Children as young as 11 who demonstrate misogynistic behaviour will be taught the difference between pornography and real relationships, as part of a multimillion-pound investment to tackle misogyny in England’s schools, the Guardian understands.
On the eve of the government publishing its long-awaited strategy to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade, David Lammy told the Guardian that the battle “begins with how we raise our boys”, adding that toxic masculinity and keeping girls and women safe were “bound together”.
As part of the government’s flagship strategy, which was initially expected in the spring, teachers will be able to send young people at risk of causing harm on behavioural courses, and will be trained to intervene if they witness disturbing or worrying behaviour.
So long as women choose to do it to fulfill capitalist needs (which is to say, to avoid the implicit violence of homelessness and/or incarceration), rather than simply because they enjoy it, then it kind of is.
If not specifically patriarchal, then at least evil and exploitative in some capacity.
I don’t disagree with you, but if you’re going to take that position you have to include work as a whole, not just sex work. There are differences, sure, but we’re all selling our minds, bodies, and time just to stay alive.
Oh I absolutely do apply that position to all work. But I would do so with the caveat that if you have a career which helps people even despite the reality that you’re being exploited while doing so - like taking care of kids or special needs people or the environment or something - then that might provide you with more happiness than purely selling access to your body.
That’s not at all intended as a judgement of the mere fact, though. If you genuinely prefer sex work to the available alternatives to you, get that bag. Or maybe you even help people in your capacity as a sex worker, I don’t know.
It… kinda sounds like judgement.
So what happens to… you know, Uber drivers, software engineers for social media and Amazon drivers? Because there’s a biiig spectrum of work under capitalism, and it doesn’t fit particularly neatly in “selling your body” or “helping people”.
Look, nobody is saying that sex work can’t be exploitative or even that it’s not generally exploitative. The legal gray areas and general ickiness of the entire space is… a lot, and I think it needs specific regulation. But to take it as a uniquely patriarchal, capitalistic thing distinct from “normal” work requires not seeing it as proper labor, but as inherently… well, they do kind of abuse the word “abolition” very pointedly.
That has a long, nasty tradition with pretty unhealthy side effects, honestly.
In any case, that’s the rhetorical trick I’m worried about. You let the right own sex work AND you let the stance on this split feminist/leftist spaces in half and you’ve manufactured a mix of TERFism and the concession of “free speech” as a fascist talking point. It’s a political problem more than a policy problem, frankly.