In the midst of the latest round of debates over sex here in the progressive blogosphere, I was struck by BrownFemiPower’s post about the kinds of oppression we sometimes ignore in our eagerness to focus on pornography.
I’m very very *very* tired of how sex work is framed as a labor issue by many anti-pornography activists–they chronically insist that porn is the worst worst worst job ever because it hurts females.
I hear this logic, and all I can think is, “Really?”
I’ve known women who have had to work 12-15 (or more) hours a day in 100+ degree heat with no breaks for water and no place to pee (I was one of those women). I’ve known women who have had to work on their knees the entire 12-15 hour shift (or in a squatting position), with a bag that digs into their backs and can carry 20-25 pounds of vegetables or fruits. I’ve known women who can not kneel at mass because their knees are so shot from the hard labor they’ve done most of their lives. I’ve known women who have worked in the fields since they were five or six. I’ve seen pregnant women, elderly women, young girls, disabled women all forced to walk up to two miles (after 12 or 15 hour days) to get back to their cars so they can go home.
I know women are being exposed to some of the most dangerous chemicals known to mankind. I know young girls are working in fields rather than going to school because their mothers aren’t being paid enough for the job that they do. I know women are being locked up and only allowed to leave the farms for up to two hours a week. I know women are working for wages that have not increased in 27 years. I know women who go to company doctors after exposure to pesticide clouds are being told that they have ‘female problems’ (rather than pesticide poisoning). I know women are giving birth to babies that die because of pesticide exposure. I know women are out digging ditches 20 days after they give birth. I know women are being sexually harassed by field bosses. I know young girls are being sexually harassed by field bosses. I know 90% of the female farmworkers in California say that sexual intimidation and harassment is a major problem at their jobs. I know women refer(ed) to a field in California as the “field of panties” because so many women were raped there. I know women are being threatened with guns by their field bosses.
At BFP’s, these last two paragraphs are filled with links that document what’s going on.
To be fair, I don’t know many feminist anti-porn activists who have said that porn is the “worst job ever”. I’ve never made that assertion, and I can’t think of any serious bloggers who have. I do think that pornography’s role in our culture is highly problematic (to say the least) and that what it does to the hearts and minds of those who consume it is deeply troublesome. But BFP is absolutely right that at times, we can get so wrapped up in talking about sex that we give short shrift to other ways in which women are oppressed right here, right now.
BFP is writing primarily about the plight of Latina farm workers. And I’ll confess I’m a bit ashamed of myself for not ever having written about their struggle before. I’m not just a native Californian; I’m a son of Monterey County, the “salad bowl” of America and the birthplace of the United Farm Workers. I was raised in comfortable Carmel, twenty miles from the Salinas Valley. And yes, I went to school with the children of the growers, and in my youth, names like “Cesar Chavez” and “Dolores Huerta” were cursewords on the lips of some of the kids I knew. Of course, I was raised in a liberal household, and at various times in my childhood we boycotted table grapes and iceberg lettuce. (I now boycott iceberg lettuce on the principle of tastelessness, but that’s a different story.)
But I spent a lot of time as a child in the small, poor farming communities of the Valley. I know my way around Soledad, Chualar, Gonzales, San Ardo. Throughout my junior high and high school years, I was involved in a traveling youth theater company that regularly took plays into elementary schools. Many of the schools we went to (and this was back in the early 1980s) were overwhelmingly Latino, and many of the students we performed for barely understood English. We ate lunch with these children in their cafeterias and played with them after our shows. We made them laugh, and we — mostly privileged white kids from the Monterey Peninsula — got to see a very different world just a few miles from our homes. It was, I think, a mutually enriching experience for all.
But a few hours or a few days of exposure to oppression doesn’t guarantee that a privileged person is going to “get it.” And I know that my feminism, my justice work, tends to be focused on issues that to some may seem like luxuries. While sexual liberation matters for everyone, and while the fight against sexual degradation is vital for all men and women of all social classes, to spend so much time talking about porn and not talking about other ways in which women get exploited is a mistake.
BFP: I know that millions of men and women across the U.S. and the world fetishize “eating healthy” without giving a second thought to how the bodies of women and young girls are violated so that they can carry out their fetish.
