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Prostitution and pornography: Have they always existed? — Transcript

by Nordic Model Now! · 3,812 words · 612 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:03it's very easy to think that the world
0:05we know today is normal and is how human
0:08beings have always lived but what if
0:11that's not true wife the social
0:15structures we now live in are an anomaly
0:17in the long history of the human race
0:21that's what we're going to explore in
0:23this presentation we're going to
0:26investigate the origins of patriarchy
0:28and capitalism with a focus on the role
0:31of prostitution and pornography drawing
0:33on the work of a number of feminist
0:35scholars will provide a full list of
0:39these at the end so if you want to find
0:41out more you can look them up later one
0:46of us was telling an intelligent and
0:48educated young man about these ideas and
0:51he said that it sounded like an
0:53eccentric theory which raises the
0:57question who gets to describe reality
0:59and in whose interests we may like to
1:07think that we're free agents making
1:10decisions based on a dispassionate
1:12assessment of all the evidence and that
1:14were not significantly subject to
1:16manipulation and bias but the reality is
1:21is that we live in a profoundly unequal
1:23society in which an elite controlled the
1:26key institutions including academia and
1:29the mass media promote beliefs and
1:32narratives that further their own
1:34interests with the result that many
1:37people come to accept these views as the
1:39truth take for example the notion that
1:46feminists hate men this is used to
1:49discredit feminists and to control and
1:51frighten women into conforming to the
1:53behavior that's considered acceptable
1:55for them putting men's needs before
1:58their own and certainly not calling them
2:00out for bad behavior as a result when
2:07women described that epidemic levels of
2:09male violence were currently witnessing
2:11there frequently written off as man
2:14haters meaning
2:16no one has to listen to them or consider
2:18how to bring about change the very idea
2:23that feminists and man-haters justifies
2:26men attacking women who speak out about
2:28male violence because what they're
2:29saying is implicitly framed as hate so
2:34now powerful social media corporations
2:37routinely ban women for describing male
2:40violence whilst condoning men's
2:42threatened and actual violence against
2:45women it can be overwhelming when you
2:50open your eyes to the reality and extent
2:53of male violence there is a temptation
2:57to say
2:58god I hate man but let's be clear
3:02that's venting frustration it's not
3:05feminist analysis feminism is
3:11essentially a message of hope that male
3:14violence is not inevitable that it's
3:18socially constructed and therefore it
3:20can be changed we do not believe that
3:26anyone is born bad we all started by
3:30reaching out for connection with other
3:31human beings we all started with the
3:34full potential for love but living in
3:40this world where we're exposed to
3:42brutality and a coerced into conformity
3:45changed us and that's what we hate what
3:49our racist patriarchal culture does to
3:52men and boys just as we hate what it
3:55does to women and girls we believe this
3:59culture is not inevitable we believe it
4:02can change and that people can change
4:04their behavior and that this would be
4:06better for everyone in fact it may be
4:09the only hope for the world in its
4:11current political economic and
4:13environmental crisis so feminism is full
4:18of hope not hatred we're not saying that
4:22changing the system is easy nor that
4:25it's easy to change ourselves too and do
4:27all the ways we've been messed up
4:29both require determination and facing
4:32some terrible truths is painful to look
4:38the truth straight in the eye but
4:40understanding that we've all been played
4:42by the system makes it slightly easier
4:44to forgive ourselves on each other and
4:46to understand that this battle is not
4:49personal and to work together for
4:51systemic change another claim is that
4:56prostitution has always existed it's the
4:59oldest profession the corollary to
5:03something always existing is that it
5:06will inevitably continue to exist so
5:08there's no point trying to change it
5:12this is another piece of propaganda to
5:15make us feel helpless and to dismiss the
5:17radical feminist analysis it's important
5:22to note that there was a time when
5:24prostitution did not exist our first
5:30human ancestors appeared between five
5:33and seven million years ago with modern
5:36humans arising about 200,000 years ago
5:41we know something about how these early
5:43humans lived by studying the
5:45archaeological record and modern tribes
5:48who maintained a traditional
5:49hunter-gathering way of life into the
5:51last century
5:55scientists believe that for hundreds of
5:57thousands of years these early humans
6:00lived in female centric groups made up
6:03of sisters and brothers the woman's
6:05children in their manes the mother-child
