Jenny’s Pennies

I’ve been cut off from the news during my time in Bogaland (the fictional country where our exercised peace support operation took place) so now I’m trying to catch up with everything that has happened in the world and in Bloglandia.

The Swedish government has decided to make an oversight of the Swedish law making it illegal to buy sexual services. That is needed, as there are a lot of scattered studies, speculations, and right out lies about the effects of the law. But there has been no general governmental analysis of the law and its effects.

But (not surprisingly) the government has given the person conducting the overview a limitation: she is not allowed to propose that the law should be repealed.

So even if the governmental investigator Anna Skarhed were to find that the law has had bad effects on the safety and health of sex workers, that is has not limited trafficking or lead to less violence against women or less child pornography (which it is said to be doing), Skarhed is not allowed to say that it would be a good idea to repeal the law.

I’m not saying that it would be any better if the investigation were to be done with the goal that the law should be repealed. That would be equally bad - studies should be made with an unbiased starting point. It is one thing that the government gives limitations regarding scope, depth and main perspective of the investigations it orders. But they shouldn’t say beforehand what conclusion they want.

And of course it goes without saying that the directives of the investigation doesn’t mention that it would be a good idea to speak to actual sex workers about the effects of the law.

Isabella Lund has more (in Swedish).

I’m back home again after having worked for over a week at a huge multinational military staff exercise. It’s always weird to come home after one of those. Suddenly you have to chose what to wear in the morning, there’s no handy pockets all over your clothes to put all the stuff you need into (and don’t tell me that’s what a purse is for), people look at you weirdly when you say “affirmative” instead of yes, and nobody in the civilian darkness understands what the hell you’ve been doing and how you can love it so much.

I worked with fighter pilots (swoon…) and god, what I wouldn’t do to be one of them. I’m too short and my eyesight is crappy so that career path is closed for me, but I would do pretty much anything for the person who would take me up in a Gripen fighter jet. (Pilots welcome to put their offer in comments!)

But now it’s back to business - literally: I’ve just registered my own company and I’m now a freelance writer for real!

In the arts section of yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article called “The glamorous prostitution” (Den glamorösa prostitutionen). It starts: “They say sex sells. And the luxurious and happy whore sells even better. Now the Swedish books are here. But why is everyone so happy?”

Well, after reading that intro, I just knew what was coming.
The article then talks about pseudonymous London call girl Belle de Jour and Tracy Quan’s “Diary of a Manhattan call girl”. Now, a former Swedish stripper, Caroline L Jensen, is telling her story in “Champagneflickan. En svensk strippa berättar” (The champagne girl. The story of a Swedish stripper).

The author is (predictably) critical of the subject. In the end, the not so objective article reads (my translation):

Publishers are thus putting out books that portray prostitution and stripping as exotic occupations - but without caring about what signals they are sending out. A lot of the themes addressed in the books (buying sex, exploitation, the “happy whore”, free choice and so on) are of course pure mine fields. Behind the tough girls in luxurious packaging lays a lot of unanswered questions. As a reader you have to be careful not to be tricked by the glamour and the shiny covers.

You know, I have nothing against critical examination of the sex industry (or the publishing industry). I have read neither of the books, but I can buy that they might have been published more for cheap thrills and money than for their actual literary qualities. But then, isn’t that true of a lot of books?

To me it seems as if the article writer, Matilde Sköld, doesn’t want voices like those of Belle de Jour or Tracy Quan and Caroline L Jensen to be heard. Should the books include a mandatory chapter about the downsides of the sex industry? Advisory stickers on the covers? Or should they not have been published at all, because they don’t fit Sköld’s understandings of how sex workers are supposed to behave and feel?

And since then does publishing houses have to care about what “signals they are sending out” by publishing one book or another? You know, there are a lot of books out there which in detail describes sadistic murders and torture. In which sick and twisted individuals are portrayed without much, if any, criticism. In which the bad guy is getting away. And people that have done pretty awful stuff have published memoirs and biographies. Should books like those also be questioned on what “signals they are sending out”?

Belle and Tracy and Caroline have the right to tell their stories and to own their experiences and feelings (just as those who have terrible experiences of being sex workers have the right to their feelings and experiences). If they say they are happy, who are you to question them?

In Germany, discount food chain Lidl has accused of spying on its employees, using secret cameras and private detectives. German weekly Stern
has gotten hold of protocols from the food chain which described the habits and even appearance of employees in detail.