I know that there’s more than one way to get fucked.
And I only hope there will be a time when feminists fight for thirty years about the best way to end violence against farmworkers.
Ouch. And though the harshness of her words troubles me, BFP is on to something. Here’s the honest truth: taking on porn allows me to feel virtuous without having to do as much work as I ought to be doing. In a great many posts (including the recently finished Jensen, Porn, and Masculinity series) I’ve made the case that the use of pornography — at least the vast majority of what we think of as pornography — is inconsistent with the deepest feminist values. Other feminists disagree in good conscience. But I realize that condemning porn — and then not using it — allows me to feel like I am engaged in justice work merely by not participating in a bad habit. It’s cheap grace.
BFP’s line about fetishizing eating healthy strikes home. I’m no body fascist, and am not interested in advocating for a particular ideal. But I am a “healthist” and a vegan, and at times my concern with “eating a plant-based diet” is rooted more in concern for protecting animals and keeping my cancer risk down than it is in the concern for the workers who produce food. Bottom line, it’s easy for me to stay away from pornography these days. It’s harder to go to Whole Foods or Trader Joes and buy organic spinach and figure out exactly what the conditions were under which the leafy green vegetables I rely on were picked! And so the more I focus on pornography, the more I focus on a justice issue that allows me a high degree of self-satisfaction. That doesn’t mean for a second that I don’t think porn isn’t a vital feminist issue — it is. But taking a stand for or against pornography doesn’t require the kind of life change, for most people, that ensuring that all of your food is grown cruelty-free does.
As a vegan, I’m a very good label-reader. I can spot the “hidden animal product” lickety-split. But it’s tougher to spot the head of lettuce that was picked by the sexually abused, underpaid, overworked undocumented farm laborer. If I care about cows and pigs and chickens, I need to care about those who work in horrific conditions to slaughter and process their bodies. And if I choose to live on soybeans, spinach, and raisins, then I need to care about the workers whose labor brought those products to market. And if I care about the women who are exploited by pornographers, then I need to care about the bodies of women who are exploited by big agriculture. It’s just that divesting myself from the former oppression is so much easier.
UPDATE: Help the plight of farm workers, animals, and health all at once by urging your senators to support the Lugar-Lautenberg “FRESH ACT” amendment to the subsidy-laden farm bill.
It’s not just farm workers — meat packing plants are extraordinarily dangerous environments, and they favor hiring illegal (predominantly Latino/a) immigrants.
Like you, I’m vegan, so I don’t know whether there is labeling that discusses meat production standards. I’m also not sure what West Coast grocery stores are like, but the only produce labels you see here identify organic and local.
I’m not entirely sure what the best way to enact real change would be. Most of my relatives emigrated from Ukraine and Georgia, and I’ve been operating under the assumption that the economic instability in Mexico is different from — but ultimately as pernicious as — the economic instability in the Eastern Bloc. Consequently, I’m about as pro-immigration as any “white” person can be. (I’ve noticed in immigration discussions people seem to use “white” to refer to white people who are not first-generation immigrants. But maybe that’s just because my area is filled with Russian immigrants who, obviously, have very strong views.)
Even though I read several immigrants’ blogs — including brownfemipower’s — I’m not entirely sure what we can do. Combining America’s xenophobia, racism, and upcoming Presidential election, is not an ideal environment for passing laws protecting immigrants. Community-supported agriculture is great in theory, but I can’t find any ones with openings where I live.
I wonder about labeling. It has the potential to create a bizarre political marriage between liberals who want to improve immigrants’ working conditions and xenophobic conservatives. (In fact, it could rival the feminist/Mormon coalition against Utah’s polygamists in terms of political spit-takes.) Its impact will ultimately depend on whether the labels influence more liberals than conservatives. And do we really want to take the chance that it’ll backfire?
I should add that I live on the East Coast in an urban area without any farms. Illegal immigrants here, both Russian and Mexican, tend to work as housecleaners/nannies, restaurants, etc.
