By Erica MacDonald
In the hours following the horrific murders at three Atlanta-area massage parlors on March 16, 2021, journalists and other commentators attempted to make sense of what motivated the killer. Debates and speculation began immediately regarding who these women were and what they had been doing. Were they sex workers? Victims of trafficking? Undocumented? It was assumed by many that answers to these questions would somehow provide a justification for or understanding of the violence.
Most of those killed were women who were at work and who deserved to be safe at work. We do not know if the six murdered employees engaged in sex work. Nor does it matter. What we do know, as the organization Red Canary Song stated clearly, is that “as massage workers, they were subjected to sexualized violence stemming from the hatred of sex workers, Asian women, working class people and immigrants.”
What most coverage has overlooked is the intersectional ways in which a number of identities and systems of oppression contributed to that day of senseless violence. Yes, this violence is the result of Anti-Asian racism. Yes, this violence is the result of the sexist fetishization of Asian women. Yes, this violence is the result of anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiment. And yes, this violence is the result of what sex worker advocates coined as “whorephobia”: the hatred and fear of sex workers. The women were targeted by someone who intended to kill people in the sexual services industry.
None of this is news to the transnational community of sex workers rights advocates and allies who have long called for the intersectional organizing that is essential to address violence against sex workers. However, mainstream analysis from both media and most advocacy groups did not explain or emphasize how the broader culture of hatred and fear against sex workers played into last Tuesday’s violence. Not only must we acknowledge this erasure we must also pause to examine its historical and ongoing consequences.
Contributing to the invisibility of this violence are the stigmatized ideologies that frame sex workers through a narrow binary, where they are either victims of oppression or criminals engaged in illegal behavior. This perspective fails to capture the complex experiences and conditions sex workers face and allows for continued criminalization of sex work and work perceived to be sex work, thus perpetuating cycles of violence.
To address systemic violence, we need to make the all-to-often invisible experiences of sex workers visible. Organizations such as Red Canary Song Red Canary Song in New York City have been, and are, doing this work.
Read the full statement released by Red Canary Song and signed by allied organizations in response to the shootings in Atlanta linked here.
Erica MacDonald
Erica MacDonald is a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Political Science in the subfields of comparative politics and international relations at the University of Connecticut. Her dissertation“Formally Informal: Sex Work, Stigma and Institutions” examines how different regulatory models governing sex work impact the rights of sex workers in Nevada and New South Wales. In doing so, she analyzes the strategies sex workers develop for institutionalizing their own protection and livelihood to navigate environments of exclusion. She currently works as a Graduate Assistant for the Democracy and Dialogue’s Initiative at UConn’s Dodd Human Rights Impact. Follow her on twitter @ericamacdonald.
The article seeks to reflect upon “the erasure of violence against sex workers”.
I’m hoping to find philosophers who are interested in approaching such a noble goal in a truly ambitious manner. That is, a manner which demonstrates that we are willing to do more than express concern, that we are willing consider actually solving the problem. Actually solving the problem.
To me, the best philosophy is often the simplest, and there is a very simple observation here which can guide us towards the erasure of violence.
The overwhelming vast majority of violence of all kinds is committed by men. This is a consistent pattern in all times and places going back thousands of years. So…
Imagine a world without men.
Imagine a world where unspeakable violence is lifted off the backs of many millions of innocent victims. Imagine a world where the vast resources now used to manage male violence are reinvested in to life affirming projects like health care and education. Imagine a world which has reached a place long dreamed of, but never achieved. Imagine something quite close to world peace.
Philosophers are not supposed to trod along in the group think status quo with everyone else. Philosophers are not supposed to be popular and applauded, we have celebrities for that.
Philosophers are supposed to explore the boundaries of the group consensus, and bravely journey in to what was previously considered unthinkable, in search of real solutions.
Those of you who are young will spend your lives in a world where violent men are further empowered by an ever accelerating knowledge explosion. There will be ever more powers, of ever greater scale, delivered to violent men at an ever accelerating rate.
No society in history has figured out how to keep the peaceful men while getting rid of the violent men. To have men, is to have violent men. To have violent men in the 21st century is to witness the end of modern civilization.
Does this sound like hysterical futurist speculation? If yes, then here’s a reality check.
Thousands of massive hydrogen bombs on hair trigger alert are aimed at your head and mine, and those of everyone we care about, right now, today, as we speak. These weapons are ready to fly on a moments notice at the press of a button by a single human being.
We love to talk about how the 21st century is revolutionary. It’s time to start meaning it.
A world without men. Worth considering.