Re: MACHO ALERT: women and world system

Thanks Dennis, I am circulating--Mine

From "Dennis L. Blewitt" <Dennis.Blewitt@Lawyernet.com>

"Dennis L. Blewitt" wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mine Aysen Doyran" <mine25.1@netzero.net>
> To: <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 1:30 PM
> Subject: MACHO ALERT: women and world system
>
> >
> > >Second - and that makes me even more furious - it is simply >not true
> > that these women "are forced into prostitution by >very simple means",
> > meaning that all of them are presumably >victims of `women-trade'. They
> > are NOT: in Amsterdam >women are not `forced' into prostitution - it's a
> > job: they >simply become prostitutes since they can't find any other job
> > and/or >need to make >very much money very quickly.
> >
> > Dismissing  women's exploitation in the name of denouncing moral panic
> > of conservatives is a libertarian baggage in your rhetoric.  You don't
> > need to go to that extreme saying that women are not forced into
> > prostitution. It is empirically not true if you look at the actual
> > situation women prostitutes in *other* parts of the world such as South
> > Asia ("illegal confinement, debt bondage, torture, forced labor, etc").
> > Unlike other workers, prostitutes are not allowed to negotiate the
> > terms  of sex, so they are highly vulnerable to injuries, diseases and
> > many kinds of coercive treatment. The likelihood of such treatment
> > increases with women's class& racial background. In Turkey, for example,
> > Russian prostitutes are treated much worse than Turkish prostitutes.
> > Instead of comdeming the capitalist patriarchal system --sex industry--
> > trafficking women or forcing them into circumstances of prostitution,
> > people morally condemn women for *choosing*  the occupation. This being
> > the case, it is the governments & ruling classes of advanced capitalist
> > countries that generally resort to moral panic rhetoric to suggest that
> > prostitution is just a normal occupation women *consent* to--hence the
> > existence of sexist laws to punish them. Women prostitutes may have good
> > conditions in Amsterdam (which I highly doubt so considering the
> > class&racial biases of your government, be it liberal or conservative,
> > in the treatment of women *general*, not only prostitutes), but things
> > are quite different in the rest of the world.
> >
> > ***http://ews.ewha.ac.kr/ews/m7acws/9722.htm
> >
> > Alison M. Jaggar
> >
> >   ***Libertarian feminists sound extremely parochial when their analysis
> > is applied to a global context. They largely ignore the enormous and
> > rapidly growing international and worldwide traffic in women--and
> > girls--for prostitution, including sex tourism, and forced marriage. The
> > 1995 Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights focuses on
> > the
> > well-documented traffic in women from Burma to Thailand, Nepal to India,
> > and Bangladesh to Pakistan, although these are certainly not the only
> > countries involved in such traffic. The report finds that this traffic
> > relies on slavery-like practices, illegal confinement, forced labor,
> > debt-bondage, and torture. Such traffic is forbidden, of course, by
> > national laws, as well as by many international conventions since the
> > Convention on the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation
> > of the Prostitution of Others first denounced trafficking in persons in
> > 1949. Despite these bans and treaties, Human Rights Watch has found that
> > many state parties fail to protect women and girls from coerced
> > trafficking and forced prostitution or fail to prosecute vigorously
> > those who commit such abuse(Human Rights Watch, 1995: 199).
> >
> > Many police officers and other local government officials facilitate and
> > profit from the trade in women and girls: for a price, they ignore
> > abuses that occur in their jurisdictions; protect the traffickers,
> > brothel owners, pimps, clients and buyers from arrest; and serve as
> > enforcers, drivers and recruiters. If a woman is taken across national
> > borders, immigration officials frequently aid and abet her
> > passage(Human Rights Watch, 1995: 196).
> >
> > Prostitutes in these coercive situations have little access to medical
> > care and are extremely vulnerable to injury and disease. They are
> > especially likely to suffer from sexually transmitted diseases(STDs),
> > including HIV infection, because they are not allowed to negotiate the
> > terms of sex. The AIDS pandemic has actually encouraged forced
> > prostitution in countries such as Thailand and India, where clients fear
> > of infection has led traffickers to recruit younger women and girls,
> > sometimes as young as ten, from remote areas perceived to be unaffected
> > by AIDS. Human Rights Watch found that of the nineteen Burmese women and
> > girls they interviewed who had been tested for HIV, fourteen  were found
> > to be positive(Human Rights Watch, 1995: 225). If prostitutes are not
> > infected directly by clients, they may be infected through the needles
> > used to give them contraceptive injections.
> >
> > The libertarian feminist analysis is inadequate even if its range of
> > applicability is restricted to sex work in the West. Just as it ignores
> > the situations of many prostitutes in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and
> > Latin America, so it also ignores the situations of many prostitutes,
> > often illegal immigrants, who are held in slave-like conditions in many
> > large cities across North America. It similarly dismisses the voices of
> > many Western prostitutes, such as the voices of women in WHISPER(Women
> >
> > Harmed in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt), a North American
> > grass-roots movement that is both local and national but not
> > international. Like prostitutes' rights organizations, WHISPER is a
> > first-person movement based on women's experience in prostitution but it
> > relies on a radical feminist analysis which portrays prostitution
> > entirely as sexual exploitation and aims at getting women out of "the
> > life"(Bell, 1995: 123-4). WHISPER "recognizes all commodification of
> > women's bodies for sexual exchange as
> > violations of human dignity and therefore of human rights"(Bell, 1995:
> > 125). It insists that prostitution is "a system of violence against
> > women," sothat all prostitutes are battered women.
> >
> >       Consideration of such situations reveals the limits of libertarian
> >
> >       feminist analysis. It is true that the North American based
> >       International Committee on Prostitutes Rights(ICPR) explicitly
> >       recognizes that Western prostitution is shaped by the
> > interconnections
> >       among racism, capitalism, and patriarchy so that in the United
> > States,
> >       for instance, "of the 10 to 20 percent of prostitutes who are
> > street
> >       workers, 40 percent are women of color; 55 percent of women
> > arrested
> > are women of color; and 85 percent of prostitutes in jail are women of
> >       color"(Bell, 1995: 111). The ICPR also recognizes that
> > "Prostitution
> >       exists, at  least in part, because of the subordination of women
> > in most
> > societies."
> >       But, as Bell notes, the libertarian feminist discourse of
> > prostitutes'
> >       rights is inherently incapable of addressing the social structures
> >
> >       shaping Western prostitution, which produce its characteristic
> > gender,
> >       class and race inequalities(Bell, 1995: 111). Within the
> > libertarian
> >       framework, the market is the only means for prostitutes to achieve
> >
> >       economic and sexual self-determination.
> >
> > --
> > Mine Aysen Doyran
> > Ph.D Student
> > Department of Political Science
> > SUNY at Albany
> > Nelson A. Rockefeller College
> > 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
> > Albany, NY 12222

