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the very least to take a stab at contributing to the enlightenment of readers rather than making repetitive attempts to mischaracterize important issues involving women race and class it is not only unfair of baglow to characterize abolitionist feminists as priggish moralizers it s blatantly inaccurate and manipulative the abolitionist position is a good deal more nuanced than that and either baglow knows it and chooses to ignore it in his attempt to polarize the debate or he is intolerably ignorant the abolitionist position is based on an understanding of prostitution as the exploitation of women and particularly of poor women racialised women and indigneous women note that the coalition of women from the independent women s movement that participated in the bedford case was comprised of asian women overrepresented and hidden in indoor work which apparently they do not find safe women s shelter workers advocates from canada s sexual assault care centres the elizabeth fry society working with imprisoned women the aboriginal women s action network and the native women s association of canada surely all these women and their hard work and careful argument cannot be characterized should not be characterized anywhere as mere priggish moralism in my view that conclusion is both sexist and racist on its face the differences among feminists with respect to issues such as pornography and prostitution are long standing arguments are fairly well developed on both sides none of us deserves to be dismissed as an angry radical and surely not meghan murphy who writes for rabble and is a respected voice in the canadian feminist community the link to her work strikes me as purely gratuitous and downright mean though i must admit i m happy to be an angry radical if my argument is actually being accurately described what the hell is wrong with angry radicals now to baglow s argument he lectures us that we mustn t see prostituted women as victims and tells us that they have agency and that we must accept that proposition at the outset he doesn t define or describe agency or tell us in what circumstances we are allowed to see agency as being so circumscribed as to be almost non existent of course we all have agency of course women struggle in resistance to their circumstances that is both the genius and strength of oppressed people that agency doesn t erase exploitation and certainly doesn t erase our social and political responsibility for it that s just a non starter but it does play nicely into libertarian notions so popular today that exhort us to believe that individual freedom is best achieved when society leaves people alone to negotiate their own way through the difficulties foisted upon them by their sex race and class it implies that it is those of us who fight for recognition that people in certain circumstances are victimized who are somehow responsible for that victimization and stigmatization nice work lefty guy let prostituted women choose their work and blame women if it s stigmatized according to some crazy old madonna whore dichotomy many of the advocates amongst abolitionists are survivors of prostitution what they did to escape stigma in part was to join themselves in solidarity with feminist analyses and principles because those are the analyses and principles that they believe will lead to the liberation of their sisters that is all their sisters and not just those who claim to choose and be happy in the sex trade those who are oppressed are not often in a position to end their exploitation without advocacy on the part those of us who are not quite so oppressed yes they can fight for themselves but baglow fails to recognize that the women of the coalition are doing just that fighting for themselves he says we should not see prostituted women as hapless victims upon whom unspeakable violence and degradation are perpetrated well certainly not hapless but yes often victims upon whom unspeakable violence and degradation are perpetrated is that really even arguable for instance let s take terri jean bedford one of the litigants in the now famous bedford case some aspects of bedford s life are now a matter of public record here s a description from the judgment of the supreme court of canada terri jean bedford was born in collingwood ontario in 1959 and as of 2010 had 14 years of experience working as a prostitute in various canadian cities she worked as a street prostitute a massage parlour attendant an escort an owner and manager of an escort agency and a dominatrix ms bedford had a difficult childhood and adolescence during which she was subjected to various types of abuse she also encountered brutal violence throughout her career see r v bedford there is no doubt in my mind that bedford has agency there is also no doubt that she was victimized throughout her life from childhood on into adulthood and that her exploitation had a good deal to do with the fact that she was a girl and a woman with limited opportunities and vulnerable to male exploitation this is not a description of a woman about whom we should be unconcerned the social harms inflicted upon her are not harms that we should ignore as a matter of law and policy in some sense she represents what is often referred to as a stereotype of a prostituted woman abused in childhood the victim of brutal violence and no doubt the victim of the trauma attendant upon such experiences to say so is not to stigmatize her the stigma experienced by a prostituted woman doesn t come because other women care about her experiences or from our advocating for a set of social policies and laws that might reduce the possibility that any woman must suffer what she has suffered mr baglow then exhorts his readers to see prostitution as mere labour lest bare principle blind us to the complex issues of everyday life i think mr baglow means we must put aside ethical and normative considerations in order to deal with the ugly reality of prostitution that age old and unshakeable institution but many things are laborious many things are work that we choose to put outside the law and outside social approval in arguing that men ought not to be able to purchase women s sexual services and remain within the law and social norms abolitionists are not arguing that women in the sex trade do not do work we are arguing that men ought not to be allowed allowed to exploit women s bodies without penalty we must think about what particular kinds of work exploit human beings i e women to such a high degree that we cannot condone it there are many examples of different kinds of work that we find beyond the pale in citing examples i do not mean to compare them to prostitution but merely to note that human labour is not always legal work for instance overtime work that is not compensated appropriately slavery wage slavery child labour the illegality does not pertain to the worker but to the capitalist and the consumer as it should with respect to prostitution baglow s mrs grundy comment is frankly diminishing and dismissive of women and thus sexist and beneath contempt i am in solidarity with women who work in the sex trade i seek a form of solidarity that envisions a society in which women racialised women poor women and indigenous women do not have to sell sexual services to men in order to survive either psychically or physically or whatever other way when we take steps toward that vision we enable and support women in making real choices still