Now, my German is a bit off at the moment, so I haven’t read the original articles. Here, however, is what Spiegel Online International reports:

Stern claims to have obtained hundreds of pages of transcripts that document the movements and conversations of employees, for example: “Wednesday, 4:45 p.m.: Although Ms. N. has not accomplished much in the food and reduced wares department, she takes her break right on time. She sits together with Ms. L.; they talk about their wages, bonuses and paid overtime. Ms. N. hopes that her pay has been transferred already because she desperately needs money for this evening (reason = ?)”.

The transcripts also get into employees’ private lives (”Her circle of friends consists mainly of junkies”) and appearances (”Ms. M. has tattoos on both lower arms”). In their tone and detail, the observation logs invite comparison to those of the Stasi, the East German secret police.

Particularly controversial is a report from the Czech Republic where, according to Stern, female employees were allegedly prohibited from going to the bathroom during work hours — unless they had their period, which they were to indicate outwardly by wearing a headband. While Lidl denies the report, it has yet to issue an injunction on a citizen’s group or a newspaper that are publicizing the case widely.

Although Lidl has not denied the existence of the transcripts, Lidl spokesperson Petra Trabert told Stern they were not intended as “employee observation but rather to detect possible misconduct.”

This is disgusting. And what does Trabert mean by saying that the transcripts were not intended as employee observation but to detect possible misconduct? Spying is spying, no matter what your intentions are. If they monitored all employees in order to pick out the “bad apples”, they still have spied on their workers. There are sure better ways to ensure good worker conduct than blanket monitoring - how about good management, an open workplace atmosphere where workers are listened to and respected, and decent pay and benefits for starters? (Yes, you may say I’m a dreamer.) One thing I learned when working in customer service was that it didn’t matter that I went out of my way to solve the customer’s problems - the guy who had taken 120 calls that day (because he lied to the customers, didn’t finish the administration properly and made a half-assed effort overall) was the one who was applauded during staff meetings and whose name was circulated in mass e-mails from the management as an inspiration for all of us. Such is the nature of the service industry. Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. On (not) getting by in America. Sure, it deals with the USA, but read the Wal-Mart chapter and compare that to the news about Lidl. Also, read here.

Swedish magazine ETC online had an interesting article a whole ago on how a high production pace within the industry are making workers ill. Lean production, as it is called (also renamed management-by-stress by critical voices) was partly developed by Taichi Ohno, chief engineer at Toyota. His American workers called it the Oh No! system - each department manager was given 90 percent of the workers needed to reach the production goals. They were left on their own to figure out how to manage that, and when they did, the workforce was reduced by another 10 percent. In the Kawasaki factories, each work station has lights - a green light when everything is running smoothly, a yellow light if the worker has indicated that he needs help, and a red light if the assembly line needs to be stopped. Contrary to what you might think, the management does not want green lights everywhere, they want yellow lights. Why? Because then the workers are really making an effort. If there are green lights everywhere, that means they can cut some workers. And in the Volvo factory in Torslanda in western Sweden, the conveyor belt runs faster and faster until the computer shows that some station is above the limit. The line then stops for a while but then slowly speeds up again until a station is again unable to keep up. Bathroom breaks, breaks to catch your breath, to shift your position - all of that will affect productivity (and profit) negatively and are thus to be eliminated as much as possible.

Of course such systems will make the workers ill, mainly in musculo-skeletal disorders (back pain etc) and stress related diseases. And of course, such illnesses can easily be dismissed as not work-related, thus relieving the employer of any responsibility.

Within the service industry (call centers, customer service etc) and within the manufacturing industry, surveillance, control and measurement of workers are commonplace. But within administration and office work, it’s not as common. But Microsoft are on to something - according to the ETC article they have developed a system for office use which will, by using wireless censors in the worker’s computer, measure heart rate, blood pressure, sweat, body temperature, facial expressions and other bodily functions. According to developers, the system can be used to “send the employee the help he or she needs”. The real intent is of course to monitor the employees and pressure them to work harder. Not enough sweat, not high enough heart rate, then the help you are given are probably the “advice” to start looking for another job. Dare to complain about it to your co-workers? You better not - someone might be listening.

Decriminalization, ending demand, and choice: Feministe interviews the Sex Workers Project
- a very interesting post over at Feministe, where Sienna Baskin of the New York City based organization Sex Workers Project is interviewed. The interview deals with the societal response to prostitution, a question which is very much in the focus in the US right now due to the Spitzer scandal. It also discusses the “Swedish model” i.e. the criminalization of the buyer, not the seller.
Go read!

