Guest post: Let them call me whorephobic
Guest post by Magdalen Berns
I was first accused of being a “TERF” by a self-identifying gay M2T student at the University of Edinburgh (UoE) after I disagreed with Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) LGBT Liberation group’s statement of support for infamous drag ‘ban’ of Glasgow LGBT Pride 2015. He was offended by the suggestion that T ought to have sought a mandate from the rest of LGB before publishing under the LGBT banner. He also felt that “cis” women were irrelevant to a conversation about misogyny in drag. After being branded a “TERF” due to my non-compliance, I was compelled to look up the Anti-Feminist Trans Activist (AFTA) war on feminist gender theory and the growing trend for no-platforming feminists.
A few weeks on, I learned of Amnesty’s decision to legitimise sexual exploitation of underprivileged women and girls by privileged first-world men, when they backed the full decriminalisation of “sex workers” and “third parties” including pimps, traffickers and men who pay for unwanted sex. Horrified at such a blatant assault on women’s human rights, I shared the relevant open letter from SPACE International in the EUSA Women’s Liberation Facebook group (and some related articles and video content), expecting other feminist students may share my position. At that time, I was unaware that EUSA had collaborated with full decriminalisation lobby group Scot-PEP, in proposing a motion banning “whorephobia” which silences criticism of the sex industry in EUSA “safe space”. So I was stunned by the level of hostility which my advocacy of the Nordic Model received when I was branded a SWERF with “whorephobic” views. Some members identified themselves as affiliates of Scot-PEP, others claimed to be “sex workers”; some of the mob went so far as to assert that sex trade survivor Rachel Moran is fabricating the child abuse and rape which she endured over 7 years as a prostituted victim of the sex trade in Dublin. According to the Women’s Liberation convenor at that time, I had to be banned to keep harmony in the group.
When I heard that the Women’s Liberation convenor who had excluded me was standing down, I took the opportunity to raise awareness of the issues by standing for the role in the October by-elections. After being publicly denounced as an “unsafe” candidate by several of my student peers from LGBT Society and Women’s Liberation I responded to an interview by the Feminist Society (FemSoc) to clarify students concerns about the content of my manifesto. FemSoc saw fit to apply trigger warnings for “cissexism” and “whorephobia” to my interview response and ultimately the compliant candidate won for her “strong stance against whorephobia” by majority of 75 votes to my total, 73. EUSA’s commitment to self-definition, which allows men to vote for their favourite candidate, combined with the low voter turnout (there are approximately 15,000 female students at UoE) were likely to have contributed to the result. Very few students are engaged by student politics and perhaps it is easy to see why that is.
Image credit: Edinburgh University Feminist Society “I’m a feminist because…” Campaign
Having avoided a no-confidence campaign (which would have inevitably ensued if I had actually won), the infamy I gained from the campaign gave me the opportunity to interact with students from across the UK who shared their own stories of being vilified for speaking out about feminism. I also received solidarity from sisters all around the world, many reporting similar experiences of being disinvited, silenced, harassed and defamed for vocal feminism too. Emboldened, I established a Fourth Wave Edinburgh Feminist Activists (EFA) group with other feminists so that we could campaign on local issues which are now taboo – like woman-centred feminism! EFA formed a Sexual Exploitation working group and submitted a response to the Prostitution Law Reform (Scotland) Bill which proposes repealing protections against coercion and implementing the failed New Zealand model in Scotland.
Although my experience of standing up to the patriarchy at EUSA was immensely stressful and threatening at times, it was an incredibly worthwhile exercise. I gained far more friends than enemies and above all, I learned to fully appreciate the true potential in female solidarity. If only a few splintered female voices are powerful enough to shake the foundations of male supremacist order, such that it aggressively seeks to silence us, think what more women can achieve, united.
Thank you very much for standing on principle, and for telling the world about it.
I heard you loud and clear over here in Canada. So very well done!
Magdalen, I’m glad you’ve provided a guest post, I had been looking forward to it. A dynamic and focused feminism can do nothing but good for all of us ultimately. Can I ask why you consider the New Zealand model is failed? I also don’t understand why you say that the protection against coercion is to be repealed, when the provided link to Urquhart’s website describes it as being extended.
As far as your reference to students being disillusioned by SU politics I think that is absolutely correct. I’ve been told by UK migrants that they avoided having anything to do with student politics, an attitude that seems to be universal regardless of institution.
Thank you for your work.
Great post Magdalen!!
I also participated in the review of the Scottish Prostitution question. I sent in a huge response that was very detailed.
