Feminist Current

A New York Times article published on May 22nd reports on how the economic misery inflicted on Greeks has forced many into prostitution in order to survive. Here is an excerpt: With the country heading into the fifth year of economic depression, and unemployment near 60 percent for young people, greater numbers of women and [...]

The Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, a pan-Canadian coalition of equality-seeking women’s groups, has, as of today, been granted leave to intervene in the Bedford case, scheduled for hearing on June 12, 2013 at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court will decide whether or not to keep the current prostitution laws (which [...]

A piece published in the Toronto Star over the weekend may have led you to believe it would, as the headline: “Feminists take opposite stands on prostitution” alludes, explore different feminist positions on prostitution and prostitution law. The author, Rosie DiManno (“one of the Star’s best and most prolific writers“!), immediately trips all over herself [...]

This article was originally posted at Manyfesto and has been republished with permission from the author, Taryn Fivek. No one proposes ending war by unionizing arms manufacturers. Proposing to end violence against women in the sex trade by unionizing them is likewise untenable. The best way to end violence against women in the sex trade [...]

Prostitution is a gendered issue, but it’s also an issue that is very much tied to class and race. Canada’s history of colonialism is not something to be ignored when looking at both causes of and solutions to prostitution. In this episode, I speak with Cherry Smiley, co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry [...]

Cool. Earlier his week, The Gloss featured old photos of prostituted women in order to highlight the fact that being poor and having to service nasty-ass dudes in the early 1900s also involved wearing cool tights. A comment left on the post reads: “Well, I’m obviously going to be an old school sex worker for [...]

An article was published recently in The Independent looking at the Nordic model in Sweden. The journalist, Joan Smith, took a ride in a squad car to see how a model wherein the buyer is criminalized and the prostitute is decriminalized actually worked. What she found will likely be met, by any progressive, intelligent, feminist [...]

Samantha Berg elaborates on Pro Sentret’s research into violence against prostituted women under the Nordic model.   The third page of Pro Sentret’s Dangerous Liaisons report lays out the mission statement for the 2012 investigation: The purpose is to evaluate whether the women are more exposed to violence after the introduction of the law. The [...]

I’ve become increasingly frustrated by what feels like a barrage of articles coming from self-described progressives claiming that feminists are the real enemy of sex workers. It seems as though some of those who position themselves as ‘sex worker rights activists’ are intent on creating rigid divisions among women, placing the prostituted woman in a [...]

You probably haven’t heard about the newest prostitution research from Norway. It has been available in Norwegian since last summer when a tiny handful of pro-prostitution peeps wrote about it, but almost no one has noted the report’s English release. Now that I’ve read it I understand the silence from pro-sex work lobbyists and the [...]

I am thrilled that California has just passed two laws addressing the harms of the sex industry. Measure B mandates condom use in porn among other sensible workplace safety preventions for the legal porn industry, and Prop 35 increases consequences for illegal pimps, child pornographers, and sex traffickers while decriminalizing victims of commercial sexual abuse. [...]

Law enforcement, intellectuals, politicians, and activists all over the United States—last month, even President Obama—are discussing legal approaches toward the related scourges of human trafficking and prostitution. Recognizing that prostitution is a form of sex inequality related to gender-based violence, the Swedish approach criminalizes the purchaser, while decriminalizing the prostituted person, and has dramatically reduced [...]

Because it’s difficult to have a genuine conversation or debate when we are presented with inaccurate information, I just wanted to write a quick post to respond to this post that went up a last week over at Gender Focus. The post was initially written about a recent decision made by the Supreme Court of [...]

A lot of women think the girls are being exploited, and then, when they come to a club night, they realise it is the other way round, that the guys are being exploited. They realise it is a fun thing to do, it’s not slavery, nobody is making anybody do anything they don’t want to [...]

Ugh. The Guardian and Jezebel both published manipulative stories within the past 24 hours about how the French minister for women supposedly ‘let down’ Muslim voters by focusing on ending prostitution. Because, you know, violence against women is such a marginal issue. Both sites use this quote: “Criminalised clients means murdered prostitutes” as a way [...]

This article was written for and originally published on June 15, 2012 in Issue #106 of Megaphone Magazine: Vancouver’s Street Paper Sex trade law has occupied the forefront of feminist debate ever since an historic legal challenge to Bedford v. Canada was filed in 2007. The case argued that existing laws that criminalized pimping, public [...]

It’s true. I’ve known more than one abusive man in my day. Some I knew intimately and some were only acquaintances. You know, just friends of friends. Some men still think it’s ok to maintain friendships with abusive men dontchaknow. At a certain point someone might accidentally let it slip that so-and-so, you know, that [...]