6:08bond was the foundation of all kinship
6:12these early human societies were a Galit
6:16Aryan cooperation was essential for
6:19survival and generosity patience and
6:23good humor were all valued while
6:25coercion and attempts to dominate others
6:28were aboard prestige did not come from
6:32your sex or from who your parents were
6:34it had to be earned and there was no
6:37concept of land ownership rocker
6:42from many different places some many
6:45millennia old portray women and sexual
6:48activity realistically was neither
6:50partner dominating the other things
6:56began to change after people developed
6:59horticulture and later agriculture and
7:02started living in more permanent
7:04settlements they produced surplus food
7:08giving time to develop crafts and they
7:11traded with other groups they now needed
7:14social structures to mediate conflict
7:20the archaeological records show that
7:22many of these early settled communities
7:24maintained that egalitarian ISM female
7:29figurines indicate that women continued
7:31to be held in high regard women and men
7:35were buried in the same way suggesting
7:37they were considered equals there's no
7:40evidence of war until about 12,000 BCE
7:47the more settled way of life
7:50farming the creation of surplus all lent
7:54themselves to a more stratified society
7:56eventually leading the way for strong
7:59man to exert themselves as leaders and
8:01take control of the communal resources
8:06this was the beginning of the
8:08patriarchal social structure it arose at
8:12different times in different parts of
8:14the world but followed a similar stage
8:16of technological development in
8:19Mesopotamia now part of modern Iraq the
8:23transition to patriarchy was fairly
8:25complete by around 5000 BCE in her book
8:33from Eve to dawn Maryland French defines
8:37patriarchy like this
8:41patriarchy means institutionalized male
8:44dominance guaranteed by a set of
8:47interlocking structures that perpetuate
8:50the power and authority of an elite
8:53class of men
8:55over other humans and grant all men
8:58power and authority over women of their
9:01class to achieve this colossal social
9:08change the elite man had to subordinate
9:11and control all women and enlist the
9:14support of the ordinary man they had to
9:18break the ancient solidarity between the
9:20sexes one way they did this was through
9:25new myths and rituals they invented new
9:28all-powerful male gods to justify their
9:31control and they denigrated that old
9:34goddesses and their symbols much of the
9:39old testament can be interpreted as a
9:41record of this transition to a
9:43patriarchal society the Garden of Eden
9:47can be seen as the folk memory of the
9:50older Galit Aryan way of life but of
9:55course the older man didn't want people
9:57to understand what was happening so they
9:59rewrote the history blaming the
10:02catastrophe on Eve claiming she was
10:04inherently evil and justifying all
10:07women's second-class status as her Lena
10:12Kennedy so brilliantly put it Eve was
10:15framed
10:16she was also victim blamed maybe over
10:23the earlier millennia some men were
10:26resentful that the community revolved
10:28around women and their power to give
10:29birth and the close connections they had
10:32with their children maybe men felt even
10:36more resentful about this once they
10:38developed animal husbandry and began to
10:41understand their own role in
10:42reproduction maybe the older men
10:47controlled the resources so strictly
10:49that there was no possibility of
10:51survival without going along with the
10:53new regime
10:55whatever ultimately the ordinary man
10:59conformed and the power they were given
11:02over women was used to buy them off and
11:06once they saw their own daughters
11:08and sisters as inferior they could see
11:11other groups as inferior and they were
11:14more easily coerced into fighting wars
11:16for the benefit of the elite the entire
11:22system required the conformity of the
11:25ordinary man just as it required women
11:27subordination without this fracturing of
11:31the human community the elite man may
11:33not have succeeded in maintaining
11:35control of the common resources in from
11:42eve to dawn
11:43Marilyn French notes that the first
11:47mention of prostitution comes from Sumer
11:49were priests prostituted female captives
11:52and slaves to draw a man and money into
11:55the temples from the first prostitution
11:59was designed to profit man already there
12:05were farmers Weaver's Potter's midwives
12:08scribes priests bakers and many other
12:12professions so no prostitution is not
12:16the oldest profession because if you
12:21think about it how could prostitution
12:24exists in an egalitarian society where
12:27resources are shared equitably
12:28and women are key in the gathering
12:31production and sharing of food how could
12:36the institution of prostitution exist in
12:38such a community given it requires women
12:41to have sex with someone she doesn't
12:43desire in exchange for the resources she
12:46needs to survive in a truly egalitarian
12:51society
