As prostitution and the legislation that surrounds it has become an increasingly heated debate, the voices of women who survived the industry have grown louder and stronger. This year, a new book…
Tag: abolition
Over the weekend, Emily Bazelon, a staff writer at the New York Times, published an article called “Should Prostitution Be a Crime?” What she didn’t say was that she had already answered…
A campaign headed up by Vixen, a pro-prostitution advocacy group in Australia, attempted to shut down Australia’s first abolitionist conference (which doubles as the Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex…
On Wednesday, November 18th, in East Vancouver, about a dozen people from the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood attended a panel discussion called Creating John-Free communities. Panel members from Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s…
Diane Matte is a feminist community organizer, a front-line anti-violence worker, and a member of Concertation des Luttes Contre l’Exploitation Sexuelle (CLES) in Montréal. Jess: Can you start by telling us how…
On Friday, September 25th, 1200 people gathered at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver, to hear three preeminent thinkers discuss socialism, oppression, and rebellion. The event, a roaring success — packed to…
Today’s Feminist Theory Friday (the last in the series) is perhaps more a matter of history than it is of theory. It is a history we need to center when exploring how…
On October 16, 2014, The Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy was presented to Cherry Smiley. Her activism and work for Indigenous women and girls and against the sex…
I’m glad I was partially wrong in my reflections yesterday about the impending Supreme Court of Canada decision in Bedford. The Court did not follow the lead of the Ontario Court of…
Introduction Prostitution has long been a contentious issue in the Women’s Liberation Movement, splitting feminist individuals and groups. This is largely because the debate is often reduced to an either/or argument between…
Jackie Lynne, a Métis woman, a social worker, and an exited prostitute, who has been researching prostitution academically since 1998, speaks about her experiences of abuse, rape, and internalized racism and how…
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…
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…
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…
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…