At 04:01 PM 1/8/98 -0500, Susan Fleck wrote:
>What's different between prostitution and many marriage contracts?
>1.prostitution is sex for direct payment of money,
> marriage is sex for indirect payment of money/financial security.
>2.prostitution is the 'constrained choice' of many women who face
>relatively lower earnings in other jobs, partially due to systemic job
>discrimination against women
> marriage is the 'constrained choice' of many women who face relativley
>lower earnings in other jobs, partially due to systemic job
>discrimination against women.
>3.prostitutes are at risk of STDs because of multiple partners,
> wives are at risk of STDs because spouses have multiple partners.
>4.prostitutes are often considered 'undesireable' once they get older,
> wives are often considered 'undesireable' once they get older.
>
>There's not much difference between the two professions, if you ask me.
>High risk, relatively higher pay than other jobs. We need more and
>better jobs for women (with affordable reliable childcare, of course).
While I agree with most of what you write, there is one aspect you seem to
miss: autonomy.
First women in marriage have little autonomy re. their own sexual
activities, they are essentially obiliged to perform sexual acts for their
husbands or face a divorce. Sex workers, on the other hand, havo choice of
whether or not go to work and whether or not have a sex with any particular
client. That gives sex workers more autonomy than most women in a marriage
(which I compared to indetured servitude in one of my previous postings)
and most workers in more convential occupations have. A street walker can
refuse taking a job without much explanation. Can you imagine a
hairdresser, an automechanic or any other non-professional service employer
saying "go elsewhere, I do not feel like taking this job?"
BTW, I recognize the fact that in many Third World countries that choice is
frequently not available and many poor women are sold into actual slavery;
there was an article in The Nation some time ago describing how sex
business in Thailand that prospers with generous support of Western
countries and Japan uses debt to force poor families to sell their tenage
daughters to brothels in Bangkok. But I don't see that as qualitatively
different from other forms of Third World slavery practised in the name of
free market.
As far as international marriage business is concerned, that may look
horrible form the US perspective, but from the point of view of foreign
women it might look quite differently, slogans advertising docility
notwithstanding. In fact, young females who want to marry a first world
male might be the only person with "marketable" skills in many backward
communities -- which might give them considerable power and prestige. What
I am assuming here is that for many immigrants, immigration often does not
mean assimilation to the new country, and their "reference group" remains
their old community. Another point is that gender inequality is much worse
in most Third World countries than in the US or Europe.
>From that perspective, a Third world woman marrying a first world man can
see herself as better off both socially and financially because she
compares herself with women and men in her old community rather than women
in the US or Europe. Of course, the extent to which this is the case is an
empirical question I am unbale to answer, I am merely pointing out at other
possible interpretations.
Regards,
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax: (410) 516-8233
