Colonialism, postcolonialism, and women's agency
French interest in Algerian prostitution was part of a general obsession with the sexuality of colonial subjects, common also to British India. On Prostitution and the report by Dr. Bertherand can appear side by side in 1836, but by the end of the 19th century the attention to colonial others was the domain of anthropology, while studies like Parent-Duchâtelet about domestic in-migrants to industrializing cities were the topic of sociology. [10]
When Western cultures were Puritanitcal in the 19th century, the supposed licentiousness and depravity of colonial subjects justified their colonization. After the sexual revolutions of the 1970s, however, Western openness was contrasted with the ostensible prudish and backward sexuality of the East. Only then did postcolonial critiques proliferate in scholarship and art, such as Chilean Ismael Figerio's "Study for Lust of Conquest," which features a serpent disembarking a a ship and approaching shadowy figures. Nevertheless, attributions of sexual puritanism continue to justify neocolonial criticisms and interventions in the lives of migrants and women of the Global South. [11]
For example, debates in France over immigrants who wear headscarves reveal the complex ways in which women's ostensible oppression by Islam both erases their membership in French society and obscures the colonial relationships among France and the Maghreb. While some French feminists argue for a "French style headscarf with an emancipatory spirit," organizations of French feminist Muslims like Ni Putes Ni Soumises ("Neither Whores Nor Submissives") distance themselves both from Islam and prostitutes. [12] Its founder, Fadela Amara, echoes the polarized and dichtomous views of Algerian women's agency in Dr. Betherand's report when she describes her life among Algerian migrants in Parisian banlieu:
Those who thought they could live as free and emancipated women are accused of being whores; those who want to remain faithful to the model of the girl from a good family are treated like servants. [13]
In distancing herself from whores in the name of the organization that propelled her into governenment, Amara's rejection of submissives unwittingly recalls the femmes soumises who were registered prostitutes under 19th century reglementation.
More information about prostitution and colonialism can be found in other exhibits on this site: comparing French Algeria to British India, the relationship between colonial prostitution and racialization, or agency in depictions of French Algeria.
[10] Nagel, Joanne. 2003. Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. Oxford University Press.
[11] Massad, Joseph A. 2008. Desiring Arabs. University of Chicago Press.
[12] Korteweg, Anna and Gökçe Yurdakul. 2014. The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging. Stanford University Press.
[13] Murray, Brittany and Diane Perpich, eds. 2011. Taking French Feminism to the Streets: Fadela Amara and the Rise of Ni Putes Ni Soumises, University of Illinois Press, p. 32.