Meredith Ralston

My research work has been mainly in the areas of women and politics, slut-shaming and sex work in Canada and the Philippines.

In my new book, Slut-Shaming, Whorephobia, and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution published by McGill-Queen's University Press in June, I examine the common denominators between the #MeToo movement, the myths of rape culture, and the pleasure gap between men and women to reveal the ways that sexually liberated women threaten the traditional patriarchy. Weaving in history, pop culture, philosophy, interviews with sex workers, and anecdotes, I show how women will achieve sexual equality only when the sexual double standard and good girl/bad girl binary are eliminated and women viewed by society as “whores” are destigmatized. Illustrating how women’s sexuality is policed by both men and women, I argue that women must be allowed the same personal autonomy as men: the freedom to make sexual decisions for themselves, to obtain orgasm equality, and to insist on their own sexual pleasure. Dispelling the myth that all sex workers are victims and all clients are violent, the book calls out Western society’s hypocrisy about sex and shows how stigma and the marginalization of sex workers harms all women.