Outsiders to the Sister Outsiders: A Response to Lee Lakeman/Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
Hello all, here is John Lowman's response to Lee Lakeman's attack on his testimony at the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry. Lowman's article includes some interesting history on these issues in Canada, including on the perspective of the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women.
Missing Women, Feminism and Prostitution
Outsiders to the Sister Outsiders: A Response to Lee Lakeman/Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
John Lowman, SFU School of Criminology, November 6, 2011
On October 13th 2011 Vancouver Rape Relief and Women Shelter posted on its web site1 Lee Lakeman‟s commentary on my testimony at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
Lakeman accuses me of numerous sins, including "sleight of hand, trick of phrase [and] ideological advocacy." In this vein, she claims that when I responded to a question about my research on prostitution, I neglected to mention "forty years of feminist work on this issue demanding decriminalization of the women and the criminalization of pimps and johns and bawdy house owners,
http://24.85.225.7/lowman_prostitution/HTML/MISSING_WOMEN/Misssing_women-feminism-prostitution-Lowman_response_to_Vancouver_Rape_Relief.pdf
janine benedets response;
Speaking of hyberbole, the following paragraph in Professor Lowman's response is not accurate:
"This sisterly rejection can be brutal in other ways. An example occurred on March 28 this year at
UBC when the student organizers had to call Campus Security and close down a debate on
prostitution law when a group of demand-side prohibitionists, including several former
"prostituted women," all but physically assaulted sex worker Susan Davis for suggesting that
consensual adult prostitution be decriminalized. It is a sad day when persons who claim to be oppressed so readily embrace the tactics of their
oppressors."
I was a panelist at this event. Four panelists, including Ms Davis and Mr Lowman spoke without interruption. In the Q & A one older aboriginal woman, known to Ms Davis and not a physical threat to anyone, challenged Ms Davis' claim to have aboriginal women amongst her supporters. She became very loud, and when she declined to stop, the young men who organized the event decided to end it. Ms Davis left. Some people milled about afterwards but I certainly saw no signs of anything approaching violence. I stayed to chat a bit with the woman who shouted and some of the other aboriginal women, whom I had not met before. She apologized for upsetting my event (I told her it wasn't my event) but said she she was so frustrated by being told all her life that the "solution to her problems was yet another prick between her legs." I wish she had been able to articulate that in the discussion instead, because it makes the point pretty clearly. One of the students organizing the ev!
ent did ask me if he should call campus security and I told him it was not necessary. I thought his suggestion was sadly ironic, that he should think that the solution to the rage of an aboriginal woman was (as is so often the case) to call the police. Unless there was some further altercation on the way to the bus stop, this is not an accurate account of this event.
I am really tired of this tactic of attributing the term violence to women who oppose prostitution. The world violence is a very strong and loaded word. There was no violence, no group assault or "near-assault" at this event. It was not "brutal". One aborginal woman shouted. She had some friends with her. That was it.
Janine Benedet
my response to janine benedet's dismissal of the violence i experience at the hands of abolitionists;
first, i never "claimed to have aborigional supporters". i stated that the make up of the development teams who guide our direction and all of our projects had members of the aborigional community in them and that historically the bc coalition of experiential communities has had members from a variety of back grounds. as i have always said, i am merely a spokesperson bringing forward the voice of my community which is as diverse as any sector of society
i find it interesting that janine believes prostitution is responsible for all violence against women but can't seem to recognize violence against a woman when she witnesses it. as the person at the center of these on going attacks i can tell you it is violence and i did feel threatened.
they did not just yell at me, they filmed and photographed us and advanced towards me while shouting verbal attacks. this is not the first time these particular women have done this to me. their goal, to ensure that no active sex working people are heard on this issue and that any active sex workers even thinking about standing up for their rights should beware.
they are affiliated with the abolitionist movement here in vancouver and were invited specifically because they are well known for their bullying and violent tactics. it is well known that sex workers do not want to be photographed and if any other active sex workers were there hoping to be heard, they were driven right back into the shadows by this tactic. for sex workers who witnessed it, this type of bullying has one outcome, to completely silence any sex worker who dares to voice their opinion on this issue. it is not safe and they will be photographed and outed publically....how is this not violent?
it is easy for janine benedet to say it wasn't violent. she has not had her life threatened as a result of the mis information spread by these groups and does not live in fear of these kinds of attacks having put her own personal story, life and safety at risk. she is a wealthy and priveleged achedemic who can afford to take an idealogical stance because the outcome will not directly affect her.
i feel insulted by her attempt to down play the events of that night as if to say, i got what i deserved for claiming to have aborigional supporters. it did not claim that nor have i ever but i will represent the people who took part in our organizing and project activities and will not apologize for standing up for our diversity as a community.
