To achieve a woman’s world, the kind that this conference invokes with its name, feminists must build a global, independent women’s movement in which the central objective is to call upon women around the world to participate in the liberation of all women.
It is both illogical and counter to the principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize the men who exploit the prostitution of others under the pretext of protecting prostituted women from these same men.
We know from more than forty years of observing and fighting to end wife assault and rape that each act of sexist violence combines to create a force that terrorizes not only that particular battered, raped or prostituted woman in the present and into her future, but it also makes of her subjugation, an example with which to terrorize even those women who were not attacked, were not battered or raped this time, not this time brought to our knees.
Prostitution enforces compulsory heterosexuality by teaching men that they have the right to access women’s bodies on their terms and to expect prostitution-like behaviour from other women. Lesbianism, by contrast, can create more sexual autonomy for women by providing an alternative for some women that is also an example to society of sexuality that is not male-controlled.
By Kathleen Piovesan, Jacqueline Gullion and Erin Graham
Prostitution is a prime example of how the forces of sexism, poverty, and racism serve as a vice grip on women’s freedom. I maintain that all three issues must be addressed to abolish it. A good start would be to decriminalize prostituted women, and enforce the criminalization of johns and pimps. Legitimating this exploitation by labeling it work, does not serve the equality interests of women.
The missing were Women, many Aboriginal Women, the friends and neighbours and even beat cops who reported them gone feared Violence against Women. Those fears were based on the vulnerability of women in prostitution, the violence of men buying sex, the viciousness of sexualized racism toward Aboriginal women on Vancouver streets and the prevalence of all forms of Violence against Women. Their fears have been proved horribly insightful.
