Being and Being Bought
A new feminist book sees both prostitution and surrogacy as anti-woman.
The mantra “my body, my choice” has a long association with radical feminism. The term has become synonymous with what we perceive to be the feminist view of all things related to human sexuality, and gender relations. Within the feminist movement, even to dialogue with the idea that there may be legitimate restrictions to choice and the unrestrained use of our bodies is the great feminist heresy.
So, to read a book that begins to challenge the view that one has complete license over the body is refreshing, to say the least. Kajsa Ekman, a radical feminist herself, tackles the hotly debated topics of prostitution and surrogacy, arguing that neither “choice” has helped the feminist cause; she is not convinced that either choice is truly free, good, or empowering.
While intellectuals and advocates alike argue that women should be able to use their bodies in anyway they see fit, Ekman objects. The idea that prostitution and surrogacy could be likened to any other contractual relationship is misguided, she argues. Underneath the romanticized narrative of the empowered prostitute and the benevolent surrogate lies the simple truth that these acts exploit and commercialize not only women’s bodies, but their very being.
How prostitution became “work”
In 1999 Sweden made it illegal to buy sexual services, but not to sell them. Pimping and operating a brothel also became illegal. Sweden practically stood alone in its strategy to curb prostitution based on it’s own investigation into the inner workings of the industry and the lived conditions of prostituted people. The Swedish inquiry into prostitution discovered, first hand, that women in the industry were not liberated at all, but on the whole were subject to violence, engaged in high rates of drug use, and had a death rate 40 times the average of the general population. What is more, researchers established a very clear link between legalized prostitution and the trafficking of human persons.
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