Hershatter, Gail, “Courtesans and Streetwalkers: The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949”, (1992)

Title : “Courtesans and Streetwalkers: The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949”,

Author(s) : Hershatter, Gail

Year : 1992

Type : Journal article

Subject : History

Keywords : women;prostitution;press;social

Journal : Journal of the History of Sexuality,

Volume : 3

Number : 2

Start page : 245

End page : 269

Language:Name : English

Support : Print

Abstract : Examines guidebooks and journalistic discourse to discern the changing attitudes toward prostitution in Shanghai during the first half of the 20th century. Turn-of-the-century and early 20th-century guidebooks often addressed elite clientele and described Shanghai prostitutes as cultured and refined women, calling them courtesans. Guidebooks also described the dangers presented by prostitutes, such as the embarrassment of rejection, being propositioned, or acquiring a venereal disease. Chinese newspapers offered a view of prostitutes that alternately described them as lower class, rural in origin, abused, kidnapped, and streetwalkers instead of courtesans. By the early 1940's guidebooks had joined the newspapers in regarding the prostitute as a dangerous and oppressed character.