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Prostitution seems to play a key role nowadays in academic and public debates about women's status in complex societies and the ways political discourses take into account sexualities. The aim of this article is to offer a survey of different manners of theorising prostitution. More precisely, it tends to free the subject of prostitution from a field imposed by a totalizing discourse driven by a medical gaze and oversaturated by ethical and dogmatic prejudices and to redeem its theoretical substance. We believe that this dialogue between traditional scholarly discrete disciplines on prostitution might open new perspectives on the democracy's assets and enrich the critical inquiry on gender and politics. Our view on this topic tries to debunk essentialist views inherited from the great narratives built up by political philosophy and bring the subject of prostitution to a critical condition, by exposing the discourses that shaped it.

Acknowledging the importance of gender studies for a rethinking of concepts such as democracy and citizenship, this article focuses on the development of the principle of equality of opportunities between men and women in postcommunist Romania. More precisely, starting from a case study that analyzes the functioning of the parliamentary commissions for equality of opportunities, this study seeks to analyze how Romanian society internalized gender equality. In this framework the author asserts that there is a gap between the institutional discourse and the daily realities and that the authorities still lack a coherent strategy for overcoming traditional attitudes concerning women's status within society. Considering the important role of international and regional organizations in transposing equality of opportunities in national legislation, this article provides a necessary insight into the dynamics of this principle within the United Nations and the European Union. The case study is based on an analysis of legal sources governing the functioning of the parliamentarian commissions, as well as on interviews with some of its members, seeking to reveal their goals and their comprehension of gender equality.