In the early 1970s, while living at home with her conservative middle-class family and studying at the University of Sao Paulo, Gabriela Leite decided to become a sex worker. From her first client in a tiny room in downtown Sao Paulo to the launch of an exuberant clothing line designed for sex workers in Rio de Janeiro thirty years later, Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore tells the fascinating story of Leite's bold and unique life in her own words. After helping to organize Brazil's first protests by sex workers against police brutality, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she quickly became ensconced in the city's storied red-light district. From there, Leite built a national network of politicized sex workers, worked for HIV/AIDS prevention, and participated in Brazil's robust new civil society after its return to democracy in 1985 following a twenty-one-year military dictatorship. Insistent on advocating for the sex worker's comprehensive human rights, Leite pioneered an irreverent grassroots Latin American feminism, which critiqued moral hypocrisies and Christian conservatism while affirming pleasure, joy, and agency. Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore also includes a foreword by artist and activist Carol Leigh.

About the Author
Gabriela Leite (1951-2013) was a sex worker, activist, and organizer and the founder of Brazil's sex worker's movement.

Meg Weeks is Assistant Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.

Reviews
"Amid a tempest of hemispheric social movements, this skillfully framed volume unveils the potent life narrative of an international icon of the sex worker's movement. With unfiltered candor, Gabriela Leite shares her intimate lessons in life and politics, delivering an unflinching message of solidarity and resistance for new generations of sexual rights activists." -- Juana Maria Rodriguez, author of * Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex *
"Daughter, Mother, Grandmother, and Whore is an expertly rendered and deeply important work. Gabriela Leite was a lioness in the history of the global sex workers' rights movement. Activists all over the world know who she is and will welcome this autobiography. It can also be taught for various classes in social justice activism, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, anthropology, and public health." -- Gregory Mitchell, author of * Panics without Borders: How Global Sporting Events Drive Myths about Sex Trafficking *
"Gabriela Leite's remarkable memoir chronicling her life as an activist sex worker in Brazil provides a fascinating window on how Latin American social thought differs from its neocolonial counterparts." -- Gavin O'Toole * Latin American Review of Books *



Book Information
ISBN 9781478030508
Author Gabriela Leite
Format Paperback
Page Count 200
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 272g