Sex Workers Unite!

Two weeks ago in my Gender and Work class we discussed Sex Work with our guest speaker Jenn Clamen. Without a doubt it was one of the most interesting guest lectures I have ever been to. She explained to the class how although sex work is no longer illegal in Canada there are still parts of the Criminal Code that make aspects surrounding sex work prohibited. For example, it is not illegal to be a prostitute but it is illegal to own or operate a bawdy house (brothel), transport someone to a bawdy house, or negotiate the terms of a sexual service.

You can find these exact laws illustrated in the Canadian Criminal Code:

210– (Bawdy house law)

211– (Transporting law)

212– (Pimping law)

213– (Communication law)

Now many of you are probably already aware of these laws but in my class we were shocked. Clamen explained to us how the application of these laws significantly decreases the safety for sex workers because in order to be legal you must never tell anyone where you are going or what services you are comfortable performing. One of their responses to this injustice was to unite on the web, which is where our class fits into the discussion.

The other day in class we were introduced to Hegland and Nelson’s (2002) article which demonstrated the ways that the internet is used by cross dressers because…

“the virtual world of the Internet provides a safe and anonymous place that allows those individuals who live at the fringes of society to reflect upon their own paths, meet others, and offer or receive advice and support without risking public condemnation or persecution.” (141)

I believe that this same concept is being used by sex workers. The power of the web has given sex workers the opportunity to establish a globalized community. Through these sites they can exchange studies, news, and campaign ideas to communities all over the world.

Then there are more local sites like POWER (Prostitution of Ottawa/Gatineau Work, Educate and Resist) or Maggies (Toronto sex Workers Action Project) who operate to assist local sex workers in making their jobs safer. Increasing their safety is done by offering advice and tips to protect themselves and also by documenting experiences by other workers in the neighbourhood.

Furthermore, they are using the internet to illustrate what Fuchs calls actuality/potentiality. They release documents to explain to workers what the current laws are (actuality) and how to get around them safely. They then focus much of their sites towards the shift of potentiality through campaigns, media releases, documents etc.

Thus, we are being given another example of how the internet can be used to empower an extremely marginalized group of people. Yet, thinking in Fuch’s terms we must still ask critical questions such as…

Which sex workers have the accessibility to these sites?

Or

Do sites such as these create a digital divide amongst the sex working community?

I would love to know your thoughts and reactions to this discussion!

Proof We Are Not Alone!

Hello my Feminist Friends, the other day I was introduced to a blog by our social media guru called “Feminist Law Professors” and I just had to share some of it with you. If you couldn’t tell from the title it is a blog consisting of feminist law professors from around the U.S. who hope to build a stronger community for themselves, and I couldn’t believe how many of their blogs related to our class.

Firstly, of course is the picture I have posted to ploy you into reading my blog. It was posted by Professor Bridget Crawford who links us to the original author Richard Darell. He asks the question “is this every woman’s dream?” and it just so beautifully tied into our discussion from Monday that I couldn’t resist posting it.

However, the blog that I really want to bring to your attention is by Professor Kaimipono D. Wenger “Harassment, male privilege, and jokes that women just don’t get”. He discusses what our class has been struggling with for the past couple of weeks regarding rape jokes on the internet. His explanation reminded me of what Wjachman might call “pessimism of the 1980’s feminist approach” which stressed the “inherently masculine nature of technoscience”…

Why is the internet a different place for men than for women? There are doubtless a number of contributing causes, but one of the major factors is that the internet is largely a male-constructed discursive space, and internet discussion norms often build on assumptions of male privilege.

Men build discursive spaces and discursive norms based on their own experience. And for instance, in a male-built discursive space, a threat of sexual violence may be viewed by male participants as an obvious joke.

So as much as I would like to agree with Castell– that the internet has created horizontal networks where hierarchies do not exist. I have to see rape jokes on the internet as an example of the fact that men still dominate cyberspace.

Then it was as if Wenger was in our class Monday responding to the outrageous response that one of our fellow colleagues has been receiving…

And then when someone (almost always female) stands up against the male-constructed discursive norms in which threats of violence and sexual violence can be characterized as merely a joke, she is attacked for being oversensitive. These attacks are another instance of denying of the reality of women’s experiences.

He goes on to describe how people like this– who discount women’s experience as irrelevant because it does not “conform to male discussion norms”, are being labelled by female bloggers as Mansplaining. They actually have their own Mansplaining jokes that we could use as a response to Facebook’s site “You know she’s playing hard to get when…”

Instead…

You might be a mansplainer if you have ever accused a woman in an argument of being “irrational” or “emotional”, when you are arguing about something which has no emotional basis, or when you simply disagree with them.

You may be a mansplainer if you have ever used evolutionary theory to justify the objection of women… ‘But we have to look at teh boobiez! We EVOLVED to look at teh boobiez to find a mate!’.