Chualar? San Ardo? Wow, you *have* been around …
I hail from Lompoc and Santa Maria, the center of the strawberry and broccoli industries, and agricultural worker exploitation is a big topic among labor progressives here. While I appreciate the framing of this discussion in terms of women’s labor, which, because of the underlying gender/ rape discourse, puts women into a double bind, from a practical/ activist standpoint, the discussion needs to, I think, first focus on improving the working conditions for both, male and female agricultural workers.
“But I realize that condemning porn — and then not using it — allows me to feel like I am engaged in justice work merely by not participating in a bad habit. It’s cheap grace.”–And yes, it’s always a good idea to ask “where does my organic broccoli really come from?”
Community supported agriculture sounds ideal — and very tough in urban areas indeed. And Charlotte, you’re right that fighting for ag workers isn’t just a feminist issue. It’s just that women who work in the farms get an extra-special dose of oppression (such as economic and sexual exploitation).
Re: San Ardo. It’s got the southernmost elementary school in Monterey County, and I did plays there twice a year throughout my high school years. San Ardo was once called San Bernardo, because there is no “St. Ardo”. But San Bernardo’s mail kept being sent to San Bernardino, 300 miles away, so the residents of this little farming hamlet in the southern Salinas valley dropped the “Bern” and became just “San Ardo.”
(In fact, it could rival the feminist/Mormon coalition against Utah’s polygamists in terms of political spit-takes.)
I’ll just be straight up with you here - that alliance might be a “Dining with the Devil” deal for you. I’d be ALL for coming down like a ton of bricks on employers who exploit illegal aliens precisely because I’d hope they’d eventually decide hiring them is more trouble than it is worth, and it would dry up the attractive nuisance for them to come up here.
Then what will you do? Go after employers under a civil rights charge for not doing something illegal? Or, I suppose you could dodge the horns of that dilemma by adopting a position which could be painted by your political opponents as being pro-illegal alien….
Love the post, Hugo.
Gonz: I am pro-illegal alien.
Umm, are you sure that BFP is an immigrant just because she is Latina and writes about Mexican issues a lot?
Great post, Hugo.
Back when I was a “sex worker,” the women I worked with would have laughed you out of town if they’d been earnestly told they had the Worst Job Evar!!1!! and how exploited they were. For them, it sure beat the far-worse-paying and even more soul-crushing jobs that were their alternatives. It’s cheap grace, indeed, to tell women that they’re better off doing something that doesn’t make us feel uncomfortable and just so happens to benefit us.
Gonz: I am pro-illegal alien.
Have fun being honest about that and winning an election these days.
But by all means - please DO try…
Right on, Hugo.
And congratulations to you for linking to, and addressing, a point that challenges your positions and, from what I gather from what you write, questions an outlook you have seriously committed yourself to.
I have two critical questions:
1) Should it take someone exposing their experience to make you see?
We often hear that people of colour have no obligation to educate us about their oppression, a claim I have always had some skepticism about. How can we understand how other people see the world, what they have experienced, if they won’t tell us? But I do understand that you and I cannot require of “BrownFemiPower” that she pour her pain out before we notice the world in front of us. We certainly do not lack the information that things we benefit from every day, from vegetables to cell phones, come at the price of back-breaking labour, exploitation, and terrorism.
2) Who pays the cost of purity?
Robert Jensen aggressively promotes a vision of personal purity. He wants to tell men how we must think and feel to qualify, in his mind, as adequate human beings. Leaving aside the other inconsistencies in his message, consider only this: the insistence on personal purity builds walls and drives wedges. Movements that demand everyone think the right thoughts, feel the right feelings, tend to splinter very easily, because people do not like having other people tell them what to think. And if that happens, should the “pure” fail to build a large scale social justice movement, Robert Jensen will not suffer. His privileges will stay the same, as will the lives of the people who grow the food he eats, as will the people who live in the countries where they mine the minerals he uses.
John, quite simply, we need to do more to hear other voices, and not demand that they break down our doors first.
As for personal purity, I’m a great believer that everyone ought to do what they can to the best of their abilities; those who are in a position to aim for excellence ought to do so. To whom much is given, of whom more ought to be expected.