12:53she already has all that she needs and
12:55she has the freedom to please hurt
12:56herself sexually so no prostitution such
13:00a culture would be inconceivable it
13:03would make no sense in her book the
13:08creation of patriarchy Gerda learner
13:11describes the emergence of patriarchy in
13:14Mesopotamia she refers to the code of
13:18hammurabi which is one of the oldest
13:21deciphered
13:22writings of significant length in the
13:24world it dates from 1754 BCE and is a
13:31series of amendments and restatements of
13:34laws that were already in force and so
13:37gives an indication of how life was
13:39organized in the previous centuries
13:42Gerda Lerner said the Code of Hammurabi
13:46marks the beginning of the
13:48institutionalization of the patriarchal
13:51family as an aspect of state power it
13:54reflects a class society in which
13:57women's status depended on the male
14:00family had social status and property in
14:06practice this meant that men's status
14:10and power their social class was a
14:13reflection of the work they did and the
14:15property they owned but women's status
14:18now depended on her husband or father
14:21and on her sexual behavior women but not
14:26men were punished for adultery for the
14:33system to work for the subjugation of
14:35women to be complete there needed to be
14:38a way of distinguishing respectable
14:41women who were under the patronage of a
14:43named man their husband or father from
14:46the other women who being excluded by
14:49law from the communal resources required
14:51for survival had no option but
14:54prostitution and who were fair game for
14:57all man any man to rape the code of
15:03hammurabi dictated that respectable
15:06women had to cover their heads whilst
15:08the other women were not allowed to so
15:11everyone could see which group each
15:14woman belonged to and there were harsh
15:17punishments for anyone who didn't comply
15:22women accepted respectability to avoid
15:26being fair game and then she had to make
15:30sure that she was always taken as a
15:32respectable wife so she wouldn't be
15:34mistaken for a
15:36prostitute she had to distance herself
15:38from the prostitutes and so women were
15:42divided in order that they could be more
15:45easily controlled slave women were not
15:52allowed to wear the veil girdle owner
15:54shows that slavery and its implicit
15:56racism also arose at this time and the
16:00institutional sexism and racism are
16:03deeply intertwined she showed that the
16:07sexual regulation of women underlies the
16:10formation of social classes and just
16:14like racism is one of the foundations on
16:16which they are based and let's be clear
16:21as much as they tried to justify their
16:24divine rights the elite men had no more
16:27right to the communal resources than
16:29anyone else
16:29they simply stole them and their success
16:33was based on dividing men and women and
16:36reducing women to the equivalence of
16:38private property and the creation of the
16:41system of prostitution was a key
16:43mechanism they used to achieve this our
16:48own culture is directly descended from
16:51this in her book the reign of the
16:58phallus eva cools shows the extreme
17:01subordination of women continued in
17:03ancient greece she says one of the most
17:08revealing aspects of Athenian society
17:10was the similarity of the positions of
17:14women and slaves she identified a
17:19considerable body of artwork that
17:21depicts men having violent sex with
17:24female prostitutes and beating them with
17:26objects there are no such images among
17:31the rock art created by pre patriarchal
17:33societies so the images Eva Eva calls
17:37identifies evidence of the catastrophic
17:40change in women's status these images
17:44functioned both as justification for
17:46women subordinate status
17:48and his instruction manual for what was
17:50acceptable if public art shows men
17:54beating women the message is clear that
17:57it's acceptable to beat women
17:59it may even suggest that beating women
18:02is a necessary part of being a man
18:07this was publicly sanctioned because the
18:10control of society by the elite depended
18:13on the fracturing of the solidarity
18:16between men and women and on women's
18:18complete disempowerment we're gonna skip
18:23forward now to the development of
18:25capitalism in Western Europe in the 16th
18:28and 17th centuries this involved a
18:33process that was parallel to the early
18:35development of patriarchy male elites
18:39took control of land and resources that
18:42had traditionally been shared and
18:43subdued the common people capitalism can
18:47therefore be seen as a logical extension
18:49to patriarchy the development of
18:55capitalism was messy and violent as the
18:57elite set about transforming the largely
18:59self-sufficient peasants into a
19:02controllable workforce from whose labor
19:04they could make a profit
19:07initially the enclosure of the common
19:09land on which the ordinary people
19:12depended for survival was very manly
19:14resisted and in many places women led
19:18the resistance
