[Radical] Feminism, [Radical] Sex: a new approach to sex and objectification

Value

Up to £18,000 research expenses, Up to £78,000 in salary costs (up to £26000 p.a. for 3 years). Actual anticipated value: £91,998.12 (£16,018 research expenses, £75980.12 salary costs)

Description

My central aim is to provide a clear, constructive answer to the question: ‘why (and when) is objectification harmful’, and to answer the rarely discussed but pressing question: ‘what is wrong with our approaches to objectification?’ I title my project “[Radical] Feminism, [Radical] Sex,” as I investigate disparate feminist movements identifying themselves as radical, as well as sexual practices at times seen as radical, revolutionary, liberatory, or extreme.

My work has three interlocking objectives:

(1) illuminate how media can harm those marginalised

under patriarchy, through a precise analysis of objectification and harm.

(2) Dismantle the ‘goodgirl-

bad-girl split’; a harmful myth which stigmatises sex workers and undergirds misogyny, and

which, I argue, has infected much feminist scholarship on objectification thus far.

(3) Illuminate underappreciated facets of sexual agency, by (a) encouraging future scholarship to centre the voices of their subjects of study in their theorising (particularly, centring sex workers in research on sex work), and (b) examining consent and agency as crucial elements of benign objectification.

I will: write a monograph and four papers; create online resources that bring researchers together,

improving our practice; and organise events to connect experts across and beyond academia.