Isn’t the best way to avoid these horrific conditions simply to avoid working in the US as a agricultural laborer? I assume we are speaking about “undocumented workers” in this blog, since any legal citizen subject to these conditions would have a policeman to take their complaint or, more likely, a trial lawyer in their kitchen in record time. And I am truly skeptical that any citizens are working for less than minimum wage–most entry level jobs in my area are at $9.00 to $10.00 per hour and, with a 4.6% unemployment rate, I see signs looking for help everywhere I go.
I don’t dispute that conditions referenced in this blog are probably all specific incidents that occurred–but I find it hard to believe that by and large the typical conditions for all migrant farm workers are such that they work 14 hours per day 20 days after having a child around deadly chemicals only to be locked up and raped later by the “field bosses”. If this is the case, the alternative must be horrific. These workers make an exceptional effort to come here to work under these conditions–so presumably it is an improvement from previous circumstances.
As for the sex workers, the only ones I met years ago at “gentleman’s clubs”–a misnomer if I ever heard one–may not have liked what they were doing particularly but certainly did not have any other way at hand to earn the considerable remuneration per night without other marketable skills. So rather than take the tough road of building those skills, they opted for what appeared to be an easier approach, at least monetarily. Most women do not make this choice.
This is a free country–nobody is forced to come here to pick fruit or take off their tops for strangers. The consequences of these choices may not be what was intended when the original decision was made, but that is life.
Hugo, I absolutely agree with striving for excellence. I just do not agree that one person can define excellence for everyone else. I think we have to take particular care to make sure that when we call for excellence, we do not make conforming to our vision a requirement for doing this work, because we do not do this work on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of the poor and the powerless.
Married Tom, you indeed live a privileged life if you think nobody in the US is ever forced to do work they don’t want to, particularly sex work.
Having worked in “gentleman’s clubs”, I am very familiar with the mentality that the women who work there should be grateful for every dollar they are given, because they’re clearly too lazy and unskilled to deserve anything better.
Myth, when Tom uses the word “Forced” I am sure he is speaking in terms of “Actively coerced.” I have worked in such clubs myself, and the number of ladies who are working there who are enthusiastic about their work are far from insignificant - in fact, as far as long term employees go in even marginally reputable clubs they are the vast and overwhelming majority. A performer who is not so is rarely successful; even dives won’t employ a performer long if they are not a draw due to their lack of enthusiasm.
Mythago,
Actually, I think most if not all people in the US find themselves doing work they would prefer not to despite living in a free country. I worked all weekend on a proposal rather than spend that time with my family. Nobody forced me to, but the consequences of my not doing it were that I may lose my job if I did not.
I did not call sex workers lazy, I indicated that they made their decisions and now must live with them. I suppose I could make more money as a professional assassin, divorce attorney, or in some unpleasant or high pressure role which forced me to travel and never see my family. I choose not to, and am willing to accept the lower paycheck and commensurately enjoy time with my family.
Nobody is forced to do sex work (actually, that may not be true as there is a sex slavery industry in the world with some presence in the US, I believe, but that is not what we are talking about here). Most dancers, I would assume, may have decided that it was something that they were willing to do at some point and later found themselves in circumstances–credit card bills, car payments, etc.–where they felt compelled to continue the line of work because the alternative is worse. This is not slavery, it is choice.
Interesting tangent on this topic. Married Tom is right…I personally would rather do lots of things other than drag my ass into work every weekday, but I have creditors and children who expect a certain amount of money from me and I really can’t afford to dissapoint them. Does that make me exploited too?
John Ross wrote an interesting article on the economics of stripping. A lot of ladies start off loving every second of it because the money’s great. All too many (Mythago seems to be one of the few exceptions) fail to realize they’re in a field with a short earning arc, and fail to make plans for the day the money starts to flow less and less freely (forgive the bad formating on this article, John recently went through a site redo and not everything from his old site translated well)…
http://web.archive.org/web/20070124184851/www.john-ross.net/inverted.htm
Oh for Pete’s sake, guys, stop playing the blame game with sex workers. Further comments on “strippers know what they’re doing and have only themselves to blame” will earn the commenter a ban for the rest of the month. Back to the topic at hand, which was the myopia of some of us in the anti-porn community to other forms of oppression.
