I can’t even deal with this right now. Can someone else take this one?
Ana makes more money each year she gains experience in her career
Julia loses money each year because she is seen as an object that is “used up” by her job
Ana’s occupational hazards include repetitive motion injuries and construction accidents, and she is protected by OSHA and workers compensation laws if something happens
Julia’s occupational hazards include rape, pregnancy, beatings, rectal prolapse, murder, PTSD, and sexually transmitted diseases. OSHA does not care.
Ana isn’t offered extra money for failing to wear a hardhat in construction zones
Julia is offered extra money for having sex without a condom
If Ana turns down a client they will go to someone else that can also safely turn them down
If Julia turns down a client they may react violently, or they will go to someone who can’t turn down clients
Ana’s colleagues are like her- they are highly paid and well educated. they all have many options besides being architects. Most of them are men.
Julia’s colleagues are forced into their jobs and have few (if any) options. Almost all of them are women and children.
Many in favor of the legalization of prostitution refer to it as “sex
work” and employ concepts such as “consent,” “agency,” “sexual freedom,”
“the right to work,” and even “human rights” in the course of making
their defense.[1] Consider some of the common claims defenders of
legalization advance: sex work is work just like any other form of work,
only the social shame and stigma around sex prevent people from seeing
it as such;[2] many (most) women[3] who sell sex chose to be there, so
we should respect their choice and agency, after all they are in no
different a position than someone who chooses a minimum wage job without
better alternatives;[4] women choosing to sell sex is an example of
sexual freedom and rejecting repressive norms that limit women’s
sexuality,[5] so we should respect their sexually autonomous choices to
sell sex for a living. - Why Sex Work Isn’t Work
by Lori Watson
Also, many of the formerly prostituted do not support being called “sex workers” or them being prostituted being called “sex work.”
“In January 2014, 61 South Asian victims and
survivors of prostitution as well as women’s groups representing
communities marginalized by caste, class and ethnicity and
antitrafficking organizations helping girls and women “trapped in bonded
labour and other forms of servitude” wrote to Mlambo-Ngcuka to protest
the new UN Women policy of avoiding the word prostitution.
“We do not want to be called ‘sex workers’ but prostituted women and
children, as we can never accept our exploitation as ‘work,’ ” the
letter signers wrote. “We think that the attempts in UN documents to
call us ‘sex workers’ legitimizes violence against women, especially
women of discriminated caste, poor men and women and women and men from
minority groups, who are the majority of the prostituted.”
They are still awaiting an answer from UN Women, Gupta said.
Censoring comment about violence against girls and women is not new
in the Commission on the Status of Women or in the UN more broadly.
Nafis Sadik, the outspoken executive director of the United Nations
Population Fund, or UNFPA, from 1987 to 2000, said in an interview in
2013 that there had been numerous attempts to silence her, often from
pressure by governments.”
— Prostitution: A Word That UN Women Does Not Want to Hear | March 31, 2015
Cherry Smiley’s AWAN address to the 55th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN in 2011.
“Please be aware that the term ‘sex work’, which is
found in your public policies and documents, came out of the US sex
trade of the 1970’s. It was invented with the particular aim of
normalising and sanitising prostitution for the public and for lawmakers
in particular, and you have done a great service for those who profit
from prostitution by your acceptance and adoption of it. Simultaneously
you have also – inadvertently, we acknowledge – levelled a painful
insult against us. We are, all of us, sex-trade survivors; the living
witnesses of a dehumanising trade, and any acceptance of our abuse as
‘work’ further dehumanises us.“
— Open Letter from Survivors, Alliance of Women for the Abolition of Prostitution
i hate how they market alexa as a ‘member of the family’ like that’s SO fucking blatantly insidious and terrifying also if i wanted an untrustworthy/cold/emotionless machine in my life i’d just talk to my fuckin father
me, gay and running out of breath going up the stairs: I bet I could run a farm
me, gay with scoliosis and a joint problem and depression and anxiety and running out of breath going up the stairs: I CAN run a farm I just have to do it in my own way!!
2 yrs later:
Me, gay with a chronic hip injury, anxiety, depression, ADD and STILL running out of breath from stairs even as I type this from my bed in the farmhouse:
me, gay with depression, adhd, chronic migraines & assorted other bullshit, but also with a boulder i dug out from the garden:
