“Feminists have made sex workers’ work so much more difficult”

A Guest Post from Sarah van Brussel.

“One thing I kept hearing over and over again was how feminists have made sex workers’ work so much more difficult.”

The following is a guest post from Sarah van Brussel.

I’m a regular reader of your blog and a big fan of your work. I’m a feminist and an atheist and I really appreciate what you contribute to both movements. I’m not much of a commenter, but after reading your post giving the floor to sex workers, I wanted to say thank you and share the context in which I read your post.

I work at a international women’s fund called Mama Cash, a fund with a long history of funding sex worker led organisations. To say I was horrified by Taslima Nasreen’s post about sex work would be an understatement. Your post came at a particularly poignant time for me. I just attended the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) Forum in Istanbul, Turkey.

During the conference I had the opportunity to talk to sex worker activists who work on human rights issues from all over the world. One thing I kept hearing over and over again was how feminists have made sex workers’ work so much more difficult. I usually wear my ‘feminist badge’ with pride, but this shocked and shamed me. An activists from the Turkish organisation Kadin Kapisi said that when she became a sex worker activist she expected to be fighting with fundamentalists, traditionalists, bigots and other conservative people, but instead she spends most of her time fighting feminists and socialists. An activist from the English Collective of Prostitutes said it even more succinctly: “we live in fear of raids and ‘rescue’”. The experience of speaking directly with sex workers has made me even more determined to be the best ally I can be.

I know these activists women and men as incredibly passionate, smart and above all brave people, and it fills me with rage when people like Taslima Nasreen dismiss them as victims and deny them their agency.

One of the highlights of the AWID Forum for me was the launch of the first fund led by and for sex workers, the Red Umbrella Fund (Mama Cash is administratively hosting the Fund). The mission of this new fund is to “strengthen and ensure the sustainability of the sex worker rights movement by catalyzing new funding specifically for sex worker-led organisations and national, regional and global networks.”

The Fund was launched in the presence of at least 40 sex worker activists from all over the world, and it was a truly joyous occasion. Many veterans of the sex worker rights movement never expected to see this moment and they are thrilled to finally have a say in the kind funding that is available to them. The Fund embraces a philosophy of “nothing for us without us” and commits itself to putting sex workers at the heart of the Fund’s governance and of programs.

Sex worker rights organisations have a lot of trouble accessing funding, particularly if they don’t focus on rescuing sex workers. And a lot of the money that is available is donor driven, meaning driven by a donor’s agenda that doesn’t necessarily match their own priorities and needs. General support and capacity building grants are even more scarce. I hope the Red Umbrella Fund will make a difference and will help improve the sustainability of the movement.

So, thank you for your posts — all of them really, but especially this one. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

PS: If you’re interested you can read more about the Red Umbrella Fund here.

And now, Greta again.

I want to pull out this excerpt, and call special attention to it.

During the conference I had the opportunity to talk to sex worker activists who work on human rights issues from all over the world. One thing I kept hearing over and over again was how feminists have made sex workers’ work so much more difficult. I usually wear my ‘feminist badge’ with pride, but this shocked and shamed me. An activists from the Turkish organisation Kadin Kapisi said that when she became a sex worker activist she expected to be fighting with fundamentalists, traditionalists, bigots and other conservative people, but instead she spends most of her time fighting feminists and socialists. An activist from the English Collective of Prostitutes said it even more succinctly: “we live in fear of raids and ‘rescue’”.

I want every anti- sex- work feminist to read this.

I want every anti- sex- work feminist who thinks they’re “helping” sex workers to read this.

And I then want them to ask themselves: What kind of feminist “helps” other women without listening to what kind of help they actually want? What kind of feminist “helps” other women by treating them as if they aren’t capable of deciding for themselves what’s best for them? What kind of feminist “helps” other women in ways that those women actually find harmful?