So what I’m taking from this blog is that we shouldn’t dismiss our Second Wave Mother’s as pessimistic and perhaps we can find examples of how their arguments do run truths. However, through the development of cyberfeminism and classes like this one we are being introduced to terms and approaches used by Third Wave feminists to help us defeat patriarchy in cyberspace.

I would love to know your opinions!

Do you agree with Wenger? Are rape jokes on the internet a result to the web being a male constructed space?

If so then does this set back cyberfeminists? Or does it further emphasize the need for cyberfeminism?

Wanted- Feminists to create new and improved society!

I have recently come across a story featured on The Nature
of Things about an exciting new technological development called
Nanotechnology, also named the Nano Revolution. It is difficult to define and
after searching the web for more information I am still a little hazy but it is
basically a technology that has been developed to control and produce matter at
a scale of one to one-hundred-billionths of a meter. With this new ability
scientists are able to create revolutionary material, automate routine lab tests,
and some believe that this new technology will be the answer to our
environmental problems.

I found this very intriguing so I dove a bit deeper into the
subject.

What I found was the overwhelming agreement amongst
scientists that this Nanotechnology is going to enhance technology in the same
way that electricity did. In other words, this new phenomena will develop into the
third Industrial Revolution!

You might think, so what? How does this concern our class?

Well my feminist friends if we look back at the last
Industrial Revolution we will note that with each revolution came a forever
change in social and economic norms. Furthermore, professionals on this topic
are convinced that there will be no aspect of our daily lives that will not be
touched by nanotechnology. As a result there has been tons of research on how
nanotechnology will affect the economy and the environment. Specifically, I
looked at one article written by Steven E. Holley that discussed these specific
risks. However, I found little about how this revolution will affect us
socially.

I couldn’t stop asking myself -How is this going to affect
the lives of marginalized groups?

Or

Who is designing this technology and who are they designing
it for? Who will be the primary beneficiary of this revolution?

If we look at this issue through the theories of Nancy Baym
we will see how this could develop into technological determinism. Baym states
that “technologies change history by transferring ‘their essential qualities’
to their users, imprinting themselves on users’ individual and collective
psyches”, this could be an explanation of what nanotechnology will eventually
do to us. Thus, it is important to discuss who is creating this technologies
characteristics and how is it going to eventually shape our society.

Also, Baym writes “direct effects of technology may be
strongest when a technology is new because people do not yet understand it.”
This is an important concept to consider because what Holley noted in his
survey was that the majority of the American public do not understand nanotech
but they are optimistic about its abilities. Therefore, our unknowing society
today is at a perfect point for nanotechnology to ‘imprint’ us before we even
realize it.

Furthermore, there have been projects working towards
introducing this technology into the school system from K-12 grades. This way
they can develop skills early on to further the advancement (Yet another reason
why gender studies should be introduced to children at a young age).

My conclusion is that we need to get in on the development
of this new technology. If nanotechnology is going to shape our future then
feminists need to start demanding inclusions. Right now we are living in a
society that has already been developed and we are constantly trying to unlearn
and deconstruct aspects of it. Imagine though, what if we were part of the
design process for this new world?

How could this revolution effect social norms?

Would it improve the lives of the oppressed?

Or would it only further the digital divide?

Hmmm…

Education is the Answer!

For my blog I couldn’t help but combine our discussions from
the last two weeks. Last week we were shown three very different examples of
“tech savvy” groups trying to introduce and incorporate technology to people
who have less access to it. I believe we agreed that these groups had the best
intentions but unfortunately each attempt was unsuccessful. These attempts did
not fail because the technology itself was faulty, but because they were not
able to foresee the social complications that would arise. I would presume that
had these groups been trained by social scientists or more specifically
Feminists about the complex settings of these people’s lives, they may have
been able to develop more efficient projects.

Thus, the answer I propose to each of these groups would be
more education! To be specific, more education regarding diversity, differences
and the effects that social structures have on marginalized people.

The fact is that these “tech savvy” individuals spend more
time with computers then they do interacting with people who will one day be
using these machines. So if we want them to start designing programs that are
available to everyone then we have to start teaching them a thing or two about
diversity.

You might ask, “But when and where do we introduce this type
of education?”

This brings me to this week’s discussion. One of my
classmates made a comment stating that until she came to University, she had no
idea what gender studies was. I have to agree, as a girl from a small town I
had no idea what gender studies or even what a feminist was. We do however,
have some sense that there is inequality in our world and we want to address
it. This brings us together in classrooms such as this to discuss the ways we
can acknowledge and change patriarchy. But let us be honest, most of the time
we are preaching to the choir. We all recognize the inequalities in society and
we all pretty much agree with ways to deconstruct it. Which is great! Yet,
sometimes I feel that the people who would benefit the most out of these
discussions, are the last ones to ever choose “Introduction to Women’s Studies”
as an elective. Therefore, we must provide this education through one of the
most influential and patriarchal social institutions of all…High School!

