Feminism & Capitalism
Theories and Cultural Impacts of Media and Technology — Reflections from Week Eleven
Sex Work is Work
The word “Sex” in a place where I come from, has always been considered a hush-hush topic. Let’s go a step back and talk about display of affection. Any form of physical intimacy is perceived as something that must not be seen openly. Any movie or series that has scenes displaying anything at all, anything beyond a hug is unacceptable. I have had instances where my parents would just change the TV channel on any scene where people are kissing or getting closer to each other, or even about to get closer. Now let’s say a 14-year-old kid experiences this, that kid would feel like whatever was about to happen on TV, was something that is not allowed, or something that parents do not approve of. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the kid wouldn’t want to know what was to come, rather I feel like it would generate a sense of curiosity.
I believe that sometimes if someone stops you from looking at something, from doing something without any reason, or without any reason that seems fair enough to you, you would want to do it even more.
Porn is banned in India, but that just means that people are going to use illegal means to watch it. People are going to put in more effort than ever to watch it because it is not going to be easy and people are always going to watch porn. Not talking about Sex, banning porn, not allowing teenagers to have boyfriends or girlfriends, not educating kids about sex, not having a safe environment where anything can be discussed, all of this hiding, elders do this to protect their kids, but this ends up making it even more dangerous for the them, especially when they are growing up and exploring things. I always used to have this conversation my mom, I used to tell her that children are going to date people, they are going to do things, no matter what, they will just hide it from you if they think you do not approve and that is not safe. If a 16 year old girl in India gets pregnant, she would not know what to do, she would be terrified and the only people she would rely on would be her friends and the internet. She would never have the courage to go to her parents and tell them about it because she knows the consequences or at least feels like she does.
Sex conversations should be easy, at least within a family, that is how you ensure your kids are safe, not by stopping them from going to their first boy-girl party.
Coming to sex work, I do agree that people are forced into doing it. Last week I was watching the Bollywood movie ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ which is all about sex workers and how people in such places look at them. Extremely young innocent girls are taken away from their homes by their partners and sold off to Brothels where they are forced to have sex with strangers who often end up harming them physically, abusing them and that becomes their reality. The point is, they cannot even go to the police and ask for help because sex work is not legal.
How do you protect someone from something that is not legal?
If sex work was made legal, there can be rules and when there are rules, there is discipline, there is safety. If someone doesn’t want to do it, they can at least go and seek help and whoever wants to do it can keep doing it. It will be safe when a higher authority enforces rules and regulates it from within.
It is important to normalize talking about these things, it is important to be open to having conversations.
Exploitation in the working world
Exploitation can happen in so many different forms. Huge IT firms making their employees work overtime without giving them their share of extra pay is a very big form of exploitation in my opinion. I used to work a 9–5 job as a software engineer. But it was never a 9–5 thing, it seemed more like an 8–11 thing. I never said no to working these hours, because it wouldn’t take long for the company to fire me. It is extremely easy for a company to fire someone, especially where I come from, because if I work 8 hours for $X, there is always someone who would be willing to work 10 hours for $X-Y. There is always someone willing to work more for a lesser pay and companies feed on this weakness.