Are you saying that it is inconceivable that “strippers know what they’re doing and have only themselves to blame?”, or that this line of thinking is divergent from the crux of thinking on this thread?
I actually think this discussion is pertinent. Both the person who becomes a sex worker or the migrant farm worker who opted to come to this country made a decision that they perceived to be beneficial at the time that they made it. In both cases, presumably the person making the decision understood that taking off clothes in front of others/leaving home behind in an effort to earn more money was a fairly important decision with tradeoffs.
No “blame game” here. Simply pointing out that these scenarios all result from an individual decision. In many cases all of the options may have been unappealing, but “forced” to do work implies slavery, which is not the case. Any reasoned assessment of the situation should take into account the free will and consequences of the decision.
Ban me if you must, but it is from your distaste for dissenting opinion. I am using no profanity or ad hominem attacks on other posters, nor am I failing to offer a different perspective in, I hope, a reasonably articulate manner. Is the purpose of comments a sounding board or an echo chamber?
What I’m saying, Tom, is its deeply offensive to use the language of “choice” here.
Let me give you two scenarios where “choice” is involved. Scenario one: You go to Baskin-Robbins to buy your favorite ice cream. You have 31 delicious choices. And though you agonize a bit, you choose, say, mint chocolate chip. (What I picked, back when I ate dairy.) You have made a choice.
Scenario two: On your way home from Baskin-Robbins, a mugger pulls a gun on you and offers you a choice: “Your money or your life.” You hand over your wallet, and you live. You have once again made a choice.
In both scenarios, you were presented with choices, but it would be ludicrous to suggest that the two experiences of decision-making were similar. To conflate the two is deeply offensive and evidence of a failure in both reason and empathy.
And the plight of sex workers and farm workers bears a hell of a lot more resemblance to the second scenario.
Wow, that is where we have a difference of opinion. You present two pretty radical ends of the spectrum there. The “money or your life” scenario is not choice, it is coercion. There, the term “forced” to do something is accurate.
I think a more accurate scenario is the proverbial attractive nineteen year old girl who has two options. In one, she can work at the In & Out Burger during the day, keep her expenses low, take three to six hours a semester and work dilligently towards the prospect of a better career and pay in 5 - 10 years. In the other, she can work at the Seventh Vail for $500 per night, live in a nice apartment and drive a nice car. Probably get caught up in drugs, partying and the like.
She rationally chooses the latter, because she does not fully comprehend the downside of her choice at the time she made it.
No gun to her head in this scenario. She may come to regret it in ten years and bemoan that she was exploited, and that she could have finished school by now and had a career and an office job. But the decision was hers, and it was not coerced. She took that which seemed to be her best alternative.
I fail to see the parallel between this and a decision in which there is no actual decision because the tradeoffs are such that there is only one obvious decision (in your case death versus a finite loss of cash and credit cards).
I am really not trying to offend anyone deeply, but I think that choice is the right term.
I have known dozens and dozens of sex workers, Tom — mostly as my students. Not one of them fits your scenario. But as you say, we can start swapping anecdotes and the hilarity of two immensely privileged men arguing about what sorts of women get to claim to be exploited will be too much to bear. Let’s just agree that the epistemic gulf between the two of us is far too vast to cross, and let’s move on to other topics.
Tom: “There, the term “forced” to do something is accurate.”
Wow, you know absolutely nothing about the realities of immigration do you?
Most of the Russian women who work as sex workers were 1) told they were coming to America to work as housekeepers and nannies, 2) keep barely any money after their madams’ and traffickers’ cuts, and 3) can’t run away because the traffickers know where their relatives live back in Eastern Europe.
I don’t know much about Mexico, but from what I’ve read they are deliberately mislead about the quality of work here in the U.S.
Hugo–You may know no sex workers who fit my perhaps rosy scenario, but can you honestly say that you know some who were given the choice to go interview at the strip club or be killed? Seems to me like more of a stretch than my example, either metaphorically or literally.
Lil M.E., I specifically stated that I was referring to people who chose to come to this country to work, not those who were forced to as a sexual, domestic, or other form of slave. From previous post–”Nobody is forced to do sex work (actually, that may not be true as there is a sex slavery industry in the world with some presence in the US, I believe, but that is not what we are talking about here).”
