I’ve been reading quite a lot lately about the various forms of oppression that we women face as research for my latest novel, The Adventures of Infinity and Negativa. Although I’m only going to focus on how a lack of education, a lack of birth control and a lack of income oppress women, I’m beginning to see that the first oppressive situation is the biggest of them all.
When females lack education, they are more likely to be viewed by society as mules, who should toil from sun up to sun down on menial tasks that neither require nor stimulate intellectual thought. When society has the expectations that certain women are only good for such menial tasks, then it does not value educating such young women. As a matter of fact, the tendency is to think that the act of educating such young women a waste of resources–with time also being included as a resource.
Outside the States, in some of the most conservative developing countries, such young women are kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Many times, the local police are aware of the brothels that kidnap, beat, and drug young women, but the attitude is that they are the poor, uneducated girls; so it’s OK. Moreover, some condone the practice because the forced sexual enslavement of this perceived undesirable population of young women means that the desirable population of young women (at least middle class and educated) will remain virgins upon marriage. Males can satisfy their sexual desires with prostitutes instead of enticing the desirable population of young women into sex, which would shame her family.
As the universe tends to do when I’m researching a topic, a related workshop presented itself. Walking into this workshop, I wanted to contrast how young women are trafficked in the States.
One of the first things that I learned was that pimps did not have to cross international or state lines to be considered “trafficking.” I also learned that “teenage prostitution” did not exist by definition since the age of consent federally is 18 and statewide, there is a range of 16-18, depending on the state. The most devastating fact I learned was that the average age for young women to be sexually trafficked in the States is 13.
In the States, young women are recruited to and from school, at women’s battered shelters and virtually any place where the pimps can have access to girls who are at risk. Again, the younger and less educated a girl is, she is at risk of being categorized as an undesirable. If the girl comes from a chaotic home where her parents physically and verbally fight, one or both parents are addicts, then being taken care of by a pimp initially seems better.
Pimps, who are much older, shower the at risk girl with attention, gifts, compliments and eventually have sex with her. Then, once the girls are emotionally attached, that’s precisely when the pimp will flip the script and put her on the street. The biggest lie is that by soliciting herself for money, that she’ll help him save up enough money to eventually marry her and they’ll live happily ever after.
For my book, I’m only focusing on prostitution as it occurs in Honduras, but the common thread of this form of oppression is, by one method or another, young uneducated girls who are poor are at the greatest risk of being trafficked. The universality of this theme sickens me. As a teacher, I’ve discovered newfound motivation to make sure the females in my classes stay plugged into school. Not only are they less likely to be trafficked, but statistically they are more likely to have fewer children and those children will be better cared for by their educated mother.
As a writer, I see it as my duty to bring about the global double standard that is continuing to plague women. I now know that it was an absolute blessing to be born to middle class parents from a developed country that values female education and insures my rights to control how many children I bring into this world and secure income and property.
I’m not sure if just one book will do, but at this point, there are so many issues that are beyond the scope of my current work in progress. Not only do I need to address the three oppressive situations that I’ve previously mentioned, but also the whole double standard concerning female sexuality. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.