Via Isabella Lund, I find out that the Swedish government are conducting a hearing on prostitution and on trafficking for sexual purposes. A number of organizations have been called to participate, from Save the Children and the Red Cross to the Swedish Association for Victim Support and The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights.

Do you think something is missing? As usual, sex workers themselves are not invited to participate. Not a single sex worker organization, such as SANS, on the list. Renegade Evolution file stuff like this under “typical”, and so do I. Why do they think that sex workers, current and former, have no useful knowledge about the subject? Why aren’t sex workers allowed to take part in the conversation about themselves?

For crying out loud, even if you don’t agree with sex work/prostitution, can’t you at least listen to what the people who are actually in it have to say? How is that going to hurt you? Dear Swedish government, why do you think an organization like Män för jämställdhet (”Men for equality”) have more useful insight about the subject prostitution and trafficking than do an actual real life prostitute?

Well, to answer my own question, it is because what they might hear from people like Isabella Lund does not fit in their preconceived notions on what sex work/prostitution/porn is. And it is because it will not score them any political points from the people who set the agenda on this subject in Sweden.

I self-ID as a feminist (cue disclaimer about not being a hairy-legged man-hating ugly lesbian, and for the Swedish crowd, about not agreeing with Gudrun Schyman), and you know, a big thing in feminist discourse is the word choice. Now I’m going to borrow some rhetoric from belledame222 at Fetch Me My Axe who writes, with address to the anti-pornstitution (sic. they do call it that) radfem crowd:

Seriously, let me ask you this. I assume you’re “pro-choice” when it comes to reproduction? (If I’m wrong, ignore what follows). Okay. Putting aside the irony of “choice” being an acceptable feminist concept when it comes to reproductive rights but not when it comes to sexuality (for pay or otherwise) (or even personal adornment and modification, depending on who you ask, but that’s another argument, maybe)

…putting that aside, do you, you know, -like- abortion? I mean, are you like, “yay!abortion!” Are you gleefully advocating that women just go out and have abortions for shits and giggles? Do you claim that “choice” means the -correct- choice is always to get an abortion? Is the “abortion industry” a heartless sinister machine to which you’ve pledged your allegiance in exchange for a mess of pottage and your immortal soul?

Ridiculous, right? Well, funny thing, because this is pretty much how a lot of let’s say non-nuanced pro-lifers see the pro-choice folks.

What she’s getting at, of course, is that just as the anti-choicers see the pro-choice crowd as “yay! abortion”-shouting maniacs, the anti-pornstitution crowd also often come across like this. With the demonization of people not agreeing with them and the tendency to see everything in black and white: a sex worker is either a brainwashed victim in need of rescue, or a patriarchy-enabling sellout in cohorts with the enemy.

I can assure the Swedish government that if you would expand your list to include just one group who speaks for actual real life sex workers out there, you are absolutely not going hear them say: “Yay! Trafficking! Let’s have more 16 year old Moldavian girls who are kept drugged down and locked in apartments in Stockholm suburbs!”. Neither will they tell you “Yay! Selling sex is for everyone and should be a mandatory female experience”.
You know that.
So what are you so afraid of?

Via Feministe, I learned that Monday March 3rd was International Sex Workers’ Rights Day. Sex work/prostitution is one issue where I had a somewhat change of heart, mainly after reading the book “Porr, Horor och Feminister” (Porn, whores and feminists) by Petra Östergren.

As Jill of Feministe said, sex work is one of those issues, much like bikini waxes and porn, where any discussion always seem to divert into ugly fighting. But:

That’s not a great reason to avoid talking about it, but it probably is a good reason for me to defer to those who know more about the subject than I do. So I’ll just point out that sex work is as diverse as any other type of labor, and there is no singular sex worker narrative — not all sex workers are exploited girls from developing nations, any more than all sex workers are high-paid call-girls living fabulous and fun urban lives.

A while ago I found Renegade Evolution, a fierce in-your-face sex worker who has a lot to say about the anti-porn/anti-sex work feminist side. This is long, but worth reading. I also direct you to this post, called “Sometimes it’s the little things“. She has a lot of good stuff actually.