Human slavery in any form–is illegal and reprehensible. Anyone who engages in it should be put away for a long time and anyone caught in the web of human slavery is absolutely, unequivocally a victim in the situation. Indicentally, I also think anyone who breaks the law in the treatment of migrant workers should also be held accountable for their actions as well.
The whole post began in reference to the plight of agricultural workers who willfully came to this country to work. While it is true that their other alternatives may have been awful–no jobs, medicine, money etc. in their home country–they were not forced to come here. They expended considerable to do so, in fact.
I do know something about immigration–legal and illegal–as I grew up 20 minutes from the Mexican border in El Paso. I speak fluent Spanish, mostly learned from friends and “immersion” from being the sole non-hispanic member of the wrestling team.
On my team, there were two individuals who went to Caltech and Stanford respectively. There were others who dropped out and landed in prison or work at the grocery store stocking shelves. All had similar circumstances, what differed was the choices that they made–ethically, with respect to their commitment to education, and so on.
And Hugo, are you really lamenting two “immensely privileged men” discussing this topic with, I feel, legitimate perspectives on the matter. Is that not the whole purpose of your blog–to carry forth educated dialogue on these matters with varying viewpoints. What does our gender or socioeconomic status have to do with our ability to expand the envelope of discourse in this matter?
Is my assumed privilege something that discounts my perspective on this topic? What if I did not start out “privileged”, would that matter? Must I have walked a mile in the shoes of the exploited sex or farm worker to opine on the societal or economic implications of this individual? If you think so, I would think this a strange position from a male gender studies professor.
And I will move on to other topics…
Re-read my post: I’m talking about women who “chose” to come to this country to work. Even though they were lied to and forced into sex work, under your theory that’s immaterial because they still made the initial “choice” to come here. In other words, Russian women in these situations illustrate a gaping flaw in your argument: you wrongly assumes a transparency of information that isn’t there. (Didn’t someone win a Nobel for proving that the concept of a free market is flawed because there can never be information transparency?)
Second, the fact that you grew up in El Paso and knew one or two illegal immigrants is immaterial. The fact that you assumed a transparency of information about working conditions in the U.S. demonstrates that you may have heard illegal immigrants talk, but you never really listened. If you had, you would know about 1) the pervasive persuasiveness of the American Dream abroad, and 2) the lack of adequate communication between illegal immigrants and their relatives in certain rural areas. I may not know much about Mexican immigration generally, but I do know that Mexican and Russian immigration are virtually identical on these two points.
Finally, your comments aren’t “expand[ing] the envelope of discourse in this matter” — rather, they’re quite hackneyed. Feminist theory has done a pretty damn good job of demonstrating how arguments like yours are fundamentally based on flawed (and conflated) conceptions of “choice,” “agency,” and “coercion.”
I wanted to leave this thread, but let me reiterate. Lied to and forced into sex work = illegal, immoral, and something I do not support. Made a deliberate effort to enter our country, despite the difficulty in this journey, and then are disappointed in the conditions = choice and the consequences of that choice.
I agree that it would be awful to leave behind your country to come to ours to be subjected to difficult conditions, a low standard of pay, no respect, and inability to communicate. Presumably the alternative, staying where you are, is much worse or fewer people would do it. Thus, the concept(ion) of choice, albeit a choice between the lesser of two evils.
I appreciate your arguments and realize that we are talking about difficult situations with few “good” alternatives for either migrant or sex workers. But too many people choose not to migrate illegally or not to work at a strip club for you to convince me that those who do have no other choice.
Re-read my post, Tom. The problem is that people who “choose” to come to this country are equally mislead concerning the work conditions that greet them here. That’s what the whole “pervasive persuasiveness of the American Dream” part is all about. The only difference is how the misleading occurs — but either way, it is not the immigrants’ “fault” in the sense you need it to be for your argument to be valid.
Second, you’re just repeating yourself concerning “a choice between the lesser of two evils.” To the extent that numerous posts can be constructed as a single argument, your repetition reveals your argument’s ultimate circularity.
