English Language V

Paper Prostitution: A Crime against Women

Teacher: Marina Pasquini Student: Valeria Valencia Year: 2010

Valeria Valencia

Prostitution: A Crime against Women

The history of prostitution in western civilizations dates back to at least ancient Greece. For a long time, this practice has been considered an activity freely chosen by women in order to earn money in exchange for sexual relationships. At present, theories about prostitution around the world are divided. As described in the article Why hasnt anyone tried this before? (De Santis, 2010), in some countries like Sweden, prostitution is considered a crime against women that must be abolished. In Argentina, as described by the Argentinean feminist Marta Fontela in her article Trata de mujeres y nios para la prostitucin: los derechos de las humanas, la realidad y su enfoque jurdico (2007), after decades of punishing prostitutes for considering their activity indecent and harmful to society, prostitution is at present legally allowed, which means that Argentinean law considers the practice neither a crime against women, as in Sweden, nor a harmful activity for society in general. Considering both the causes and the consequences of entering prostitution, I will seek to demonstrate that prostitution is a crime against women because it reinforces violence against women. The causes for which women enter prostitution are usually related to low social and economic position in society and a lack of possibilities to improve that situation. Despite the different geographical situations, studies in many countries agree on the causes leading some women to enter prostitution. The world organization Doctors of the World in the document Manifiesto de Mdicos del Mundo en contra de que se regule la prostitucin como una actividad laboral (2006), states that poverty and gender violence are fundamental factors in the lives of women entering prostitution. In Bolivia, 2

Valeria Valencia a survey carried out by the University of La Paz and cited by the Bolivian jurist Lourdes Magdalena Bizarroque Hidalgo in her article Regulacin de la prostitucin en relacin a los DDHH places unemployment, poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuses as the four main causes of entering prostitution. In Sweden, lack of education, drugs addiction and sexual and racial discrimination are also found to be reasons for entering this practice. Although some causes vary from country to country, there is a common cause that leads women to prostitute themselves: low economic and social position. Since, as research around the world has shown, there is always a relationship between marginality and prostitution, it is possible to argue that entering this practice cannot be considered a free choice, but a hard decision that women may take when they have no other option. As Marta Fontela points out in her article, although some prostitutes state that they are happy with their lives and even enjoy what they do, it is important to note that they represent a tiny percentage of all the women entering prostitution every year. It is also important to highlight that the fact that some people choose a certain way of living does not imply that their choice is a good or desirable one. In this sense, a comparison with slavery can be traced, since there were some slaves too, in the past, who opposed the prohibition of slavery. The state of poverty in which women who enter prostitution are reflects the economical position of most women (prostitutes or not) all around the world. The statistics show a clear connection between gender and economical power. According to a survey carried out in the year 2000 by the United Nations, cited in the feminist publication Brujas, women perform 66% of the work worldwide, but perceive only 10% of the salaries, own 1% of properties and constitute 80% of the 1,500,000 poorer people in the world.

Valeria Valencia The lower position of women in society is, according to feminist theories, not casual, but a consequence of gender discrimination, which explains the injustices suffered by women in both social and economical levels. This inequity between men and women dates back to the 7th century BC, according to research carried out by the American feminist Glenda Lerner in 1986 and cited in Marta Fontelas article Qu es el patriarcado?(2008). She explains that in the Mesopotamia, men controlled their families as their properties, and that the organization of society followed the same pattern. Many centuries later, with the emergence of modern states, the power over the members of a family moved from the hands of the father to the hands of the state. This relationship has guaranteed the dominion of men over women through law and economy, preventing women from becoming independent political subjects. Nowadays, although the position of women in society has changed, there is still a belief that places women in an inferior status than men. This belief is strengthened by the main monotheistic religions. As described by the Argentinean journalist Alfredo Grieco y Bavio in his 2006 article Y si dios es mujer? christianity, which is the most influential religion in western societies (particularly in those of Latin America), reinforces the low position of women by portraying them as sinners in the Bible, and by relegating them to a minor role in the history of their myths. In this way, a subconscious underestimation for women triggered by religion and patriarchy arises in the minds of western peoples. Prostitution reinforces this inequity between genders by submerging women into a world of marginality from which it is very difficult to emerge. As previously stated, the woman who decides to prostitute herself is forced by the harsh living conditions she has to endure, in the hope of earning more money than is otherwise possible for her to get if looking for a job. The reality shows, however, that after becoming a prostitute, she not