If you read Swedish, there’s Isabella Lund. She hasn’t written about the International Sex Workers Rights Day, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

I’m quite busy today, so I use this post from Cara of the Curvature to explain why sex workers’ rights are an important issue (links go to the same place as in her original post):

So. Why sex workers’ rights? Well, it’s pretty simple. Even those sex workers who enjoy their jobs get a hell of a raw deal. All around the world, sex workers are: investigated and arrested for making a living, deported even when there is evidence of non-consent, left without any form of job security, gang-raped and abused by their bosses but left without recourse for fear that they themselves will be arrested, and arrested for mere suspicion of prostitution, including carrying condoms (which only discourages safer sex).

We know that bad things happen to sex workers, that they are very often raped, abused, robbed, kidnapped or even murdered. But that isn’t even the worst of it — sex workers have horrible crimes committed against them but fear arrest to much report, or do report and end up being mocked or further-victimized. Sex workers are raped by police officers. Sex workers are tortured and killed in cold blood, but their murderers may only be sentenced to 9 years in jail. Sex workers are murdered and then have their entire humanity reduced to their profession.

In the off chance that a case involving a crime against a sex worker actually makes it to court, we can expect that their profession will be trotted out and used against them at every possible chance. When there is little or no evidence that a woman is a sex worker, she’ll often be called one anyway (particularly if she’s a woman of color, trans* or low-income) — as an insult, as a way to call victims liars or suggest that they deserved the rape, or as a way to call victims liars and imply that they just might have deserved that attempted murder. In cases where the victim openly says that yes, she sells sex for a living, the gang rape she suffered at gunpoint by five men will be labeled “theft of services.” Not a suggestion that she’s lying — only a flat-out proclamation that a woman who works in the sex industry has given up any and all claims to personal bodily autonomy and the right to live safely and free of violence. Judges declare in courtrooms that sex workers cannot be raped, and then they are allowed to stay on the bench.

And in Canada, a man accused of murdering two prostitutes says:

“Think of it as stolen property,” Svekla told his sister of the body left in her truck in May 2006.
“If you’re caught with stolen property, it doesn’t mean you stole it.

Cara again:

Yup — a dead sex worker’s body is akin to stolen property. This is precisely what I’ve been getting at. The stigma against sex workers not only puts them in danger, forces them to live below the radar and makes reporting a crime next to impossible. The stigma against sex workers causes them to no longer be seen as human. Clearly, this guy is a murderer and a twisted fuck. I can’t say that the words that come out of his mouth are ones I would normally use to make a point about our society. But read the stories above, and then tell me that this is not only a more frank expression of those same attitudes. Because it is.

Sorry about not having anything original to say about this. I hope to compose my thoughts and offer something on the subject soon (with a discussion about the “Swedish model” included, of course), but for now, go read the links!

Added: There is nothing wrong with a little shameless self-promotion, so here you can read a report I did for Amnesty on a debate about Petra Östergren’s book (in Swedish).

The Swedish telephone directory inquiry service 118 800 wants to train their operators to sound “sensual”, and is sending them to a speech trainer. The managing director, who himself also will take part in the speech training, says that the customers wants to hear “involved” voices, like speakers on TV-commercials. Because everybody just loves commercials! And there is nothing more sensual than a husky voice trying to sell toilet cleaner.

The managing director quickly points out that they have both men and women employed, with all kinds of accents and dialects. He also says that the operators are allowed to speak however they want. So then what is the point of making them sound sensual? I don’t get it.

And what will the speech training sound like?
Speech trainer: So, let’s try a little role play here. I’ll be the client calling asking for a number, and you’ll play yourself as the operator taking the call. Okay, let’s start.
Operator in training: Hello, welcome to the directory inquiry. How may I help you?
Speech trainer: I’m going to stop you right there. That wasn’t very sensual, now was it? You need to lower your voice, make it sound like you’re moaning a little. Think about something that makes you really really…hot. And that welcoming phrase is way too clinical. Try something like this: Hello, stranger. How can I please you tonight? I’ll give you whatever you want…
Operator in training: Wouldn’t that confuse the customers? They might think that they have dialed another number.
Company director, overhearing the conversation: Now dear, you know what we think about negative attitudes at this workplace. Remember who pays you salary. 99 percent right is 100 percent wrong! Now let me show you how it’s done…

Update: I missed that the article says that the speech training is voluntary for the operators. Still creepy though.

What are you going be when you grow up? Who hasn’t been asked that question. As young children, we answer that we want to be fire-fighters, rock stars, football players, ballet dancers, fighter pilots (that was me). And that answer is seen as cute and filled with innocent hopes and dreams. It may even be encouraged, with ballet lessons, soccer practice, and a child sized fire-fighter costume for playing dress-up.

