Reluctant Bedfellows: Feminism, Activism and Prostitution in the Philippines

This book outlines key facets of the authors’ five year development project on sex tourism and prostitution in the Philippines, and is a powerful reflection on the raging debates taking place among feminists about the Third World. Ralston and Keeble follow the history of prostitution in former military outpost Angeles City, the women and foreign men who live by the trade and the varied organizations attempting to deal with prostitution. Making a strong call for action, the authors encounter resistance and anger from Western feminists who claim any action by Westerners in developing countries is necessarily neo-colonial and ethnocentric.

Academic feminist theorizing and identity politics, the two argue, has reached the level of analysis paralysis where women and women’s groups do not act for fear of being pejoratively labeled. This has many negative consequences for rights-seeking groups, as Ralston and Keeble experience firsthand in working to bring Angeles City and Canadian women’s organizations together. Both an eye-opening picture of the workings of a community seeped in sex tourism and a sharp review of current feminist theorizing, Reluctant Bedfellows offers much-needed perspective on ways to bring disputing parties together and actually promote change.

To see the companion DVD, Hope in Heaven, click here.