Valeria Valencia only may never earn as much money as she had thought, but also she falls into a vicious circle of marginality, becoming a woman that condemned and stigmatized by the society that surrounds her, will hardly be able to escape her condition and access a real job. After describing gender discrimination, inequity at a social and economical level and the way prostitution reinforces this state of affairs, it is possible to argue that prostitution consolidates and reasserts violence against women. This violence, as described above, is reflected in the social and economical level by reaffirming the disadvantageous position of women in society. But there is still another way in which prostitution becomes a device of exercising violence on women, and it is by reducing womens body to a mere commodity. A prostitutes body is rented and used by somebody else for sexual pleasure. This reduction of a persons body to a commodity can be compared to that of a slaves body, which is sold in order to be used by another person. It is hard then to understand why slavery has been illegal for more than a century and prostitution has not. A prostitute interviewed by American authors Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin for their book Rent Girl (2004), talked with amazement about the way they [the clients] can so profoundly disconnect from what it is theyre having sex with, the way they think they own the world, watch them purchase a female. American activist Sam Berg states on this point that in prostitution it is not sex that is sold, it is power over women. So far I have tried to describe the low position of women in society and related it to gender discrimination in order to explain the causes of prostitution. I have also referred to the way in which this practice reasserts violence against women, which would explain why I argued at the beginning of the essay that prostitution is a crime. In

Valeria Valencia addition to this, I will refer to the psychological and biological consequences of exercising prostitution. The first consequence one could think of when considering the effects of prostitution are the sexually transmitted diseases (STD). These include a wide range of diseases like syphilis, viral hepatitis, human papilloma virus, and AIDS. For decades, the focus of scientific research on this topic has been put on the risks that men run when paying for sex. In this way, the main concern was on securing the clients health, while the prostitute was seen as a vehicle for spreading diseases, a tendency that illustrates the prevailing sexism of western societies. In the last years, however, the tendency started to revert. Just as prostitution began to be part of the discussion of feminist theories, also the focus of STD transmission research shifted from the clients to the prostitutes. An example of this is the Manifiesto de Mdicos del Mundo en contra de que se regule la prostitucin como una actividad laboral, which highlighted the fact that prostitutes are exposed to STD as part of their argument for the legal prohibition of prostitution, adding that the risks increase because of the negative of many men to use condoms with prostitutes. Another damage suffered by prostitutes affects them at the psychological level. These damages are particularly serious, since, contrary to STD, there is no way of avoiding them. These damages are known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which describes symptoms which result from trauma. According to the definition provided by the American Psychiatric Association, in the work Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (2000) they can be the result of: extreme traumatic stressors involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury; or other threat to one's personal integrity; or witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or a threat

Valeria Valencia to the physical integrity of another person; or learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other associate. This definition is important to grasp the extent of the harm that is done when prostituting a person. The survey Prostitution, Violence, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder carried out in San Francisco, USA in 1998 by Melissa Farley, PhD for the Women's Centres and Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, Oakland, California, showed that 68% of respondent prostitutes met criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, while 76% met criteria for partial PTSD. These traumas are evident in several aspects such as low self-esteem, problematic or null relationships with men, impossibility to engage in a serious relationship or to have normal sexual relationships. In conclusion, when considering prostitution, two aspects should be taken into account: the causes and the consequences. By analysing the causes it is possible to observe marginal conditions and inequity between genders. By analysing the consequences, diseases and psychological traumas can be observed. As a result, two conclusions can be drawn; first, the decision of entering prostitution is never taken freely, but as the last option when the living conditions and the possibilities to ascend socially are very few; second, prostitutes end up suffering to get each cent, contrary to the common belief of prostitutes looking for easy money. These are the reasons why prostitutes should not be punished or be allowed to work legally. Prostitutes are victims of inequity and gender discrimination and as such, they should be provided with economical, medical and psychological help.

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Reference list
American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Washington, DC: American psychiatric Association. Berg, S. (No date) [Link] FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Retrieved September 15, 2010, from [Link] name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2&categories=Prostitution+FAQ#3 De Santis, M. Why hasnt anyone tried this before? Womens Justice Centre. (2010) Retrieved August 02, 2010, from [Link] Farley, M. Prostitution, Violence, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Prostitution, Research and Education. (1998). Retrieved September 15, 2010 from [Link] Fontela, M. Qu es el patriarcado? Mujeres en Red. El Peridico Feminista. (2008). Retrieved September 15, 2010 from [Link] article1396 Fontela, M. (2007). Trata de mujeres y nias para la prostitucin: los derechos de las humanas, la realidad y su enfoque jurdico. Brujas: publicacin feminista. Grieco y Bavio, A. (2006) Y si Dios es Mujer? Revista Veintitrs. Manifiesto de Mdicos del Mundo en contra de que se regule la prostitucin como una actividad laboral. Observatorio de la violencia de gnero. (2006). Retrieved August 30 from [Link] esto_violencia.pdf McCubbin, L. & Tea, M. (2004). Rent Girl. San Francisco: Last Gap. Bizarroque Hidalgo, L.M. Regulacin de prostitucin en relacin a los DDHH, [Link] (No date). Retrieved September 15, 2010 from [Link]

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