Adult Learning and Discourse

Cheryl raised a good challenge in class: How do the five lenses, critical theory, and feminist ways of knowing shed light on, say, prostitution and women’s control of their own sexuality. For example, how should we consider the UK-based International Prostitutes Collective’s mission statement: “Since 1975, the IPC has been campaigning for the abolition of the prostitution laws which criminalize sex workers and our families, and for economic alternatives and higher benefits and wages.” (See: http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20Sex%20Workers/SexWorkIndex.htm )

Using Women’s Ways of Knowing as a framework, we might reject the validity of the IPC organization based on a fundamental belief about the amorality of prostitution.

Or, champion the organization as a subjectivist, jumping into the cause as a way of fighting back against the patriarchy that exploits and rapes women, and then blames them and locks them up.     

We might approach this procedurally, by considering multiple perspectives. We could, for example, validate the sex workers’ voices and their right to appropriate the power of their sexuality, expose the ways they are violated by their pimps, challenge the laws that disproportionately punish the women. (Stephanie Covington speculates that women get longer sentences than men because they refuse (or don’t know how) to play the legal games required to plea bargain.) Simultaneously, we could attend to the voices of feminists (and others) that warn of the destructive effects of pornography, prostitution, human trafficking; the stripping away of dignity when women and girls (and, as well, men and boys) are reduced to sex objects. Using systematic procedures, we analyze and evaluate the claims of all “sides” from within each side’s frame of reference.

Finally, as constructed knowers, we pay attention to the tension caused by the alternative perspectives just described. Where does this dissonance lead us? Is there common ground? What would this look like? Can we work for immediate rights and protections for sex workers (financial, health care, etc.) and also work to problemitize—for them—the long term effects of this line of work? Should we? Ultimately, for constructed knowers, these decisions will be personal and procedural. They will take a stand with head and heart, informed by, and with an appreciation for, multiple perspectives. Sounds so nice and neat, yes? I’m guessing: not so much.