Then we enter the school system. Here, we are expected to sit down and be quiet, until it’s time for P.E. class, when we are instead expected to jump and cartwheel on command. We are supposed to be children, to be innocent and playful and curious. “Kids are growing up too fast these days” complain the adults and point to 12 year old girls in short skirts and eye shadow. “What are their parents thinking, they look like sluts!”, they say, while bemoaning that the 12 year old girls are being called “bitch” by their class mates. No, we are not supposed to grow up too fast. Not when it comes to clothes and make up and sex and drinking. But at 15, we are expected to make choices that, say the adults with very serious voices, are determinant for our future. And you need to know long division to pass this course, if you don’t pass it that is going in your grades, and your future employer will want to look at those grades, so you better learn long division, otherwise you may be doomed, doomed I tell you!

Now, when being asked what we are going to be when we grow up, answering football player or rock star or ballet dancer isn’t cute and innocently hopeful any longer. By now we need to have realized that life isn’t fair and that those were just silly dreams (not having realized this is usually the fault of lax parenting and a school system that puts to much time into drawing and singing and talking about feelings instead of teaching life-necessary skills such as long division and sitting down and shutting up).

The “perfect girls” in this age are now dreaming of becoming lawyers and doctors and international aid workers. They are striving for perfection, for getting those good grades that everyone tells them are so important, and they know that it’s never too early to have a good CV and make yourself employable, so they do volunteer work and start projects and write blogs. (I say girls, because it largely seems to be girls who are striving for this kind of perfection). But somehow that is wrong too, they are being told. Don’t they realize that perfection is impossible? Don’t they realize that there is more to life than getting a high status “exciting” job? Don’t they realize that you need time to relax and “just be”?

When we’re out of school, we are given some leeway. When you’re 20, it’s kind of okay to work in a café, save money and then go off to Laos for three months. Sitting around playing guitar hoping to land a record contract is frowned upon, but can be looked by if it is “only a phase”. But then you pretty much have two choices - either get a job and then it’s pretty much expected that you “settle down” (oh how I loathe that phrase!) and start a family, or you go to university and further your education, thereby putting off the “settling down” thing a few years (but not too many!). And then you really need to think about what you are going to be when you grow up (because even if you have moved away from home, travelled alone in Turkmenistan, held 10 different jobs and live with your long time partner, you still haven’t “grown up”).

(Here, I diverge from the story a little to dwell on the fact that today in society, we lack rites of passage of becoming an adult. Before, you we’re an adult when you had gone through confirmation in church. At a certain age, you we’re expected to lay off your children’s clothes and were given the superficial attributes of adulthood - a woman’s coat and gloves, a man’s costume and hat. Nowadays, we have nothing like that, and transferring into adulthood is a process which takes years. I’m 28, married, have two university degrees, have worked a number of jobs, have all kinds of life experiences, but according to some people I’m still not really an adult, since I have no children or a permanent job - the ultimate signs of having “settled down” and thus being a true, productive member of society - an adult.)

(more…)

I picked up a copy of the free newspaper Metro when I went to Stockholm yesterday.
At page four, they ran a story titled “A brightening future for female business owners” (”En ljusnande framtid för kvinnliga företagare”).
And, along with the article, a picture of a mop and a bucket.

Yes, a mop and a bucket is, according to Metro editors, the perfect way to illustrate that Svenskt Näringsliv (the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) believes that the possibilities for Swedish women of starting their own business are really good right now.

Because, you know, you should start your business within something you’re good at. And everyone knows that women are just born with a mop in their hands.

It is also disheartening that the reason that the time for a woman to start her own business is now, is that the public sector is being more and more privatized. Thus Svenskt Näringsliv believes that the possibilities for business ownership for women lies within the traditional female spheres of taking care of children and the elderly, tasks which previously has been the responsibility of the public sector.

I am no friend of privatization, but as it says in the article, there are many women within for example child care who have years of experience and are extremely competent, and if they feel that they want to try it on their own, best of luck to them. It is just sad that within some editor’s head, female entrepreneurship = mop and bucket.

Update: I did a Google search on the article headline to try and find a link for it (no luck on the Metro website), but I only found Katrineholms Syndikalistiska Ortssektion (the syndicalist section of Katrineholm) who also have noticed the awful picture choice.