Letters The Guardian, Monday November 17 2008

Feminist contempt for prostitutes


What is most striking about feminist reporters who single out prostitution as worse than any other industry is their contempt for prostitute women. Zoe Williams describes sex workers as either "better at sex than they are at anything else" or "so disadvantaged that they may as well have been kidnapped" (Turned off by tart-lit, November 13).

There is no sisterly understanding of, no identification with, women who for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of pressing economic need, work in the sex industry; no appreciation of the social skills required for a job that deals not only with men's egos, but with the constant threat of arrest and its dire consequences, especially for women's safety and keeping families together. (Who would risk reporting a violent man if you may end up in prison yourself and be separated from your children?)

Being good at sex (or at faking it) does not mean you have no other skills; being disadvantaged does not mean you are not a caring mother.

Many clients are more respectful of the women whose services they pay for than feminists who claim to speak for us. If these feminists spent as much time looking at what we have in common as women as they now spend distancing themselves from us, feminism would be less arrogant, repressive and out of touch. And feminists in government would worry about our rights rather than our "rehabilitation".

Cari Mitchell
English Collective of Prostitutes

 

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Guardian Letters

Saturday, 23 February 2008

 

Why society is still failing prostitutes

Government feminists and Christian fundamentalists have joined forces claiming that prostitution is violence. They rightly say that attacks against prostitute women are common and that it's only when five are murdered in one place that it starts to provoke debate.

They want to criminalise men who buy sex, as Sweden has done. But prosecuting clients is a dangerous diversion from prosecuting violent men. It doesn't answer why it took five deaths in Ipswich to put women's safety on the agenda. If prostitution is the problem, why are so many non-prostitute women reporting rape and other violence?

On February 16, Women Against Rape held a public trial where 30 rape victims testified about not getting justice. It was a gruelling catalogue of inefficiency, neglect and hostility by the authorities - the police didn't collect the evidence or lost it; the CPS refused to prosecute or was ill-prepared; judges were biased. The result: violent men were free to attack again.

The authorities claim that sex workers in Ipswich are receiving help. But women tell us that most have moved elsewhere and that those who remain have been warned by police that once the media leaves, they can expect Asbos. Proposed changes in the law, currently in the Lords, would make arrest for soliciting easier and force women into "rehabilitation" under threat of imprisonment.

New Zealand has decriminalised prostitution on grounds of "sex workers' human rights, protection from exploitation and promotion of occupational health and safety". Five years on, sex workers are more able to report violence and find it easier to leave prostitution. Why can't safety be prioritised here?

Niki Adams
English Collective of Prostitutes
Lisa Longstaff
Women Against Rape