in fact i would go as far as to say janine benedet's response constitutes violence in that she has totally tried to silence the actual events of that night by dismissing the violence directed at me and trying to justify the position of those who perpetrated the attack.
dr. lowman is an appreciated ally to sex workers risking alot to represent us where it is not safe for us to speak out. i for one look forward to the day when janine benedet actually takes the time to meet with active sex working people and those of us committed to increasing our safety and rights. perhaps then she will see how she herself has contributed to and ignored violence against us.
susan davis
janine benedett's response to directed to me but another list serve member ... these are reposted from par-l list serve;
Hello Ms Shannon:
I am trying to correct what I consider to be a clear misstatement that attributes violent actions to others that simply did not happen as described. Violence is serious, so I thought that was important. I try to limit myself to postings that I think are truly important (for example corrections of misinformation) so as not to clog up this list serve, which I find to be a valuable source of reports and events. I try to write them carefully but words are never perfect. I think my postings total in the single digits over several years. If others find this unimportant, they can simply pass them over. Often people post articles here about the decriminalization of prostitution. As a feminist legal scholar and lawyer, I often read them. I don't attack people for posting them or try to post lengthy rebuttals of their content. I read them, come to my own conclusions, and write and publish and speak about my own work on a variety of topics relating to women and the law. That's!
the space I am lucky to have to engage more fully with these arguments.
My point about the comment of the woman in the audience was that her words, to me, at least expressed much more clearly how she felt about what she was hearing, in a way that someone on the panel could have responded to. The shouting, sadly, didn't have that effect and got her nowhere. I expressed no opinion in my post about how or whether Ms Davis or anyone else should "accept" the comment. I would never suggest that. That's not for me to say - I was there to share my analysis of the law.
I share your fatigue with cherry-picking, but see it somewhat differently. To me it includes being ready to pounce on any slight overstatement, any awkward or unclear turn of phrase, any failure to provide reams of detail and footnotes. It includes never being willing to overlook when someone loses their cool and says or does something they regret. It includes attributing to me every statement by every MP, religious leader, and local citizen who might share some of my conclusions but not my analysis. To be "clear", I am not accusing you or anyone in particular of those things, just saying that they present temptations for easy points on all sides that I think are best avoided. I hope we can agree on that.
Sincerely,
Janine Benedet
Associate Professor
Faculty of Law
University of British Columbia
my response to this;
i am not some uber funded tactician trying to overblow violence that i have experienced. in fact i am not funded at all as was suggested by martin dufresne by the sexploitation industry and do not represent organized crime as has been mentioned in the past.
martin, your personal beef with me is well documented and in fact you have been banned from on line spaces for attacking me in the past. i find your input on this incident insulting considering that you yourself have also done this to me.
i am bringing forward the voices of actual sex working people who have taken part in our organzining activies.
the fact that not one of the responses answered any of my qestions and that the violence i experinece was cast and dismissed as some kind of tactic or lie speaks volumes to the actual intentions of those in favour of abolition.
sex working people are as unable to form consent as mentally ill people or children and their experiences are really irrelevant to moving forward towards better protection of the safety of sex workers.
when will the abolitionists finally sit down with actual sex working people to design strategies that will actual respect the experiences of sex workers and acknowledge the harms caused by the dismissive and condesending exclusionist approaches of the past?
i am ready any time, pleas contact me and i will share our ideas with you. please stop calling me a liar and perpetuating the myth that all sex workers are liars and not to be believed as a result of their inability to form consent or even understnad the complex barriers facing our lives.
these attitudes are the barrier, they are violence. when policy is based on this kind of exclusionist discourse, it harms people, people die or can't access the supports they need when in crisis. instead they are met with predetermined biases based on the idea that we are incapable liars who do not know what is best for us.
especially from women, as women we should have a deeper understnading of what happens when policies are set without consulting us. why is it different here? why is it that the only sex workers- formerly prostitutes persons- that areto be believed are the ones who have exited and reinforce the abolitionist position by sharing the darkest moments of their lives.
these stories are horrible and they do happen, they happened to me.
but can people really believe that the sex industry is that cut and dry? and that this is the only perspective? what about all the rest of us? when does our safety come into it? oh right, i get what i deserve for being of a different position on the issue and of course for being the lying tactician who is the spear head for organized crime and human traffickers funded of course by pimps and profiting from the rape of little girls.... did i cover it all.....?
please correct me if i am wrong. and please, take me up on our offer to meet. at least then you could all finally say that you have met an actual sex working person...
any answers here...? any response at all?
susan davis
here's martin's response to put it all in perspective;
My hunch is that the advance of sexploitation industry interests among
academics and progressives is contingent on silencing the women and youths
oppressed by this system. When these women speak up in response to certain
claims, especially racialized women and survivors, their voice has to be
dismissed in their environment as "violence" done to those whose credibility
(and funding) depend on the silencing of those they claim to be advocating
for.
