the undeserving whore

I have often wondered how it is that some people talk about prostitutes as victims and yet they support policies that make their lives more dangerous and unpleasant. How is it that some feminists such as those in OBJECT celebrate laws that further criminalize women? How is it that they have nothing to say when prostitutes are 'named and shamed' and have their names and photographs shown in newspapers or on the Internet? See here, here and here.

There has been a lot of discussion in the media recently about the poor and benefits. Talk of the deserving and the undeserving poor. 'The underserving poor' is a phrase from Victorian times. This discussion has helped me to understand how prostitutes can be treated as both victims and worthy of harsh treatment.

Rich men like David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague say that they want to rescue the long-term unemployed. They say that they are condemned to lie on their sofas all day wathching daytime TV. They want to move people on Incapacity Benefit off benefits and into jobs.

Many more people on Incapacity Benefit will move onto Job Seekers' Allowance (or whatever replaces it) than into jobs. Job Seeker's Allowance is considerably less than Incapacity Benefit. Incapacity Benefit, like the basic state pension, is just enough for people to live on. Job Seeker's Allowance is not.

If people stayed on Job Seeker's Allowance for a short while till they could get a job, it wouldn't be so bad. But there are few jobs available. That's because rich people, especially those in the City, have buggered up the economy. It isn't poor people turning down job offers that is the cause of large-scale unemployment, it is rich people. Millions of people will suffer. Their happiness index will not be high.

In my experience unemployed people don't degenerate on their sofas. They often develop strategies for coping, making use of the fact that although they are cash poor they are time rich. Some of them try to use their time to improve themselves through courses or reading newspapers and books. But if you try to explain that to affluent people they say that they are living the life of Riley.

If you are on benefits you are either a victim who needs rescuing, or living the life of Riley. It's one extreme or the other. They have no sense that people on benefits are just ordinary people trying to make the best of what is available to them. And it's the same with prostitutes. Prostitutes are either victims who need rescuing, or criminal and antisocial. Nothing in between.

There's a fine line between having pity for someone and having contempt for them.

The Policing And Crime Bill 2009 makes it easier for the police to arrest women for soliciting. Also many prostitutes have had Anti-Social Behaviour Orders taken out against them. Not because a member of the community has identified her as an individual, but because the police have decided she is antisocial. You could call this 'objectification'.

It seems that the more they say that someone is a victim, the more it is acceptable for them to make their lives more difficult. It doesn't seem to be any better in Sweden. Jonas Trolle, Detective Superintendent of Stockholm's Police Surveillance Unit said this to the BBC.

"I think it should be difficult to be a prostitute even though it is not forbidden in Sweden. So even though we don't put them into jail, we say OK we will make it very very difficult for you to act as a prostitute in our society, even though we see her as a victim."

Some way to treat a victim. To make her life more difficult and more dangerous. Some prostitutes in Sweden have to work for longer to get the money they need, and do things they wouldn't normally do.

It does seem strange how people can think this way, seemingly believing two extreme opposite points of view at the same time. Or maybe they are saying one thing but acting the opposite. But we have historical examples of this. The Marxists who talk of the poor as victims but as soon as they get into power torture and murder them in their millions. Or the right wing Americans who talk about restricting the power of the federal government but who refer to the President as Commander-in-chief (if he's Republican and white) and think any criticism of foreign policy is unpatriotic.

If you look at the photograph of Michelle Lyn Smith here, she doesn't look like a drug addict to me. Drug addicts usually look thin. She just looks poor. Perhaps she is like 'Vicky' who says here that she has poorly paid work but uses prostitution to make ends meet. It's obvious that they are not a threat to the community.

Michelle Lyn Smith looks like the sort of woman who likes to share a joke and a cigarette with men. She looks like the sort of woman who if an old man smiled at her she would give him a smile and not a frown. The sort of woman that some feminists don't like.