We argue that these relational processes show how the elusive norm of white femininity is policed by designating racialised, sexualised and gendered Others at different points on a continuum, where a woman’s body must be available but not too available for public consumption and the male gaze. We conclude by outlining our contribution to the discussion on sexuality, gender, whiteness and racialisation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