19:22Silvia Freddie Ricci in her book Caliban
19:25and the witch which traces the history
19:28of this tradition from a feminist point
19:30of view makes the important observation
19:32that sexual hierarchies are always at
19:38the service of a project of domination
19:40that can sustain itself only by dividing
19:44on a continually renewed basis those it
19:47intends to rule for the previous
19:52centuries most of the population of
19:55Western Europe lived in rural
19:57communities and it was largely a
20:00subsistence economy meaning that the
20:03ordinary people mostly produced their
20:05own food and clothing among the common
20:09people there was still considerable
20:11cooperation between the sexes because
20:14this was necessary for survival work
20:19revolved around the home and its
20:21environs so women were able to keep an
20:24eye on their children whilst working on
20:26food production and preparation making
20:29and maintaining that families clothing
20:30and home environment and so on with the
20:35move to a wage based economy and later
20:38in the Industrial Revolution work moved
20:41out of the home and into the factory in
20:43office which were unsuitable
20:44environments for small children
20:48man unencumbered by children became
20:51primary wage earners and the previous
20:54equilibrium between men and women was
20:56catastrophic Lee disrupted during the
21:02early stages of this transition the
21:05authorities condoned if not encouraged
21:07violence against poor women as a way of
21:10controlling rebellious young man during
21:14this period gang rape became common and
21:17the perpetrators had impunity provided
21:21the women were poor at the same time
21:24prostitution was institutionalized
21:26throughout Europe
21:32was followed by two centuries of brutal
21:35witch hunts accompanied by widespread
21:37misogynistic propaganda the expulsion of
21:40women from crafts and the loss of their
21:43old knowledge of herbs and healing as a
21:46result women lost such independence as
21:50they had their rebellious spirit was
21:52broken and they were driven into
21:54economic dependence on man who had also
21:57lost their independence and had become
22:00dependent on employers women became
22:05reproductive machines turning out new
22:08workers on which the capitalist economy
22:10depended but their labor being unpaid
22:14became publicly invisible the previous
22:20more mutual relationship between men and
22:22women was replaced by something harder
22:25and more vicious men got to have power
22:29over their women and children as if in
22:32compensation for the loss of their old
22:34autonomy though individual men sometimes
22:40fought to save their own women from the
22:42witch hunts with one exception in the
22:45Basque region there is no record of man
22:48uniting to resist the persecution of
22:50women Federici says there is no doubt
22:59that years of propaganda and terror
23:01sowed amongst men the seeds of a deep
23:04psychological alienation from women that
23:06broke her solidarity and undermined
23:10their own collective power just as today
23:14by repressing women the ruling classes
23:17more effectively repressed the entire
23:19proletariat this was all taking place in
23:27Europe at the same time as the
23:29colonization of the Americas the
23:31genocide of its people's the beginning
23:34of the Atlantic slave trade and the
23:37subsequent colonialist expansion in
23:39Africa and Asia
23:43methods of control learn in the which
23:45hands were exported to the colonies and
23:48methods of control learn in the brutal
23:51suppression of the colonized people were
23:53introduced in the control of women and
23:55workers at home
23:58Maria mise in her book
24:01patriarchy and accumulation on a world
24:03scale shows that the capitalist system
24:06is dependent on the continual
24:09patriarchal exploitation and
24:12subordination of women and colonized
24:14peoples and the stealing of the communal
24:17resources the ordinary people have
24:20traditionally shared and relied on this
24:25process of elites hijacking communal
24:27resources to build up their own private
24:30capital is known in economic theory as
24:33primitive accumulation in the preface to
24:37the 1998 edition
24:39she says that as she researched and
24:41wrote the book she began to understand
24:45that the exploitation and oppression of
24:47women are not just accidental phenomena
24:50but are intrinsic parts of a system
24:53which has existed for at least five
24:56thousand years and which is penetrated
24:59and structured all cultures of the globe
25:01to summarize both the patriarchal and
25:10the capitalist systems were founded on
25:13male elites taking into private
25:16possession ie stealing land and other
25:20resources that had traditionally been
25:23shared communally and therefor
25:26dispossessing the people from their own
25:28land and resources and making them
25:31dependent on the new masters for
25:33survival the elites were able to do this
25:37because they successfully divided the
25:39common people not least through the
25:42oppression of women using mass