Feminism today isn’t even feminism. That’s why so many men are calling themselves ‘feminists.’ it’s easy because absolutely ZERO male privilege is challenged.
The concept of “Self-definition” is an attack on objective reality, an assault on reason”and judgement , logically it can be stood on its head.” If ” X does not self-define as a whore-phobic, how can self-definers?”
Logically “Self definition” is of course total nonsense, a table is a table is a table, not a curtain or a spoon (whatever they may “feel”), but self-definition has not gained traction by accident, on the contrary It is a very useful tool of the ruling elite as it is easily used to spread confusion, to silence, to intimidate, to prevent communication , discussion and even actual thought (and hence effective opposition to the prevailing status quo).
The implications of “self-definition” are not just profoundly undemocratic, but totalitarian and congratulations on standing up against it.
No to Self Definition, Yes to the search for objective truth
I think this article doesn’t do a good job examining the conflict between feminism and transgender people. While I don’t want to paint anyone as an angel or a devil, the framework of victimhood and persecution by irrational and overreaching transgender people doesn’t hold up to careful analysis and contemporary research.
While I disagree somewhat with the author, my intention is not to shame or discourage thought or decent behavior. I am an activist and have seen abuse and attacks as well inside of various movements. One Facebook lefty man involved in Occupy Chicago organizing threatened that his ability to defend us all as a lawyer meant he had a right to dictate what things mean, who we should vote for, and how we should manage our activities. Abusers reassure themselves of their own importance in the movement. Another one was more honest, “of course I’m being abusive.”
I believe that the Swedish model on prostitution is the most humane one that exists in practice. I also believe that transgender people are not afforded the respect they deserve. Both of these issues I attribute to academia having failed the feminist movement. People are people who need housing and food just like you and me. The US hates its poor, and our elites are eager to divide us in anyway possible. This is a common thread in US academia.
According to a review in The New Yorker, Julie Bindel wrote an “admiring feature” in the British Guardian about the expert on transgender perversion, who believes “The core is, it’s really exciting for guys to imagine themselves with female breasts, or female breasts and a vulva.” This is an old gimmick of Freud to declare anyone who disagrees a sexual pervert who is blinded by her hysterical libido.
Transgenderism has a far different history than this cold pathology. As Oyewumi wrote in “The Invention of Women,” “The splitting of hairs over the relationship between gender and sex, the debate on essentialism, the debates about differences among women, and the preoccupation with gender bending/blending that have characterized feminism are actually feminist versions of the enduring debate on nature vs nurture that is inherent in Western thought and in the logic of its social hierarchies.” The book is an important one in that it describes “anatomical females” practicing behavior afforded in some societies to anatomical men. An anthropologist cited by Oyewumi noted how a certain anatomical female was treated in Yoruba society “The king looks upon her as his father, and addresses her as such, being the worshipper of the spirit of his ancestors. He kneels in saluting her, and she also returns the salutation, kneeling, never reclining, on her elbow as is the custom of the women in saluting their superiors. The king kneels for no one else but her…” (Oyewumi, The Invention of Women p37) In other words, transgenderism is not only a sexual fetish, but a human practice.
While I respect a certain amount of defensiveness from anyone in LGBT, the membership card system clearly does not pave the way for more education and knowledge. Criticism of gender look from a LGB perspective without this look at pre-colonial society is a recipe for chaos. Citing a Western academic, the fucking advice columnist Dan Savage (ptoo! I know!) wrote that “Letting same-sex couples make the same gender-neutral commitment that opposite-sex couples make doesn’t open the doors to polygamy.” In interviews, he has said that polygamy allows men to monopolize women. I don’t find it at all coincidental that Dan Savage supported the Iraq war and prostitution, while Chris Hedges opposes both. It is mainly through the anger at the Middle Eastern backwardness that Savage rallied himself to support war, and continues to support only one-on-one patriarchy against polyamory relationships. The fear is outwardly Orientalist. “Developed” (read: Western) cultures have overcome the hurdle of polygamy and deserve to spread the freedom to others. What polyamorists want sounds much more innocuous than a foreign occupation to me (http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/polyamory-when-two-just-wont-do/). In this exact same column, Savage advised a young babysitter to engage in prostitution with a wealthy man.
Without a challenge to Orientalism, the people in the LGBT community risk continuing to support other systems of patriarchy and domination, as Savage demonstrates.
