I’m engaged in questioning how the idea of Gender Equality has reached the point of causing so much conflict amongst feminists and non-feminists alike. The problem isn’t just about prostitution/sex work or about those plus porn, but certainly the whole idea of sex as something that can be ‘equal’ is very
problematic. Therefore I’ve started a column at The Local , a big news media site in Sweden, where I now live. It’s called The Other Swedish Model in reference to the famous fact that women have achieved more equality in Sweden than in most other places on earth and therefore Swedish gender policy is often used as a standard (the original Swedish Model is economic).
But there are problems within Sweden itself, not least amongst feminists. Since Sweden’s model of prostitution law is being promoted and copies all over the place, it’s useful to know that there’s dissent inside the country about it.
The first post was The Pleasures of Dissent: Not?
And the second Violence Against Women: Too much of a bad thing?
Actually, I wrote a piece years ago that I still stand by: Sex workers and violence against women: Utopic visions or battle of the sexes?
But now I want to go back and try to figure out what we mean by ‘equal’ and how we think it can apply to sex and bodies. Which now seems to me very odd.
Laura Agustín, Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex
11 Comments
A question I am always asked by men is “If a woman hits or slaps a man, why is it such a scandal and immoral for a man to hit her back? If women want to be treated equally, then they should accept the consequences for their actions, just like a man would, and take the blow.”
It’s a question that I always have difficulties answering. So what do you think, is it a double standard?
personally i think it is i have the same feelings and i’m not saying there aren’t other double standards the other way around to(meaning women are scandalized for doing x when men aren’t) but i’ve have to put up with chivalrous/sexist or what ever you call it for years and it makes me mad that people think that women should be treated in any more gentle or different way then men. really tell me if i’m wrong in thinking this but i act the same way around my male friends as my female ones and its always annoying(for lack of a better word) when someone does something like for example hits me or does something else like that. i always hear the same thing you can’t hit her shes a girl or you can’t hit me i’m a girl. my response every time is to either ignore them or correct them. If a person of either gender strikes me i try not to do anything but if i must i don’t try to one up them i give the exact amount of force back. it is also sad that while writing this i feel like when ever i do nothing back people don’t see a message of nonviolence but a message of “i’m not hitting her cause she’s a girl”. I’d love to hear your feedback on this.
The other model of legislation that gets a lot of attention is New Zealand’s. One of the things that is striking about the New Zealand model is that they require sex workers to be citizens.
Of course this has some implications as far as sex work and migration, which seems to be a hot topic. Has New Zealand received a lot of criticism or praise with regard to this specific restriction?
I wonder because where I’m living right now, the face of street sex work has become “racialized”: Racial profiling does not just occur with law enforcement, as what was discussed in Sweden for example. Racial profiling in the form of demoralizing objectification women in European urban centers by prospective johns has been de facto for some time now.
In this sense, I think there is something to be said for a community having the majority of its sex workers being from that same community. Well, New Zealand seems to think so as well, albeit for other reasons.
The one thing though with respect to equality is that I’m wondering how the overall situation compares with male sex workers? Is the situation better, worse or the same? Is there some knowledge that can be taken from there? In the country I’m living in I see them advertising online and there are always places in the street where they frequent, yet the situation doesn’t seem to be as dire/racialized/problematic (I’m not saying that the situation is by any means OK, it just seems less problematic, which from where I sit is at least better than what we have now).
Love the site, love the message. I’m always so happy to find other people who notice the problem with the anti-trafficking movements dangerous focus on sexuality and their narrowing definition of consent. Hopefully, people can see that the same ideology which results in NGO’s holding up the Swedish model for prostitution results in abortion being excluded from health care.
Why is the natural consequence of getting hit to return the blow?
No one should be hitting someone else, and if someone does end up at the receiving end of a fist, the only amount of force used in return should be enough for self-defense and to exit the situation. How much force that is changes depending on the situation and things like the size of the people involved (and due to averages, a man will generally need less force to protect himself against a woman than vice versa).
If a woman slaps a man (which shouldn’t be happening in the first place, ’cause violence isn’t cool), and that’s the end of it and the man’s not under any further threat of danger, what’s the purpose of hitting her in return? Punishment? Retaliation? Saving face? Repairing a wounded ego? Just plain anger? None of those fits into the self-defense paradigm and therefore are just as unacceptable as the initial slap.
Sweden’s legislation tries to be fair and ‘equal’, to imagine that girls can rape boys, for example, but the VAW focus is overpowering. Obviously physical force doesn’t come into it much when you’re talking about giving someone a slap, and women hit other women, too.
As for trafficking, I’m happy to say that my book seems to have reached every corner of the world! Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry, from Zed Books. cheap in paperback! http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/1842778609/?tag=lauragus-20
best, Laura
Oh, spare me – ‘women hit other women, too!’
Oh and rape isn’t rape, just ‘mixed signals’? And trafficking doesn’t exist, it’s just nice people helping women migrate? Oh yeah, and sex work is like, empowerfulled?
I can read all this boring shit on the Daily Mail website.
remind me, why are you posting on a feminist site?
” Oh and rape isn’t rape, just ‘mixed signals’? And trafficking doesn’t exist, it’s just nice people helping women migrate? ”
That’s some impressive strawmanning there.
“The Chief topped it all off with the following rather stunning observation: “I’ve never met a foriegn prostitute who WASN’T a trafficking victim”. When asked to explain this comment further, he let it be known that it was standard policy in his department to hold suspected foreign prostitutes in jail UNTIL they were willing to sign a confession that they had been trafficked and were willing to testify to that effect in court.”
That figures. Shall have to keep an eye out for Swedish statistics on sex trafficking here in good old Great Britain – it sounds like the sort of bullshit they’d use for political advantage. (Certainly wouldn’t be any worse than the past numbers they’ve trotted out here, based on things like counting the number of prostitutes with foreign-sounding names.)
And I am of course referring to our oh-so-wonderful elected representatives.
Way to bully and silence anyone who doesn’t agree with your very black and white thinking. I didn’t realize it wasn’t feminist to try to understand how complicated issues like trafficking actually are.