circumscribed by the human necessity to work but not forced or coerced into a form of work which only very few would truly and freely choose mr baglow is free to disagree with respect to how we achieve that end in my view he ought not to be free to misrepresent and insult the efforts of those women with whom he claims to be in solidarity as andrea dworkin said the left cannot have its whores and its politics too amen sister amen posted in feminism progressive politics tagged abolitionists blogs dr dawg feminism john baglow left politics prostitution rabble 2 comments why i m idle no more posted on january 21 2013 by elizabeth 1 first in a series of posts what is the most important issue of our times for me there is no doubt the treaty obligations of settler canadians just have to come first and they have to come first now those of us who are not indigenous to this country have ignored those obligations since we entered into them this has resulted in first nations and inuit people becoming the most harshly treated people in this country across the board on all indicators their access to adequate housing on reserves is appallingly inadequate and movement into urban areas often leads to urban poverty mental illness addiction prostitution and subjection to state violence and street violence of all kinds both on reserves and in urban areas far too many are without access to decent medical care standard education options and community supports the state is more likely to help first nations people by stealing their children as it did in the past first nations land is robbed and stripped of resources and polluted while communities are poisoned yes we should worry that the poisons and pollutants run downstream why wouldn t we worry first that they attack the land and people to whom we have legal and ethical obligations my life s work outside my family has been a commitment to the liberation of women in that regard first nations women are the most legally subjugated people in canada subject to the most violence the fastest growing rates of incarceration in the country and systematic historical and ongoing action to relieve them of those most precious to them their children i ve always believed in grassroots action even though i was an academic i ve always believed in working from the bottom up because if we resolve the problems of those who suffer the worst exploitation oppression and repression we cannot but resolve those problems for all trickle up actually works it only makes sense that i suppose is the more selfish reason for supporting idle no more sisters in spirit the aboriginal women s action network chief theresa spence the national aboriginal women s association and many other fn organizational and community actions for my own children and grandchildren and yours i think that s ok doing the right thing has those kinds of benefits we must also listen to those many indigenous people who live on unceded land in canada those with whom the state has never negotiated treaties and whose attempts to claim their land through legal processes are backed up in the courts and dealt with unjustly as a white settler woman i still have a lot to learn i ve made mistakes in the ways i ve tried to be an ally and a supporter and i m sure to make them again but as a friend said last night better to risk a flawed activism than to maintain a perfect inactivism i m doing my best and that s what we all have to do if we want a future in this country in relationship with those nations who lived here first on turtle island we have to do it now that s what i think posted in settlers settlers in canada tagged canada first nations idle no more indigenous inuit settlers treaties 1 comment julia gillard feminist freedom fighters posted on october 31 2012 by elizabeth reply from green left weekly monday october 29 2012 socialist alliance activist and feminist liah lazarou gave the speech below to adelaide s reclaim the night rally on october 26 i d like to say a big thank you to the reclaim the night collective for organising this important event and everybody who is here tonight to reclaim the streets and to fight against the violence and sexism women face on a daily basis tonight is our night to unite as women and to bring attention to the struggles of our sisters mothers aunts cousins grandmothers and the structural oppression that is so embedded in our everyday lives tonight has come in a really interesting time it has come when the recent political landscape has been suddenly concerned with the language of feminism no more evident than when julia gillard proclaimed tony abbott a misogynist something i m sure many of us were delighted to finally see and hear and a message that spoke to many of us tony abbott the misogynist called out in parliament for what he really is but what was hardly reported was that on the same day the senate passed through a new law cutting single parent payments by between 56 and 150 a week which will mostly affect women women from the already marginalised sections of our society and putting them more at risk of violence as a single mother myself i was outraged at this blatant contradiction because further entrenching poverty is violence against women so when we rejoice at julia gillard s speech against sexism let us take it for what is really is fighting against sexism is not about making one speech in parliament and in the same day attacking some of the most vulnerable women in our society the reason julia gillard was able to make that speech was because of the feminist movements of the past it was because of the feminist freedom fighters who came before us and who struggled and fought for women s liberation women have been saying for a long long time that discrimination against women and sexism does not just exist in a bubble we are subject to oppressive gender norms at all levels of society and it is completely institutionalised in the home the workforce the media the judiciary religious and educational institutions and of course in parliament today women still only earn 82 of a males wage the majority of unpaid work is done by women most sexual violence is perpetrated by men against women 1 in 3 women will experience intimate partner violence in her life time violence is the leading contributor to death disability and illness of women aged 15 to 44 years in victoria the police don t take women s claims of violence and harassment seriously and that most rape cases that go to court don t end up with a conviction on the back of the horrific jill meagher crime and the recent murder of a young south australian woman by her partner we have seen rising concerns around rape and male violence reigniting public concern around women s safety but more cctv cameras will not stop violence against women male violence begins in the home in the institution of the family the cornerstone of class society which treats women like property allowing them to be owned used and exploited this is where our first conceptions of sexism are learned and this is reinforced by the sexualisation and objectification of women and girls and by our sexist corporate media for decades we have been sold the myth that feminism is no longer relevant that we have gained equality we know this to be false we know that this is false and that it works to stifle our voices and our ability to be organised and fight back a new study on violence against women conducted over four decades in 70 countries revea...
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