Prostitution similarly is afforded greater respect through hate of state power. It’s rarely discussed that regarding a common LGBT issue, AIDS, according to an interview on NPR, “were it not for the intrusions of colonialism, it’s unlikely that the epidemic we know today would have come out in the way that we have seen.” Another pro-prostitution writer Luna Celeste who defends it on shaky class ideology grounds nevertheless has a point that “racial profiling, raids, invasive searches, forced placement into factories and “rehabilitation centers,” deportation, State acquisition of sex workers’ children” are real concerns.
The Swedish Nordic model does address these concerns but as the state response to the industry in the US, these are not being implemented. The US, the UK and much of the West leverage fear of foreigners to reduce criticism of elites. I cannot promise that confronting Orientalism will win you more support or victories, only that it will likely produce a more comprehensive criticism of power than even your detractors can summon.
Reject terms that conflate the exploited with the exploiter, such as sex worker and cis people. I think that would be the first step.
Thanks for the kind words of encouragement and support everyone!
Rob – The answers to your questions about the failed New Zealand model and the legislation which Jean Urquhart proposes introducing, should be found in the linked response to the bill consultation we submitted, so hopefully once you’ve read that this should clarify everything.[1] If you have any further questions after that, feel free to let me know!
LT – Thanks for your interesting response and its related detail. Just to clarify, the aim of my article was not to examine the conflict between feminism and transgender people but simply to share my own experience of being aggressively “safe spaced” out of EUSA (which is an affiliate of the NUS in the UK) for expressing advocacy for feminist theory and for our core human rights.
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Y99_304RetOW1KUWYxOTVJVnM/view
Magdalen, thanks for the response. We continue to have debate around prostitution in NZ. I think almost everyone (except religious moralists) agrees that the current legislative environment is an improvement on the previous system. The debate now seems to focus on the fact that thee are still undeniable problems with under age prostitutes, concentrations of brothels/street workers in undesirable locations and a largely unquantified issue with human-trafficking (especially Asian women). Digging around just now I found a parliamentary research paper from 2012 that raises exactly those issues [1]. Reading between the lines it looks as though Parliament will look more closely at these issues again in or soon after 2018 following further research.
NZ’s, as with the western world generally, fascination with sex, porn and libertarian influenced public policy makes criminalisation of buying sex unlikely I suspect. While undoubtedly there are some people who choose prostitution as a short or long term occupation and lifestyle choice, my view is that this is actually pretty insignificant compared to the number who are forced into the occupation by adverse circumstances if not downright coercion.
I also think you are right to have pointed out that prostitution and especially the negative effects mostly impact on those with the least education, financial and societal wealth (crudely speaking lower class), especially women (including trans women by adoption) and girls. That is certainly the case here and is also where the worst concentrations of street walking, under age prostitution, coercion and violence seem to be concentrated.
I think, in retrospect, I would describe our reforms as flawed rather than failed. There have been many positives such as the fact that prostitutes no longer face prosecution and the resulting stigma, H&S practices have improved and in licensed brothels at least under age prostitutes (18 years) have become rare violence and coercion seems to have been minimised. The police even seem to be making an effort to protect prostitutes and their rights. that said, some of the most damaging aspects of prostitution on the most vulnerable seem to have continued unabated. I would point out that rape, assault, theft and under age sex were all illegal prior to the reform, but protections have been made specifically stronger. The fact that has had no impact in some areas tells us to our shame that we have a systemic issue that needs addressing, not a prostitution issue that needs addressing. Incidentally, I could only find one report of a court case [2] in which a client sought to recover money from a prostitute alleging breach of contract (failure to deliver services). That failed and I suspect the real motivation was not the money, given the judges comment.
Best of luck. Given the tiny turnouts in EUA elections, maybe the best route to take to reform student politics is to persuade a couple of thousand of your peers to actually vote. Mind you, back in the day it was just as bad here and ‘no confidence in candidates’ always got the top vote by a factor of at least x2!
[1] http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/parl-support/research-papers/00PLSocRP12051/prostitution-law-reform-in-new-zealand
[2] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/prostitution/news/article.cfm?c_id=612&objectid=11269962
Am I the only regular here that is actually in favour of legalising prostitution?
In the sense that prostitutes should not be prosecuted? Absolutely not, I’m down with that. Much like drug use should be decriminalized. In both cases the force of the law comes down on marginalized people.
But pimps and and johns need to be dealt with appropriately. You can’t have fully legal sex work until such a time where it can *truly* be consensual and voluntary for all involved parties, and I doubt that’s any time in the this century.
No, I am too, and I find it astonishing that there is still a significant number of feminists who want to see prostitutes persecuted by the state. But I don’t think those feminists should be gagged or persecuted in their turn.
