Raising Consciousness
ending stigmas begins with understanding them
We only know what our language allows us to know. When it comes to certain topics such as sex work, our minds immediately connect that concept with bad stigmas. A few examples include: not being intellectual, having some some sort of STD’s/STI’s, not being mentally sound or coming from a broken family. These are just a few of the stigmas that tie in with the occupation of a sex worker.
Recently, in my Gender Theory class we had a guest speaker come in who is an active sex worker that got her PhD from the University of Southern California. Her name was Dr. Vanessa Carlisle.
The main message of her visit was on “sex work and social justice.” She tied in her speech with two theorists, Mohanty and bell hooks. In Mohanty’s work, she basically discusses how white feminism silences third world/global south women by naming their oppressions for them. bell hooks, on the other hand, explains how privileged women in way, flip the script and gain equality in situations that will never be equal because it requires the oppression of others.
When tying both of these theorists with the sex industry. Another theorist came to mind…. Spivak. In her work, she mentions that “the problem of human discourse is generally seen as articulating itself in terms of, three shifting “concepts”: language, world, and consciousness.” Basically stating that the way in which we construct our language has some sort of tie with our consciousness whether we know it or not. A great example of this is the stigmas that we are predisposed to believe when the term “sex workers” comes to mind. Another interesting point Spivak brings up is this phenomenon of “womb envy.” Womb envy is this concept coined by Karen Horney that refers to men’s purported fear and jealousy of women’s power to give birth and nurture life, leading males to react in other pursuits of powers; such as physical or political.
The womb is a place of production and is often discredited for the true labor it endures. The womb, let alone the wom(b)an is always described as passive and submissive, ready to take what is given to it. And in a sense, this ties with sex workers and their labor. Sex workers aren’t seen as laborers. It’s not seen as a true profession. Instead it’s discredited and looked down upon, therefore intertwining with this phenomenon of “womb envy”(in some cases).
A strong point that Dr. Carlisle brought up was the United States sex worker rights movement in essence mirrors the US feminist movement. She explained how clients and workers that get caught up both share the same criminal record, however…. the sex workers end up getting more of the consequences such as longer jail time. Tying it with the US feminist movement, it’s a fight for what’s right! Similar to feminist movements, we should definitely raise more consciousness in groups, protests, policy changes and etc.
