Making It Work: The Prostitutes' Rights Movement in Perspective

As its double-edged title suggests, Making It Work examines the oldest profession as just that: a service industry with professional sex workers. This reframing of prostitution is done by chronicling the evolution of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), the leading organization of the contemporary prostitutes' rights movement. Founded in the early 1970s, a period of intense and far-reaching change in American sexual mores, COYOTE sought from the beginning to claim ownership of the problem of prostitution from the traditional experts. In its first campaign, California-based COYOTE engaged local law enforcement and municipal government officials in debate over selective and discriminatory enforcement of criminal law. In its next stage of development, COYOTE joined in the feminist debates on violence against women and the right of women to control their bodies, linking the question of prostitution to the larger issues of women's rights. In recent years, prostitutes' rights organizations have countered assertions that prostitutes are spreading AIDS and these organizations now constitute a link between prostitutes and public health agencies. The book adds an important practical and theoretical voice to the issues of prostitution, pornography, and sexuality within contemporary feminism. Furthermore, in reconstructing prostitution as a social problem, it speaks more broadly to the notion of deviance, and how so-called deviants can act to frame the debates that affect their lives.

"Jenness constructs an interesting account of the evolution of the National Task Force on Prostitution, also known as COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), the most visible organization in the prostitutes' rights movement. Using archival and interview data, she documents the moral, legal, feminist, and medical debates that shaped the organization's claims-making activities across a 20-year period... The book contains a useful bibliography and is well written... Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals interested in such topics as social movements, deviance, sexuality, women's studies, and the sociology of culture should find the research interesting and useful. Recommended."

--J. Lynxwiler, Choice

"In the past several decades the United States has witnessed a "revolution of rights" spurred by movements such as civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, children's rights, convicts' rights, victims' rights, animal rights, abortion rights, and rights of the physically and mentally handicapped, of the mentally disturbed, of alcoholics, and of a variety of others. What has characterized these movements has been the demand of minorities and conventionally "deviant" populations for equality of treatment and a recognition of their common status with the rest of American society. In this useful contribution to the literature of social movements and social problems, Valerie Jenness has chronicled the development of the social movement organization Coyote (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) into a representative for American prositutes.... [T]his is a valuable study, recommended to students of social movements, social problems, and the interconnectedness of both."

--Joseph Gusfield, Contemporary Sociology

"This book is successful in presenting the history, issues, and political process involved in an important women's organization. It is highly recommended reading for researchers and teachers in criminology, gender studies, and social issues. Readers will recognize its strength in the empathetic presentation of previously silenced women's voices."

--Patricia D. Rozee, Gender and Society

"Making It Work is a case study of the prostitutes' rights movement in the U.S. Rather than analyze the growth of the movement in all-too-familiar terms of organization and material resources, Jenness examines the symbolic aspects of the movement and how these defined its rise and development.... [N]ecessary reading for those who wish to round out their understanding of social movements."

--Nelson A. Pichardo, Social Forces

"Jenness constructs an interesting account of the evolution of the National Task Force on Prostitution, also known as COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), the most visible organization in the prostitutes' rights movement. Using archival and interview data, she documents the moral, legal, feminist, and medical debates that shaped the organization's claims-making activities across a 20-year period... The book contains a useful bibliography and is well written... Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals interested in such topics as social movements, deviance, sexuality, women's studies, and the sociology of culture should find the research interesting and useful. Recommended."

--J. Lynxwiler, Choice

"In the past several decades the United States has witnessed a "revolution of rights" spurred by movements such as civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, children's rights, convicts' rights, victims' rights, animal rights, abortion rights, and rights of the physically and mentally handicapped, of the mentally disturbed, of alcoholics, and of a variety of others. What has characterized these movements has been the demand of minorities and conventionally "deviant" populations for equality of treatment and a recognition of their common status with the rest of American society. In this useful contribution to the literature of social movements and social problems, Valerie Jenness has chronicled the development of the social movement organization Coyote (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) into a representative for American prositutes.... [T]his is a valuable study, recommended to students of social movements, social problems, and the interconnectedness of both."

--Joseph Gusfield, Contemporary Sociology

"This book is successful in presenting the history, issues, and political process involved in an important women's organization. It is highly recommended reading for researchers and teachers in criminology, gender studies, and social issues. Readers will recognize its strength in the empathetic presentation of previously silenced women's voices."

--Patricia D. Rozee, Gender and Society

"Making It Work is a case study of the prostitutes' rights movement in the U.S. Rather than analyze the growth of the movement in all-too-familiar terms of organization and material resources, Jenness examines the symbolic aspects of the movement and how these defined its rise and development.... [N]ecessary reading for those who wish to round out their understanding of social movements."

--Nelson A. Pichardo, Social Forces

-Jenness constructs an interesting account of the evolution of the National Task Force on Prostitution, also known as COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), the most visible organization in the prostitutes' rights movement. Using archival and interview data, she documents the moral, legal, feminist, and medical debates that shaped the organization's claims-making activities across a 20-year period... The book contains a useful bibliography and is well written... Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals interested in such topics as social movements, deviance, sexuality, women's studies, and the sociology of culture should find the research interesting and useful. Recommended.-

--J. Lynxwiler, Choice

-In the past several decades the United States has witnessed a -revolution of rights- spurred by movements such as civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, children's rights, convicts' rights, victims' rights, animal rights, abortion rights, and rights of the physically and mentally handicapped, of the mentally disturbed, of alcoholics, and of a variety of others. What has characterized these movements has been the demand of minorities and conventionally -deviant- populations for equality of treatment and a recognition of their common status with the rest of American society. In this useful contribution to the literature of social movements and social problems, Valerie Jenness has chronicled the development of the social movement organization Coyote (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) into a representative for American prositutes.... [T]his is a valuable study, recommended to students of social movements, social problems, and the interconnectedness of both.-

--Joseph Gusfield, Contemporary Sociology

-This book is successful in presenting the history, issues, and political process involved in an important women's organization. It is highly recommended reading for researchers and teachers in criminology, gender studies, and social issues. Readers will recognize its strength in the empathetic presentation of previously silenced women's voices.-

--Patricia D. Rozee, Gender and Society

-Making It Work is a case study of the prostitutes' rights movement in the U.S. Rather than analyze the growth of the movement in all-too-familiar terms of organization and material resources, Jenness examines the symbolic aspects of the movement and how these defined its rise and development.... [N]ecessary reading for those who wish to round out their understanding of social movements.-

--Nelson A. Pichardo, Social Forces