In passing, this article is a good illustration of the evils of trigger warnings, too, for those who think they are merely a benign signpost.
The only thing I fundamentally disagree with is that the writer has been in a fight with the ‘patriarchy’ as she claims. She is in a fight with feminism and, overwhelmingly, other women. It is distracting and misleading to pretend otherwise. This is an internal power struggle within the feminist movement. I’ve seen the same thing a million time in left wing politics.
Holmes, 10 years ago I would have agreed with full legalisation. Now though I’m not satisfied that the gains made by legalising what I see as the small fraction of the industry that is truely consensual and safe outweigh the harm done by normalising what is still unequal, exploitative and unsafe. Perhaps this can be fixed, but I think that’s a long way off, if ever.
Rob,
While you have a point, it is not a point that is specific to prostitution. There are bad business practices that need to be policed in every market, whether the thing being sold is sex, food, advertising space, anything without it being taken to be an argument against that market in general.
Holms, I see your point but…
When food being sold was unfit for consumption, that was dangerous to the consumer.
When an advertiser makes untrue or misleading claims that harms the buyer.
These are issues around consumer rights, not the dignity and safety of those working within an industry. Better analogies are intergenerational indentured labour (illegal), indentured or slave labour (illegal), workplace bullying or harassment (illegal in civilised countries) and other forms of exploitative social and economic practices which are often/usually illegal or regulated.
I have no problem with two consenting people hooking up. I have no problem with two consenting and equal people of hooking up for money where there is an equal power dynamic. What I have a problem with is an industry where people do something that is not only dangerous but emotionally and psychologically corrosive because they have no other viable choice (as they see it).
Reality is the number of upper and middle class sex workers who have other equally financially and socially rewarding career options to engage in are grossly outweighed by those who are poor financially, educationally and socially and for whom other options are limited or non-existant. you can’t fix that part of the industry by regulating safety or working conditions. You need to fix society so that people have the OPTION of taking that work or not.
Incidentally, one of the features of the NZ legislation is that refusal to work in the sex industry can not be used by the Government to withhold unemployment or other social security and it cannot be used to withhold accident compensation payments. In other words the government cannot force you into sex work. The government and ACC can however withhold benefits if you refuse any other form of work for which you are physically capable of undertaking.
There are always going to be people in the bottom X percentile in terms of wealth and opportunity, especially in nations with a poor safety net but even in nations with a good one. I’ve been there, and currently still am, and yes my options are abysmal*. Think of the shittiest job you’ve had in the past, and then compare that to mine: sorting domestic garbage at a recycling facility adjoining a landfill. Note that this job came with a risk of infected cuts and syringe jabs…
Fun work place story time! 1) I recieved so many small cuts from sharp items in the garbage that I just sort of… stopped caring about my safety; 2) a few weeks I think after I stopped working there, a corpse was found amongst the trash. In a freak coincidence, she had even gone to the same school as me. Yay! Oh and the commute was three buses taking two and a half hours, the hours were shit and I stank every day. Fun!
So yes, while prostitution is a terrible option to face when you are destitute, it is just one paticularly undesirable option amongst a crop of undersirable options. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that there will always be people in the position that they feel they have no other choice but to enter that work is just another reason to give it the officialdom of legal, regulated work and all of the protections thus implied.
*Especially since the previous PM drastically impaired Australia’s safety net just a couple of years ago, the christofascist fuckhead.
What an excellent piece of writing! I hope it reaches new and young ears.
As for the comment :
” I find it astonishing that there is still a significant number of feminists who want to see prostitutes persecuted by the state. But I don’t think those feminists should be gagged or persecuted in their turn. ”
That was a ridiculous straw man. No feminist is advocating for the persecution of prostitutes. The Nordic model that abolitionists are working for only criminalizes johns and pimps, NOT prostitution victims. Criminalizing victims would be nonsense.
Rob – flawed might be more accurate, however there is the issue of he US State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report which indicates that indigenous children are being being forced into prostitution with no action taken in response by the New Zealand authorities;[1] Given that suggests there may be some conflict of interest preventing the authorities from protection vulnerable people from coercion we feel the model fails on that basis.
Pinkeen – Voltaire put it well when he said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.” In this case criticisms of pimps, traffickers and men who pay for unwanted sex are disallowed as well as criticisms of male supremacist gender hierarchy by EUSA, an organisation with long track record of apologism for rape, sexual assault and harassment which has no credibility as a “feminist”; that is why I do not consider my experience to be an example of some “internal struggle within the feminist movement” but rather a symptom of the wider systemic male supremacist rebranding of feminism by patriarchal and structurally powerful organisations such as the NUS and its affiliates.