You know, I now remember why I don’t usually read blog comments. No matter where you go, privileged white men expect you to do their homework for them. And that is, ultimately, the most insidious kind of troll there is.
The problem for illegal immigrants is not that they made the choice to come here and the type of work they can get or not get. It’s the treatment they can and often get from their employers. Yes, you can quit if the job is not to your liking, but that is not the issue either.
It’s that they can be victimized with relative impunity. Talk to any illegal immigrant and he can tell you stories of how he has been ripped off by employers. And not just employers. Illegals are simply more vulnerable.
The problems for them is that they cannot go to the cops or the EEOC or any of the other check and balances citizens have in this country for fear of being arrested and perhaps separated from their family or worse.
It does not surprise me that illegal immigrant women are sexually abused as well. It would surprise me if they weren’t. The comparison to legal sex workers in this country is misleading and inaccurate.
I think a more accurate scenario is the proverbial attractive nineteen year old girl who has two options. In one, she can work at the In & Out Burger during the day, keep her expenses low, take three to six hours a semester and work dilligently towards the prospect of a better career and pay in 5 - 10 years. In the other, she can work at the Seventh Vail for $500 per night, live in a nice apartment and drive a nice car. Probably get caught up in drugs, partying and the like.
Well, sure, MT, you can construct an imaginary scenario however you like to prove your point, since your understanding of sex work seems to be limited to “paying customer”.
Here’s a more typical portrait of an average young woman I worked with: She comes from a poor or working-class background, went to public schools that were average at best, and may not have a degree. The kinds of jobs available to her are not ones where she has a stable, reliable work schedule that allows her to plan for things like classes and homework. (In n’ Out, as I’m sure you know, pays above minimum wage and treats its employees far better than the average.)
So her choices are “take a crappy minimum-wage job now, with no guarantee of being treated well, promoted or given time to go to college or improve yourself,” vs. “take a sex work job where you will make buckets of money, essentially for getting the same attention and harassment you otherwise put up with for free.”
I think BrownFemiPower has made this point better than I ever could have, but I will reiterate a few general principles, and what I see as the consequences.
1) Never equate economic injustice with sex (or vice versa)
Coercion and economic injustice do not appear the minute someone takes their clothes off; conversely, they very often appear in situations where everyone keeps them on.
2) Sexual/gender ethics and practices involve choices and boundaries
People draw these boundaries differently, and for different reasons. It makes sense to treat those reasons as matters of mutual respect, even when we disagree with them.
3) Dictating someone else’s choices means exercising power
The more personal the choices you attempt to dictate, the greater the power you exercise. As George Orwell wrote, “Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
4) Correct exploitation; don’t use it to make a point
A million people feeling guilty about exploitation has less practical meaning to the oppressed and exploited than a single effective measure to end the exploitation.
5) The privileged must never make use of oppression
Hyper-privileged people like me, Robert Jensen, and Hugo have an obligation never to use perceptions of oppression to advance agendas we find personally satisfying. Above all, to set up the choices you want to promote as a litmus test of worthiness to enter the struggle on behalf of the poor and the powerless effectively steals their work from the very people who truly own that struggle; not the hyper-comfortable, but the poor, exploited, and powerless.
John: 1) Never equate economic injustice with sex (or vice versa)
I’m a little concerned about the wording of this. The two aren’t equated, but there is a very clear relationship, especially among illegal Russian immigrants. Structural violence facilitates sexual exploitation, even though sexual exploitation can theoretically exist without economic injustice. (I say “theoretically” because the only case I’ve heard of fitting this description is Arianna Jolie.)
What M.E. said, John; sex is a huge factor in the exploitation of women and girls all over the world — not the only factor, but a big one. Human trafficking is for both sweatshops and sex.
The hyper-privileged, by virtue of their privilege, have a profound capacity to do good when they renounce that privilege, or when they make different decisions. Those of us who can afford to consume, consume, consume all the time have the potential to bring about significant change when our guilt leads us to alter those consumption patterns. I ate a lot of meat and wore a lot of leather and bought a lot of porn in my day. I don’t buy meat or leather or women any more. My relative wealth gave me the great capacity to do harm; my newfound virtue, in as much as it radically changes how I spend and consume, has a tangible impact. When I combine my virtue with that of other privileged folks, we change the marketplace and make it more just — and that has clear benefits for everyone.