Martin Dufresne
as well as another response from some one named jessica;
As someone who supports the Nordic model of prostitution law, I appreciate that John Lowman was willing to take the time to prepare this response.
One facet of the Nordic Model of law that consistently gets neglected in this conversation is the importance of social context. In Sweden, for example, this translates into more examples of equality in government representation, the work-force, monetary distribution, social programming etc. I find myself surprised on a regular basis that we don't collaborate on pushing issues of gender equality in other areas as I believe they are (as was noted in the description of the radical feminist perspective in John Lowman's response) inextricably linked to prostitution whether you support the abolition of prostitution or the full decriminalization of prostitution.
If women are freely choosing prostitution as an expression of their sexual freedom, it certainly won't do any damage to also give them access to exiting programs, legal support, affordable housing and childcare, and a variety of career or education options which they can use at their own discretion. If it is as radical feminists believe, that a majority of women become involved in prostitution out of a lack of meaningful resources, maximizing alternative options can be nothing but beneficial.
Regardless of what conclusions we come to on how the social context of prostitution should effect law, let's at least start discussing the full picture.
Jessica
and my response to her;
i am interested on a side note, when the decriminalization movement have ever excluded exiting, livable wages, affordable housing and child care from our plans....?
alternatively, where are the exiting programs developed by the abolitionist side?
the only exiting programs in vancouver are supported and run by sex workers, current and former who support decrim. they are constantly under the threat of cuts and i would wager that in other places there are no resources at all to fit the specific needs of people trying to exit the sex industry.
and how exactly does the nordic model of criminalization support exiting programs? sweden spends 1/3 of its gross national product on support services and its still not enough....do you really believe this government is going to spend anything at all in this time of recession and cut backs?
no one is trying to say people should be forced to choose prostitution or that people should not be given chances to exit, we are asking however, why do the short falls of society- ( racism, lack of affordable housing, unlivable welfare rates) have to mean we are criminals or that access to my body should be regulated by a mostly male government?...how are any of these things related?
in all of our plans we have detailed descriptions of creating cooperatively run enterprises, run by sex workers, employing sex workers and building the capacity of sex workers. and no, not just the coop brothel. our plans were undermined by a mis information campiagn that completely overshadowed our attempts to improve our quality of life and choices.
where was the support for our exiting programs?
nowhere, instead we were silenced, mocked, threatened and ignored....once again.
why is it that we are constantly blocked by idealogical arguements that not one of the proponents for which seem willing to actually undertake. where's the beef as they say? where are the abolitionist organizations who are actually creating programs and supports to accomplish what they seem so passionate about promoting? where are these organizations actually changing the lives of the women they so vehemently claim to represent?
so jessica, my question is an echo to yours, when will we start talking about the "full picture"?
when will our community enjoy the rights that every other canadian take for granted and the protection of law that is due to every citizen of this country?
susan davis
just so the mods know, all of this discussion is public and has been reposted word for word. i hope its not necessary to edit or delete any of it.
susie
ps, i found janine benedet's comment that and"old aborigional woman" was the person who attacked me a bit strange. is she belittling the power held by the organizers of the walk for justice movement and the highway of tears people....?
this is who was attacking me, not some little old powerless aborigional woman as was eluded by janine bendet. these women are strong outspoken and in my case violent and neither of them not bernie williams or gladys were ever sex workers.
i also find it dispicaable to have the work we have done and the position we are pushing diminished to "another prick between my legs". again, thiese women were never sex workers and as such will not be affaected by any changes moving forward.
instead, they choose to vilify me and attack me, scaring other sex workers from coming forward and are supported by so called feminist acedemics who back them up no matter what they do.
Yeah, I'd like to see anyone pushing the survival sex meme to get off their entitled middle-class butts and push for a living basic income to all citizens, regardless of how well they satisfy the paternalistic strictures of who is and isn't worthy of support. (And yes, we can afford a $12,000 per person Per-capita GDP-linked GAI for about 19.5 percent of GDP, if you eliminated EI, OAS, GIS, and child tax benefit in the same breath)
There. No more survival sex... or survival table-bussing, survival telemarketing, survival toilet-scrubbing, survival oil-drilling, or anything else. Only survival roommate-having. Hand-wringing Moral dilemma averted.