Holms – Aside from the point that the “shittest jobs we’ve had in the past” do not have the gendered power structure where men exploit women and girls (as prostitution clearly does), the key point here is that in prostitution a person is not simply selling their labour, they are selling themselves: There is a reason why rape is considered such a serious crime and, this is because it is physically, psychologically and emotionally traumatic for the victim whereas forcing people to sort garbage isn’t a crime. Being forced or coerced to sort garbage for a living is not remotely comparable to being forced or coerced to be penetrated by different men several times a day, when you think about it.
[1] http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/226848.pdf
Well, he didn’t, but I take your point. But really, if you are having to wriggle quiet a lot to make this about ‘male supremacy’ when the only people trying to silence you are self-identified feminists and, the vast majority of them, women.
I don’t mean to be overly pedantic, but it is a crime, and that rather undermines your point, I think.
Where do you get this idea from? EUSA is one of many affiliates of the NUS who are being actively encouraged to take forward these silencing antifeminist motions and it is telling that self defining “feminists” are not the ones being silenced anywhere in UK higher education.
Not quite rape though, is it?
Where do you get this idea from? EUSA is one of many affiliates of the NUS who are being actively encouraged to take forward these silencing antifeminist motions
But the pressure to take the motions forward is all coming from feminist activists, most of them women. Is there a single example of a motion like this not being put forward by feminist activists? What you call ‘antifeminist’ other feminists call ‘radically feminist’. This is a factional fight within feminism not a battle with the patriarchy.
Its’ not the same thing, but I think it would be unedifying to speculate about whether it would be worse to be raped or enslaved.
Magdalen @20, I can hardly argue that child sex and trafficking foreign women into NZ for sex is ok, so I won’t. All I can do is point out that this is illegal activity under several Statutes. It was illegal under the old criminalised system, the current legalised system and any potential future Nordic based model.
While not addressed under trafficking laws, child sex is dealt with at a social services level. The priority is removing children from street life, which is where this abuse occurs. It’s shameful, inexcusable, indefensible and thankfully, as far as can be estimated, affects a small number of children.
Holmes, for once I just don’t get you.
I’m not speculating on that. We’ve all been made to sort through rubbish at some point in our lives. It’s not the same thing as being raped.
The point I was making was that the disenfranchised only have bad options, and as there will always be people situated thus, I think it incumbent on the government to do what it can to make the shit options safe. With one of the options for women being prostitution, it makes sense for it to be legal so that the people can be protected by law.
Incidentally, dirty labour intensive jobs almost universally go to men. That job was 100% male.
Really.
Holms @27, note, I’ve split your quote and reversed the order to more sensibly address the points raised.
Of course we agree that the government should ensure workplace safety. For anyone in prostitution that can be achieved by decriminalising the selling of sex, regulating safe practices and providing for coverage under OSH/HSE legislation. You don’t have to legalise prostitution to achieve that goal.
You make my point for me. While people find themselves with no other option we have a broken society that prevents those people from having a genuine choice. While there is no genuine choice there is no equality in the seller/buyer relationship, which is therefore inherently exploitative. It is because this applies to the majority of sex workers that my view has swung more in favour of the Nordic model.
Further
You just rendered the vast number of women working in disgusting and filthy traditionally female jobs invisible. Try working in commercial cleaning, elder or disability care for starters. It’s not all vacuum cleaners and cups of tea. (Not to mention unpaid domestic labour and child rearing)
I think you do if you want to give sex workers the full protection of the law.If you don’t they remain under threat from the police, who, under most current systems including Nordic versions, represent the greatest source of harassment and exploitation of prostitutes.
If a poor person lives in a nation with little to no safety net – no unemployment benefit, for example – then I agree that implementing legal prostitution is problematic. Note however that this is a narrower scenario, a subset of the general observation that poor people have bad options, thus I don’t agree that this is inherently exploitative. Rather, it can be exploitative, depending on the nation / state / city / possibly even neighbourhood.
Oops yes, when I said “dirty labour intensive jobs” I had domestic waste management in mind, so, garbage collection and things related to that.
[…] I wrote about my experience of being excluded from Edinburgh University Student Association (EUSA) Women’s Liberation, LGBT […]
Instead of AFTA I propose RATs. Take your pick:
Radical Antifeminist Transactivists
Rabid Antieverythingbutwhattheyconsideraffirming Transtryrants
Reckless Antelogical Toddlers