(which includes a wide range of activities from things behind a computer screen, to stripping, to more explicit physical interactions. as opposed to an older lexicon that was just about physical interactions.)
but all of them, even the more salacious physical versions, have more analogies and similarities with fast food for both workers, consumers and productive public policy responses
workers overinflate its dignity just to get the little support they have achieved, but I’ve never seen a McDonalds worker brag about working at McDonalds while the universe of options for most of them are similar, the compensation is similar if you look really closely, and worker protections should be at parity
interest or avoidance as a worker or a loved one to a worker similarly follows the same interest or avoidance as them working in fast food, but the aversion to wanting that option for a loved one is used as a strawman argument to discredit any normalization of sex work or reduction in marginalization when its the same opinion theyd have about their loved one working in fast food
policy based on exclusion, conflating consensual work with sex trafficking, even treating sex trafficking differently from labor trafficking at all are policies that create the occupational and exclusionary hazards with various forms of sex work
I’ve changed my mind about what the public policy should be, alongside opinions about sex workers themselves.
I realized that many “women in tech” were doing the same thing to sex workers that they accuse men of doing to them - speaking over them, speaking for them without getting input from the people directly affected - ultimately with the goal of exclusion and control of sexuality. That the particular women I encountered in these tech organizations and fortune 500 companies were not adequate representation but were masquerading their opinions as such when it comes to excluding other women that choose other paths that men cater to. Recognizing SWERF talking points now as familiar, “sex work exclusionary radical feminism”, I don't see their exclusion as productive. I see it as a selfish way of trying to be taken seriously in corporate environments, privileging their comfort at the expense other women and everyone else, which is obvious for me not to agree with now and scrutinize. And when being “taken seriously” fails that should be a problem with the men/people that limit their corporate growth not the other women catering to carnal desires existing in the same or similar spaces.
I don't support any policy based on exclusion or “ending demand”. I’m skeptical of any policy that simply makes people feel good because of its ostensible point of curbing sex trafficking. The existing labor trafficking policies make sense and have their own room for improvement. So I can get behind the goals to normalize it at parity to other jobs. I don't see it as needing to be someone’s whole identity like activists seem to require. I don't see it as inconsequential. But definitely more akin to fast food workers.
> I realized that many “women in tech” were doing the same thing to sex workers that they accuse men of doing to them - speaking over them, speaking for them without getting input from the people directly affected - ultimately with the goal of exclusion and control of sexuality.
This isn't limited to just sex work or "women in tech"
In my observation there's a real problem with petit bourgeoisie people all over, talking over the people who are actually living through things.
People with no actual stake in outcomes are ignoring the people who do have a stake, sometimes a huge stake
yeah, at first I was mildly amused by the “inclusion by exclusion” that I saw in professional circles in the SF Bay Area,
specifically amused by how it was ironic, and how it was unquestioned because people would privilege the opinions of the token representation saying the idea
But now hearing from more of the affected populations, it is indefensible to me now
It becomes very obvious when you start to analyze along economic lines instead of intersectional ones
A white woman growing up poor in a trailer park and a black woman growing up poor in the inner city are more likely to have similar struggles than the poor black woman and an upper middle class black woman
The upper middle class black woman is the one who is the token representation in a professional setting. She imagines her struggles represent the struggles of the poor black woman, but they don't
She probably did struggle more than her upper class white female colleagues, but her struggles were almost certainly very different from poor black women's struggles
So we wind up chasing our tails with these DEI initiatives, when the problems they claim to solve aren't about race diversity really. They're about class. You can't solve class problems by treating them as race problems
Misdiagnosing these things just because of a disproportionate impact to a marginalized group has limited efficacy because it relies on indicting the hearts and minds of people that don’t feel or think in the imagined way to begin with. So yeah these initiatives wind up going in circles, and losing support of would be allies because it’s based on demonizing them hoping they continually atone for something ambiguous.
And even in your example, this is a good highlight, some upper middle class black people try to distance themselves from other black people based on dialect but specifically talking down on vernacular English.
if you know what you’re looking at the same occurs with some of our Indian population such that Seattle got that anti caste discrimination law passed specifically to point out that we’re not going to accept the rampant denial of India’s problems replicated in the US
the only reason this stuff flies is because the self proclaimed progressive people aren't listening or understanding the people they want to include. they're performing rituals for each other. they’re unwilling to see their own efforts as unproductive or even counterproductive as they're too busy distancing themselves from apathetic people and overtly exclusionary people.
just listen to the affected groups, heavily scrutinize if someone’s comfort is at the expense of someone else’s, such as “why are we privileging theirs” and if the reason is sexist or racial then you’ve found a flaw in the entire logic from the so called progressive, which you can use as leverage against them in their own performative circles
(which includes a wide range of activities from things behind a computer screen, to stripping, to more explicit physical interactions. as opposed to an older lexicon that was just about physical interactions.)
but all of them, even the more salacious physical versions, have more analogies and similarities with fast food for both workers, consumers and productive public policy responses
workers overinflate its dignity just to get the little support they have achieved, but I’ve never seen a McDonalds worker brag about working at McDonalds while the universe of options for most of them are similar, the compensation is similar if you look really closely, and worker protections should be at parity
interest or avoidance as a worker or a loved one to a worker similarly follows the same interest or avoidance as them working in fast food, but the aversion to wanting that option for a loved one is used as a strawman argument to discredit any normalization of sex work or reduction in marginalization when its the same opinion theyd have about their loved one working in fast food
policy based on exclusion, conflating consensual work with sex trafficking, even treating sex trafficking differently from labor trafficking at all are policies that create the occupational and exclusionary hazards with various forms of sex work
I’ve changed my mind about what the public policy should be, alongside opinions about sex workers themselves.
I realized that many “women in tech” were doing the same thing to sex workers that they accuse men of doing to them - speaking over them, speaking for them without getting input from the people directly affected - ultimately with the goal of exclusion and control of sexuality. That the particular women I encountered in these tech organizations and fortune 500 companies were not adequate representation but were masquerading their opinions as such when it comes to excluding other women that choose other paths that men cater to. Recognizing SWERF talking points now as familiar, “sex work exclusionary radical feminism”, I don't see their exclusion as productive. I see it as a selfish way of trying to be taken seriously in corporate environments, privileging their comfort at the expense other women and everyone else, which is obvious for me not to agree with now and scrutinize. And when being “taken seriously” fails that should be a problem with the men/people that limit their corporate growth not the other women catering to carnal desires existing in the same or similar spaces.
I don't support any policy based on exclusion or “ending demand”. I’m skeptical of any policy that simply makes people feel good because of its ostensible point of curbing sex trafficking. The existing labor trafficking policies make sense and have their own room for improvement. So I can get behind the goals to normalize it at parity to other jobs. I don't see it as needing to be someone’s whole identity like activists seem to require. I don't see it as inconsequential. But definitely more akin to fast food workers.