25:44propaganda and buying men off by giving
25:47them power over women a similar
25:50mechanism was used to colonize oppress
25:53and subordinate black and brown peoples
25:56and this was no less fundamental to the
25:58success of the elite power grab so now
26:05let's look at what's happening today
26:07through the lens of this understanding
26:11neoliberalism the current incarnation of
26:15capitalism prioritizes the unlimited
26:17concentration of wealth in the hands of
26:20a small global elite it was unleashed by
26:24Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who
26:27were instrumental in dismantling the
26:29institutions that had previously held
26:31global finance and corporations in check
26:34and that had protected ordinary people's
26:37welfare neoliberalism has led to
26:43enormous disparities in wealth not just
26:45between countries but within countries
26:49inequality in the UK is now comparable
26:52to that seen in Victorian times and is
26:55rapidly increasing it may be less
26:59obvious that when the Tudor Barons
27:02fenced off the common land but what is
27:05happening on a global scale is just as
27:07much a stealing of the common resources
27:10by an unaccountable elite and just as
27:13before the global elite success in this
27:16project is dependent on the successful
27:19division of the population and once more
27:23racism and sexism are the key tools they
27:26use to divide the people so it should
27:33not surprise us that currently in
27:35England and Wales only just over 1% of
27:40man accused of rape reported to the
27:42police are prosecuted and of those only
27:47proportion are convicted meaning that
27:50rape is now effectively decriminalized
27:55neither should we be surprised that
27:57men's sexual harassment of women is rife
28:00in all public places and online nor the
28:04in spite of the efforts of feminist
28:06campaigners for the most part men
28:09have utter impunity as we have seen
28:18pornography has existed since the time
28:20of the ancient Greeks at least but now
28:24its availability in the fact that it
28:26depicts real people rather than artists
28:29impressions is unprecedented
28:33the vast majority of online porn shows
28:37sexual degradation humiliation and
28:40violence against women and girls this
28:44content is never more than a click or
28:46two away when you're connected to the
28:48Internet research suggests that most
28:52children have been exposed to it from
28:54the age of about 11 with some
28:56encountering it by 8 or even younger for
29:01many children perhaps most porn is their
29:05sex education and their indoctrination
29:07into the sex class hierarchy manners
29:11humans and women and girls are subhuman
29:16in against the male flood Andrea Dworkin
29:20describes pornography like this
29:24pornography as women turned into
29:26subhumans beaver [ __ ] body parts
29:30genitals exposed buttocks breasts mouths
29:33opened and throats penetrated covered in
29:36semen pissed on [ __ ] on hung from
29:39light fixtures tortured maimed bleeding
29:42disemboweled killed porn rot Assizes
29:48unlit itemizes not only cruelty but also
29:53male supremacy and female subordination
29:57so that they seem absolutely normal so
30:03for example when the police see a video
30:06of a man raping a woman they see it as
30:10an ordinary sex act and can't identify
30:13anything wrong with it so porn ruins the
30:18police response to rape
30:20along with the prosecutors and judges
30:22responses and the jury's decision making
30:27but it also ruins any hope of collective
30:32resistance to the neoliberal assault
30:35because men are bought off by their
30:38erotic enjoyment of cruelty towards
30:41women and children and women Accor in
30:44the headlights of the continuous threat
30:47of assault
30:51make no mistake porn is not some small
30:54renegade outfit it is big business and
30:58it operates with the consent of
31:01governments all around the world the
31:06global porn industry makes about 90
31:09billion dollars a year that's about 9
31:13times more than the Hollywood film
31:15industry this is no accident
31:20it is both propaganda an instruction
31:24manual it incites violence against women
31:28and girls it trains men and boys to be
31:32cruel
31:32it teaches women and girls to hate
31:35themselves it deflects all of our
31:39attention away from the global elites
31:41plundering of the earth's resources the
31:45resources that have traditionally
31:46belonged to us all not only that but the
31:53global sex trade and the reproductive
31:56technology industries are using women as
31:59commodities on a mass scale now the
32:03natural resources of the planet are
32:06close to exhaustion the global
32:08capitalists have turned to mining women
32:11and girls bodies for the primitive
32:13accumulation of capital no one who cares
32:18about the welfare of human beings and if
32:20the planet itself can condone this it is
32:25cannibalism if you want to find out more
32:29here are a list of our references thank
32:33you
32:34you

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