Off hand, I have trouble thinking of something seriously exploitative one human being could do to another that would not affect the sex life of the former. And in the case of seriously exploited and oppressed women, sexual exploitation, or sexual terrorism, almost always plays a part. As BrownFemiPower’s post makes clear, if you buy vegetables grown under the exploitative conditions she describes, sexual oppression comes with your spinach. If you buy a cell phone, the coltan in its circuits comes with the blood of women in the Congo terrorized and mutilated in an unprintable manner to maintain or capture access to the resource. So I would observe that you can’t refrain from “buying women” simply by not buying sexual services or sexually-oriented entertainment.
My point comes down to this: just because the beneficiaries of an act of oppression do not get specific sexual pleasure from that oppression, it does not do to assume they do not benefit from sexual violations or sexual terrorism. Likewise, it doesn’t do to assume exploitation simply because one person entertains another in a sexually oriented manner.
As for behaviour, consumer and otherwise: right on, Hugo, I do have an obligation to live in a manner consistent with my beliefs, which goes way beyond what I do with my credit card. But I have an obligation to behave in a way consistent with my beliefs and boundaries, not with yours. You, of course, have every right to state your reasons for believing what you do, just as I have every right to answer you. I believe, however, that we have an obligation to honour certain constraints, and above all these:
1) Never raise exploitation without a solution
Exploited and oppressed people need help now. If (or example) I have an objection to the raging narcissism of the health and health food movements, I have no right to use the exploitation of farm workers as a club to beat the health food advocates with. Instead, I have an obligation to address and try to help end the exploitation first, and address any concerns I have about narcissism separately. I used that as an example only, by the way. I don’t happen to consider health food eaters more or less narcissistic than anyone else.
2) Don’t set bars for people who want to help
To tell anyone, directly or by implication, that if you want to help in the struggle against oppression and exploitation, that you have to adhere to a particular set of beliefs, you must have a consensus from the oppressed people that struggle works to help. Frankly, I think that in practice, we as hyper-privileged individuals can never assemble such a consensus. Therefore, I believe we cannot go further than to say to others that, in our opinion, they might have healthier and happier lives if they did not watch that movie, go to that show, eat that steak/salad, etc.; I believe that essential act of humility, of willingness to work without control or imposition, actually amounts to a revolutionary renunciation of privilege, and I believe it accomplishes a good deal, as well.
John, I think we’re disagreeing here about the order of things: I’m suggesting that in order to be part of the solution, we have to change our thinking and our behavior. You’re suggesting focus on the solution and worry about the thinking and behavior later.
I think there’s a great deal of consensus, btw, from animals that they would rather not be killed and eaten. I have no trouble whatsoever making that assumption. I also think that there’s a fairly heavy consensus (and consensus is, for me, the preponderance of opinion, not outright unanimity) among wives and girlfriends that they would rather their boyfriends and husbands direct their sexual energy and thoughts towards the actual women with whom they were in relationship rather than an image on a screen or a page.
Privilege is real — and for me, it is a catalyst for action, not for endless second-guessing for fear of appearing a colonizer.
Hugo, I didn’t know you spoke wolf, cougar, lion and tiger :-) I rather think those animals might have their own perspectives on veganism. :-)
Seriously, I don’t object to the notion of changing our thinking and behaviour; I only object to the notion that you or anyone else can tell us how to think and feel. Tell us what works for you, if you like, but don’t indulge the illusion that it will work for everyone else. I don’t for a moment claim that nothing exists save the pursuit of effective solutions; I only say that we only really meet there. No matter how hard you try to get into other people’s heads, you will ultimately fail. And in failing, you risk dissipating energy that could go into real solutions.
Suppose you focus on the work, the harms and problems most urgently in need of solutions. Suppose you let the work you have to do, rather than some conviction about what people (men) should think and feel, guide you. What do you really give up? What advantage do you personally get from telling other people what they ought to look at, think, or feel? I can’t see that kind of control as anything but the rankest illusion. More to the point, what advantage would people in need of support, in need of solutions gain from it.