(surprisingly there's not a photo of a pretty woman here)
TW: Slurs, sexual harassment, sexual abuse
Every now and then something happens that brings it home to me just how bad misogyny is in our culture. I keep getting re-traumatised by it, both because I already have Complex Trauma, but also because I’m aware of just how abusive certain behaviours and practises are.
In this instance, I just happened to look at the map on a hostel’s website. It was not Google maps, but definitely looked like the screenshot of some sort of online map of the town. Apart from the location’s pin, there were the usual names of shops, institutions, and landmarks in the area around it. What caught my eye were two places that came with the symbol of a musical note, which seems like a very cynical symbol to choose, given that their names were “Titty Twister” and “Casanova XL”.
It is one thing to know that these kind of “clubs” exist, to be aware that these tend to be around the area of the central station in a big city, but it is a different thing altogether, to see their names and where they are exactly, especially when you’re not so far from that area.
The amount of dissociation of most people when it comes to the existence of strip clubs and brothels is very similar as to that when it comes to the animal abuse of the meat/dairy industry. Everyone knows it’s there, but no one wants to see it (apart from the direct abusers, of course). It’s a taboo. No one wants to be aware of the abusiveness of these practises.
But let’s state the awful truth: Strip clubs are legally allowed places where women are paid for being publicly humiliated and sexually harassed. It is seen as a form of “adult” (male!) entertainment. Let me repeat that: Real, alive human beings are legally being sexually harassed. It is their “profession”.
Please take a moment to let that sink in for a moment. Because most likely you’ve learned to see this as normal, as everybody else. Our society’s misogynous brainwash teaches people from childhood on that the sexual objectification of women is natural and normal and an acceptable status quo. So much so that not even the law protects these women.
But it’s anything but natural. It always helps to become aware of brainwash by using a parallel. Let’s think about whether there’s any other human group of people who is legally treated in a similar way in western countries. Let’s just start with the name of that first place. Imagine what it would be like if there was any kind of place – maybe a shop or a café – that called itself “The Naughty Negro”. What would happen? There would rightfully be a shitstorm on social media, it would be all over TV and newspapers, and there would be people protesting in front of that place! We actually do have protests like that happening about racist books and toys being displayed in museums.
Who demonstrates against singular instances of misogyny? It would be difficult to know where to start, because there are so many. We’d have to occupy the whole red light district. We’d have to protest against all kinds of shops – how many brands use the photo or picture of a sexually objectified woman to sell their products? Sometimes it feels like 90%.
So much for the level of tolerance for misogyny in our society. As for the abuse that is being done to women in these “clubs”, what can we compare that to? Let’s remember that these are publicly accessible. It’s not hidden or private abuse that happens in someone’s home. It is a business. It is advertising for itself and seeking “visitors”.
The only thing that comes to my mind are the circuses and fairs that up till the early 20th century exhibited people of colour as exotic animals. They were there to be stared at, just like other people who were seen as “freaks”. Of course women of colour still are the victims of double discrimination and the majority of the women in these abusive places are not native to the country.
And let’s not forget that while prostitution is illegal, it is not treated like an emergency human rights violation at all, and most importantly, that being the “service user” of prostitution is not illegal, because it is not seen as the rape that it is. All of this despite the well-known fact that the vast majority of prostitutes are victims of human trafficking (and definitely most of them will have experienced childhood abuse as well). These women are slaves, but both the public and the state tolerate the known existence of brothels. Society turns a blind eye, seeing it as an annoyance at most (some even as a necessity), thereby condoning, supporting, and enabling the abuse. Some towns (among them my home town) even advertise these places as “tourist attractions”.
To recap: The level to which misogyny and therefore the abuse of women is normalised in our culture is so high that being sexually objectified and harassed for money is a legal “job”. While this kind of “job” is definitely stigmatised in wider society, it is just another expression of misogyny, because the discrimination targets the victims of the abuse, and not the abusers, who are never even discussed as part of the problem, let alone the cause!
It would be like society shaming a child for being mistreated by their parents, and never even thinking about how it is actually the parents who are doing something shameful here. The “excuse” for the discrimination of these women often being that they “chose” their “job”, when everyone’s common sense should tell them that obviously no one chooses to be mistreated, but that the context which puts women into this place is complex. A full understanding would necessitate trauma awareness (which is universally needed everywhere), but it’s definitely not necessary for the common sense part, nor for compassion. What really is standing in the way is the internalised misogyny of course.
So what is needed to transform society when it’s obvious that we’re in the middle of a humanitarian crisis? We need activism – every form of it. We need both women and men to protest against misogyny, and not just on international women’s day. We need people to be brave and challenge their family/friends/partners/co-workers when they express misogynous views. We need to spread awareness. We need to talk about this and we need to write about this. Network with others who have the awareness. The next time that someone makes an awkward or annoyed comment or a joke about strip clubs and brothels, maybe you can inform them about the abusiveness of these places and invite them to take off their misogynous glasses.
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