This is the first time comments on Twitter has prompted me to write. I guess there's a first time for everything. Even though I shouldn't be writing this - in fact I should be working on grad school-related research papers - it is just bothering me too much, and thus has to be expressed in some way, shape or form before I can move on with my life.
One of the tweets that caused this post had to do with the topic of prostitution. Basically, the author claimed that women who work in the sex industry freely chose to do so, and that nobody was forcing them to participate. This is, of course, incorrect on many levels. A huge amount of sex workers, mainly women and children, are victims of sexual slavery and human sex trafficking. They are forced into this situation by sheer violence, through deception, and sometimes due to abject poverty and a lack of alternatives. They are lured from their home countries with promises of jobs, only to have their passports taken away and find themselves forced into prostitution. They are abducted. They are sometimes even sold by their own families.
Looking beyond sexual slavery and human trafficking, we can see that a large number of women working in the sex industry share a history of sexual abuse and/or drug addiction, aided by a toxic culture of objectification and misogyny. Most of them are very young. Many of them experience violence and coercion multiple times throughout their lives. The truth is that very few grown, confident, secure women, with a strong sense of self-worth and accomplishment, choose this so-called "oldest profession" (or any profession related to it).
Apart from the question of whether it's a good idea to make prostitution a crime (I actually think the "customer" and the pimp/trafficker etc - and not the women (and men) working as prostitutes - should be the one treated as committing a crime, just for the record), this actually reminded me of a conversation I had with a (male) friend a few months ago. One of his students had complained to him about a professor's remark regarding the alleged the difference between having daughters and having sons, something to the effect of: Girls need to be treated differently, because they have to be protected more. The student told my friend she thought that this had been a deeply problematic remark, because it implied and propagated the image of women as weak, passive, and dependent. Though he did not tell her that, my friend later mentioned that he disagreed, that it is in fact that case that daughters need more protecting and guarding. When I asked him why he thought so, he mentioned the fact that women are at a greater risk of being assaulted, abused, or raped. True. But: a) the people most likely to do that are family members, intimate partners, friends or acquaintances and b) did he really think that the solution to this problem was locking up women, "protecting" them by allowing them fewer liberties and trusting them less than their brothers? Shouldn't we instead focus on changing society, changing a system in which it seems ok to attack, assault, and rape? Shouldn't we focus on the ones committing these acts instead of punishing those affected by them?
He then - and this is where this story starts to relate to my earlier remarks - stated that this is not possible. Men are genetically programmed to always want sex, and to use force when encountering resistance - "boys will be boys", basically. Though I had heard this argument before, I was still shocked, especially since I had only read about people making it, but hd never encountered someone who actually did so, in a discussion with me. This is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, sexual assault and rape are not sex. They are a demonstration of power and control. These two things should never be confused - and yet they frequently are. Secondly, if I were a man, I would be deeply offended by this suggestion that, simply by virtue of being male, I lacked even the met basic amount of self-control and respect for others and their bodily integrity. None of the men present were offended, even after I pointed this out. In fact, they argued, this is why prostitution is necessary for society to function. In other words: Men need to direct their sexualized aggression somewhere, and if we don't provide them with acceptable targets, they will "prey" on each and every woman.
So many patriarchic themes are tied into this thought, I am not even sure where to begin! First, as I said, it tries to connect violence with sex. Feminists have long pointed out that rape, abuse, and assault have nothing to do with sex, and everything with power and control, with domination. By propagating this myth of rape as an expression of uncontrollable desire, we find excuses for it. "He couldn't help it." "He lost control." And from there, it is only a small step to: "She provoked him". "She shouldn't have done this or that." "She drank too much." "Had she not been dressed like this ..." and so on. Let me be frank here: there is nothing anybody can do that makes it ok to violate them, to hurt and humiliate them, or to rape them. I could be walking around with no clothes on, and it would still not be okay. I does not matter how many times someone might have consented to sex with you in the past, or how many sexual partners they might have had (enter: "slut-shaming"), there is nothing, I repeat: nothing, that justifies or excuses this kind of behavior. That is what we have to teach men and women, girls and boys, if we want to change things in this world.
Secondly, we dis-empower women in multiple ways, by separating them into two groups, those that we classify as targets, as objects to be used by men, in order to "protect" the other group of women, the "good" and "pure" ones. We tell women two things: a) if you are attacked/abused/raped/assaulted, it is because you have somehow created a situation in which a man had no choice but to lose control; and b) if you are a "good" and "decent" girl, this will not happen to you - because "it" only happens to women who "deserve it": "sluts" and "whores", according to patriarchy. Just like it took us way too long to acknowledge that there is in fact such as thing as marital rape (yes, it is in fact that case that simply because someone is married to you does not give you the right to use their body whenever you feel like it), it took us way too long to acknowledge that prostitutes can in fact be raped. I did juxtapose these two things intentionally, because in both cases we had (and still have) this notion ingrained in our, in society's, mind that someone's body is actually not their own, but is yours to use as you see fit, for one reason or another, either because they have taken some sort of vow, or because they are a "certain kind" of woman. We need to eradicate this idea from our collective mind once and for all, if we want things to change. Nothing will ever give someone a right to another one's body. This same idea, this assumption that someone's body is our property, is public property, starts with objectification, and it end with physical violence, rape, and murder. They are all expressions of the same, underlying ideology - patriarchy. This is how this relates to the conversation started by Ashley Judd in her recent article and this is also where it connects to the second tweet that prompted me to write this - but since this is already pretty long, it will be addressed separately, in my next post!
Secondly, we dis-empower women in multiple ways, by separating them into two groups, those that we classify as targets, as objects to be used by men, in order to "protect" the other group of women, the "good" and "pure" ones. We tell women two things: a) if you are attacked/abused/raped/assaulted, it is because you have somehow created a situation in which a man had no choice but to lose control; and b) if you are a "good" and "decent" girl, this will not happen to you - because "it" only happens to women who "deserve it": "sluts" and "whores", according to patriarchy. Just like it took us way too long to acknowledge that there is in fact such as thing as marital rape (yes, it is in fact that case that simply because someone is married to you does not give you the right to use their body whenever you feel like it), it took us way too long to acknowledge that prostitutes can in fact be raped. I did juxtapose these two things intentionally, because in both cases we had (and still have) this notion ingrained in our, in society's, mind that someone's body is actually not their own, but is yours to use as you see fit, for one reason or another, either because they have taken some sort of vow, or because they are a "certain kind" of woman. We need to eradicate this idea from our collective mind once and for all, if we want things to change. Nothing will ever give someone a right to another one's body. This same idea, this assumption that someone's body is our property, is public property, starts with objectification, and it end with physical violence, rape, and murder. They are all expressions of the same, underlying ideology - patriarchy. This is how this relates to the conversation started by Ashley Judd in her recent article and this is also where it connects to the second tweet that prompted me to write this - but since this is already pretty long, it will be addressed separately, in my next post!
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