I have some thoughts in response to your Macho Alert.  If you chose to
repost or recirculate, I would appreciate it if you kept my name
confidential.
    For several years, I was a council for the Italian American Civil Rights
League, until Columbo go shot.  I took the position with the condition that
as a criminologist, I could study them.  I was referred to them by a
relative, who was a well-placed Madame, who plied her trade for 30+ years.
I have several observations to make.
    1.    The unfortunate nature of most of the world is that slavery, in
one form or another is quite common.  Prostitution is one form of that
slavery.
    2.    Those of us in the US are rather naive regarding slavery, even
though it existed in this country until 100 years ago.
    3.    Universal sufferage in this country is younger than slavery, with
women's sufferage occurring only about 2-3 decades after universal male
sufferage.
    4.    There are many who exist through preditory behavior, typified by
the mafia and some social elites.
    My relative was very successful.  She grew up in a midwestern town of
500.  She was Miss##### University of a large midwestern university.  Her
social friends were high ranking politicians, PR executives, studio
executives, corporate executives and spooks.
    She was instrumental in negotiating several large business contracts,
putting deals together, compromising rivals, etc.  She started out in public
relations, and branched out.  She died with a sizeable estate in cash,
stocks and real estate.  Her "girls" were very bright and all had at least a
bachelors degree.  S large number retired very wealthy.  Her group was
sophisticated and many married well.  All engaged in either political or
industrial espionage, either for the US or large multinational corporations.
    Her politics were extremely right-wing, as were most of her associates
in business, government or entertainment.  I realize my observations are
biased based upon a rather unique sample, but I wonder how many prostitutes
would fall in the category of preditor, the same as the gambler, mafioso,
stock broker, etc. rather than the category of exploiter.



--
Mine Aysen Doyran
Ph.D Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222



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