Symbolic Representations of Power

In the first paragraph of Sabine Grenz's Intersections of Sex and Power in Research on Prostitution: A Female Researcher Interviewing Male Heterosexual Clients, she states "...the only actual power they had was to disguise  and the only actual power I had was related to the way I was going to interpret their stories, power relations such as those between men and women and between researchers and participants were present via symbolic representation." Symbolic representation, then, gives a name to the feelings involved in the research. Contradictory feelings of wanting to do research on men as a woman and feeling threatened or unsafe, while also wanting to avoid succumbing to sexism.The idea of symbolic representation can help us make sense of power dynamics that are diluted or that take place outside of rigid institutional frameworks, where one group is obviously in power. Using this idea we can more clearly think about what it means to be, like Grenz, in a position that is simultaneously empowering and disempowering.

Grenz discusses that the role of researcher, especially when conducting interviews, has been/can be labeled as feminine work, because it necessitates good listening and safety building skills that men, in a heteronomative society can not offer (especially to those discussing prostitution). Even though men may feel more comfortable opening up to Grenz, this is perhaps because they do not see her as a threat/take her seriously, or because they do not feel that their power is being undermined by a woman. When grappling with the question of who held the power in conversations, we should discuss that the researcher had concerns about her own safety, whereas the male participants did not.

Grenz states, "I had to take care not to be too friendly and not to have too much rapport, which in other interview settings would be considered a necessary prerequisite for successful research." (2095)
The researcher could not use the technique of sharing personal stories to build trust with the subjects, because to do so might place her in a compromising position, or derail her own feeling of safety. Therefore, the training she has received about how to successfully execute research is turned on its head, especially because she is researching a group to which she does not belong. The author writes, "...while participants were talking and giving information about their sexual identities, I was just listening to them. Many feminist researchers have criticized this methodology because in research on marginalized groups it is a way to establish hierarchy between researchers and researched..." (2096) If she were researching a group she does not identify as a member of, and that group were seen as marginalized, she would have to take care to represent them responsibly and build trust with them, but because Grenz is working with straight, white, men, she is forced to translate her own relationship to them as powerful researcher and woman as a symbol for all other women, including prostitutes.

About halfway through the article, the researcher explains, "I am very skeptical of using the term threatened masculinity, since it gives the impression that masculinity is a stable entity men can rely on, without questioning the existing power relations between men and women." (2097) This statement threw me. Even if masculinity is not universally accessible to all men, at all times as a tool, does it not still function as a framework for situating people? Is it not still a way to see the world that men are deeply entrenched and invested in? If masculinity isn't a stable identity, what is? This definition seems problematic because, though we need to see the participants as individuals before we can assess what is happening in terms of power relations, we need also not ignore the importance of masculinity as a construct for the men or the woman involved. Maybe the participants did have to rethink gender power relations for a little while, but we can not forget that the participation in the research is voluntary, so we are looking at a self selected sample that might have a different view of gendered power relations to begin with, and we also have to keep in mind that one individual male who is in a vulnerable position for an hour does not undo all of masculinity for every male. I am not ready to wash away the entire concept of masculinity that can be threatened.


Homophobia!
I recently read a bumper sticker that said "I don't mind straight people, I just wish they would keep it in their bedrooms."

The article is coming from Germany, where prostitution is not illegal. Grenz suggests that the stories told by her participants are similar to coming out stories. She also explains that it is much more costly for men to come out as gay in this setting, than to admit to engaging in prostitution, because being gay carries with it many more repercussions in that society. Certain sex acts with prostitutes, if found out by the general population, can place a man under a label.

The author suggests that throughout her research she did not necessarily feel empowered, but that she did feel like she was in control. This, as she points to once or twice in her writing, is similar to the experience of some sex workers, who feel that they are in control of their interactions because of the vulnerability of men they encounter. I found that it was interesting that Glenz felt in control of the situation, even though she stated early on in the article that she was uneasy and sometimes feared for her safety when calling back men that applied to the study who were overtly sexual. Constituting her own set of boundaries may have given the researcher more feelings of being in control, while at the same time, not giving her feelings of empowerment.

Did this researcher do her job? Did she write, in detail, every interaction verbal and non? Would a male have done the research more ethically, better, wiser? Is it dependent more on the individual than the group they study? The author suggests in her conclusion that seeing power as a single entity is problematic. "I believe it is necessary to see different strands of power interwoven with one another rather than to theorize power as a unified phenomenon that is owned either by the researcher or the researched." (2111).