Article #MeToo, sexual harassment and prostitution: joining the dots and demanding change
Article #MeToo, sexual harassment and prostitution: joining the dots and demanding change
“When I read Maltby’s account, I was struck by the parallel with the system of prostitution, whereby men use their unfair economic advantages and women’s unfair economic disadvantages to financially coerce women into allowing them to sexually use them. And then they justify it as her choice – just as no doubt Green would have justified any sexual activity if Maltby had succumbed to his blackmail – completely missing the point that if the system was not so skewed in men’s favour, she would not have needed his money or his patronage in the first place, and he would not have been in a position to buy sexual access and flattery with favours or crude cash.
To any of us still in doubt about how the institution of prostitution and its acceptance by men underpins the structural inequality between the sexes, it is time to open our eyes.
In the words of Julia O’Connell Davidson, in prostitution the punter is allowed to treat the woman as if she’s socially dead; as if she’s not a human being. Or in the words of a survivor, “like a public toilet.” When prostitution is sanctioned – even by insisting it’s regular work or attempting to legalise it – men’s sense of entitlement to sexual access to women is reinforced and legitimised. And women’s status as objects to be used, as lesser beings, not quite fully human, is enshrined in the collective psyche. The lower status of women and their sexual harassment and abuse, and systematic disadvantaging inevitably follow on from that…”
Read more: https://nordicmodelnow.org/2017/11/04/metoo-sexual-harassment-and-prostitution-joining-the-dots-and-demanding-change/
nordicmodelnow
Nov 27 2024, 1:07 AM #1This is from 2017 but no less relevant today.
“When I read Maltby’s account, I was struck by the parallel with the system of prostitution, whereby men use their unfair economic advantages and women’s unfair economic disadvantages to financially coerce women into allowing them to sexually use them. And then they justify it as her choice – just as no doubt Green would have justified any sexual activity if Maltby had succumbed to his blackmail – completely missing the point that if the system was not so skewed in men’s favour, she would not have needed his money or his patronage in the first place, and he would not have been in a position to buy sexual access and flattery with favours or crude cash.
To any of us still in doubt about how the institution of prostitution and its acceptance by men underpins the structural inequality between the sexes, it is time to open our eyes.
In the words of Julia O’Connell Davidson, in prostitution the punter is allowed to treat the woman as if she’s socially dead; as if she’s not a human being. Or in the words of a survivor, “like a public toilet.” When prostitution is sanctioned – even by insisting it’s regular work or attempting to legalise it – men’s sense of entitlement to sexual access to women is reinforced and legitimised. And women’s status as objects to be used, as lesser beings, not quite fully human, is enshrined in the collective psyche. The lower status of women and their sexual harassment and abuse, and systematic disadvantaging inevitably follow on from that…”
Read more: https://nordicmodelnow.org/2017/11/04/metoo-sexual-harassment-and-prostitution-joining-the-dots-and-demanding-change/