Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 32, Issue 2, pp. 91–105, ISSN 0195-6086, electronic ISSN 1533-8665. © 2009 by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permis- sion to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/si.2009.32.2.91. “Mom said we had a money maker”: Sexualization and Survival Contexts among Homeless Women Jennifer K. Wesely University of North Florida This study examines the lived experiences of a group of homeless women, with particular attention to their “sexualization” and how this frames their interpretations of and responses to their homelessness. A symbolic interactionist approach locates the social construction of femininity with its emphasis on sexualized embodiment within larger structural conditions of gender inequality. The impact of these structural conditions intersects with homelessness for the participants in this study. In-depth interviews at a homeless shelter reveal the early sexual- ization that degraded and violated the women, eroding their self-worth as young girls and, later, as adults. These circumstances shaped their gendered fears and vulnerabilities and influenced the context of their survival. Keywords: homelessness, women, gender, identity, sexualization, victimization In modern feminist thought, patriarchal culture reduces the female body to particu- lar meanings, including that of sexual object (see Bartky 1990; Bordo 1993; Chapkis 1986; Griffin 1981; Martin 1992). As girls grow up, cultural overemphasis on their sexualized bodies becomes increasingly integrated into their female identity. It is often this sexually objectified view of female bodies that garners women the most attention (Bartky 1990; Chapkis 1986), though the sexy ideal is largely unattainable despite the time, effort, energy, and money many women devote in service to its achievement. Scholars including postmodern feminists like Butler (1990) and Har- away (1991) have complicated or added to these interpretations of female identity, and point out that individuals can and do negotiate various meanings of the self. Even so, it is difficult not to internalize, to some degree, the cultural message that Direct all correspondence to Jennifer K. Wesely, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of North Florida, 1 UNF Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32224; e-mail: jwesely@unf.edu.