Much like technology, the school system has historically
been used as a patriarchal tool of power. Thus, we must start using the school
system in the same way that cyberfeminists are using technology to gain some of
this power back. Haraway states that cyborgs are offspring of militarism and
patriarchal capitalism, but that offspring are often unfaithful. This is what
needs to happen in the school systems, we need to be unfaithful offspring and
start using this tool against them. If we can introduce gender studies at a
young age we can affect the people who will be designing and controlling the
social structures that we are forced to live within.

Furthermore, if we believe what Nancy Baym says about society
and people shaping technology then we must agree that in order to increase accessibilities
it is necessary to educate those who are doing the shaping.

One group who is working towards this goal and finding
tremendous success is the Miss G Project. The Miss G Project is an organization
fighting to introduce education concerned with combating all forms of
oppression to secondary school kids. The organization has only been around for
five years and all ready will be introducing gender studies courses to many
high schools in Toronto this fall!

To read more about this success you can check out an article written about it in the Toronto Star (I suggest reading the comments at the bottom to
really get your blood boiling)

This makes me feel optimistic about the change coming for
the generation of tomorrow. However, we cannot stop here. We have to keep
supporting and pushing for more schools across Canada to introduce gender
studies to their students. With any hope gender studies can be introduced to
children even younger than high school students. Talking about diversity needs
to be a discussion that kids start having at a very young age.

Who knows, maybe one day when I’m watching Sesame Street with
my kids the episode might read “today is the letter F, F is for Feminism.”

Open-source Community, What a Happy Fantasy?

I really enjoyed class today and feel that I’m getting a clearer understanding of Fuch’s theory. I agree with his emphasis on critical theory being used towards content and use of the internet. Encouraging people to ask questions about who is benefiting and who is being exploited is why I enjoy Women’s and Gender studies so much. However, I am having difficulty wrapping my head around the potential of an open sourced community on the internet.

I understand his emphasis on the concepts of potentiality and actuality. As a community we need to ask why and how we can get to the potentiality in order to create social change. Yet, when he is discussing a world where all information is free and accessible to everyone I have trouble with the “how can we get there” question. Would this open-source community not de-emphasise the importance of people who create information for a living, such as feminist scholars? Is the amount of work, research and critiques that they relentlessly continue to create not worth a price. If we allowed all information to be free then people who write thesis’s and articles for a living would be discredited and unemployed?  At the same time I do think that having to subscribe to a website in order to read a feminist journal is contradictory because it is stating that only people of a certain class can access this information. However, these people need to make money so that they can continue to write about important issues. Is that not how the world goes round? I know that my struggle to see humankind in any other way is a result of being raised in a capitalist society. I guess I am just hoping that one of my class mates can give me an example of how this world can exist, because it sounds like a very nice place.

User’s Right to a Safe Work Environment?

I found myself very connected to last week’s article by Jane Bailey and Adrienne Telford, “What’s So ‘Cyber’ about it?” I have a minor in legal studies and this always forces me to look at the ways that the law can affect social change for feminists. This article stood out for me because I have never thought of the need for legal feminists to focus on the internet. However, the internet has become such a vital part of our society, how could we ignore the importance of legal regulation? For instance, when I furthered my research on Jane Bailey I learned that she was part of the first legal case in Canada regarding hate speech on the internet. The point is, things that happen on the internet have very real outcomes and we need lawyers to be able to understand these situations from a feminist perspective in order to represent them in court.

In class we discussed that the internet is too large of a network to regulate and it would end up taking away the most attractive part about it, space for free speech. So for the last week I have been stumped with the question “how to regulate the internet”. I don’t think I have come up with a solution but I do have a thought that perhaps my classmates can help me work out.

When reading Fuch’s article I got the idea that people sharing information on websites were working for the sites and in return those sites would accumulate profit. Fuch’s calls this unpaid work. Thus, people registering for these sites are becoming employees. If we can wrap our minds around this thought then can we also agree that our employers have a legal obligation to provide a risk-free work space? I completely understand that this is a stretch, yet should these sites not have some sort of responsibility over their user’s safety? I realize that there are some tiny ways that sites such as Facebook regulate their spaces by removing members. Still, how does that stop the same user from signing up the next day under a new name and continuing their inappropriateness?

Now I know I do not have all the answers. I have no idea how or if there is a way to legally hold these people responsible. However, I believe that there are people out there who are trying to answer these questions. Do websites such as Facebook and Google not owe it to their users to be part of this debate? By “being part of” I do mean financially aiding those who are working to solve these predicaments. Trust me I know that Facebook, as a social networking system, is not going to voluntarily hand over money to a bunch of legal feminists. However, as an employer, do they not have an obligation under labour laws to ensure a safe work environment?