Final Exam- Feminist Issues

Question 1

Empirical Studies on prostitution

Answer 1

• Regarded by most people that buying and selling sex is degrading, dishonorable or despicable – a deep-rooted belief that prostitution is taboo.
• Assumption that prostitution cannot be taken seriously or ever achieve the status of other service occupations.
• Despite its size, profits, numerous customers, and mainstreaming, commercial sex continues to be viewed by people as deviant and disreputable.
• A lucrative industry that employs many individuals and attracts many customers but is regarded by many as immoral or harmful and in need of either stricter control or total elimination.

Question 2

The Bedford Case

Answer 2

Bedford was brought forward in 2008 by 3 sex workers who challenged Canada’s laws about prostitution,arguing that the laws should be changed to protect the health and human rights of sex workers, it challenged sections of the criminal code

Question 3

What are the sections of the Criminal Code that the Bedford Case challenge

Answer 3

• Section 210
• Section 211
• Section 212
• Section 213

Question 4

Section 210: “Bawdy House Law”

Answer 4

• Bawdy-house law”: This law made it illegal to “keep” a “common bawdy-house”. This meant that it was illegal to regularly use, own, work, rent or even be found in a place that was used for the purposes of prostitution
• This prevented sex workers from working in their homes or other familiar locations despite research showing that indoor settings significantly reduced (or in some cases eliminated) the violence sex workers faced on the job
• Since bawdy-house laws made working in these types of places illegal, sex workers were reluctant to call police for protection if they encountered a violent client)

Question 5

What do “Bawdy houses” refer to ?

Answer 5

was understood as any place (public or private) used for the purpose of prostitution

Question 6

Section 211

Answer 6

This section made it illegal to take a person to a bawdy house or give directions to a bawdy-house

Question 7

Section 212 “Procurement law” or “living on the avails of prostitution”

Answer 7

• Procurement law” or “living on the avails of prostitution”: Some parts of this law were important to protect people from being forced into prostitution or being exploited for prostitution
• The law also made it illegal to help anyone buy or sell sexual services including referring clients to other sex workers or giving advice to other sex workers about how to work safely
• It made it a crime for anyone to live off the profits made from prostitution

Question 8

Section 213: “Communicating Law”

Answer 8

• This made it illegal to stop or communicate with another person in a public place for the purposes of exchanging sexual services for money
• This meant that it was practically impossible for a sex worker to legally work anywhere in public and the bawdy-house laws (above) made it illegal for sex workers to work in private places on a regular basis
• Forcing street-based sex work

Question 9

The sections of the criminal code were unconstitutional because they violated sex workers’ rights under theCharterto

Answer 9

Section 7 : life, liberty, and security(safety) of personwhich means protection for their physical and mental well-being.

Section 2: freedom of expressionto talk to clients on the street about services, prices, and circumstances under which they will provide the services.

Question 10

What did the government argue in the Bedford case?

Answer 10

• That the laws did follow theCharterand did not violate sex workers’ rights.
• That the laws did not create the risk to sex workers, but that the risk to sex workers was built into the nature of prostitution itself

Question 11

What did the Ontario Court Appeal decide (The Bedford Case)

Answer 11

though these reasons were important, all three laws force sex workers to do their work in a way that significantly increases their risks of violence.

• 2012, bawdy-house law should be struck down.
• The Court changed the living on the avails law so that the restriction only applies in situations of exploitation.

Question 12

In 2013, what did the SCC decide?

Answer 12

that the challenged provisions of theCriminal Coderegarding prostitution were unconstitutional

• In declaring thebawdy house lawunconstitutional, the Court stated that allowing sex workers to operate brothels will allow them access to safer working conditions without fear of criminalization

Question 13

What year did Parliament amend the Criminal Code ‘Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act”

Answer 13

2014

Question 14

Was the Crown’s appeal of the communicating for the purposes of prostitution successful?

Answer 14

yes. This means street prostitution, where prostitutes solicit business in public, remains effectively illegal.

Question 15

What is the Nordic Model?

Answer 15

• This means street prostitution, where prostitutes solicit business in public, remains effectively illegal.
• aims to eliminate the demand for sex work.

Question 16

R.v Anwar

Answer 16

• husband and wife applicants in the constitutional challenge, in this case, were charged under theCriminal Codefor their operation of an escort service in London, Ontario
• The charges were under section 286.2(1) (receiving a material benefit), s.286.3 (1) (procuring) and s.286.4 (advertising an offer to provide sexual services for consideration)

Question 17

R.v Anwar

Answer 17

• husband and wife applicants in the constitutional challenge, in this case, were charged under theCriminal Codefor their operation of an escort service in London, Ontario
• The charges were under section 286.2(1) (receiving a material benefit), s.286.3 (1) (procuring) and s.286.4 (advertising an offer to provide sexual services for consideration)

Question 18

What did the court find in the r. Anwar case under offence in section 286.4

Answer 18

that the provision failed to minimally impair the Charter right because it imposed criminal liability on third parties even if they are in non-exploitative commercial relationships with sex workers offering services at the same cost that they generally make available to the public.

Question 19

What did the court find in the r. Anwar case under offence in section 286.3

Answer 19

makes it an offence to procure a person to offer sexual services for consideration, and subjects anyone who engages in a range of actions for the purpose of facilitating the sale of sexual services to an offence.

Question 20

What was the decison in the R. Anwar Case

Answer 20

the decision was rendered at the provincial court level, the targeted sections are not struck from the law.

Question 21

R. v Labaye

Answer 21

JeanPaul Labaye ofMontrealwas charged with operating a “common bawdy-house,” a violation under section 210(1) of theCriminal Code, for owning the club l’Orage, in which persons who paid membership fees and their guests could assemble and engage in group sex andoral sexandmasturbate

Question 22

Was there a majority or minority of the Judges vote in allowing Swinger clubs?

Answer 22

Majority vote.

• The dissenting justices criticized the majority’s definition of indecency as “neither desirable nor workable,” since it did not follow certain precedent and discarded the “contextual analysis of the Canadiancommunity standardof tolerance
• The Court first noted thatmoralitywas of no use to determining whether these activities were indecent.
  Only the objective standards of decency established inCanadian lawwould be of use, and those standards were concerned with whether any harm has been done

Question 23

Do Nevada’s legal brothels make workers feel unsafe?

Answer 23

No.
- 84% said that their job felt safe
- report that they feel safe, are free to come and go and are bound only by their contract
- Workers report that they felt safe largely because the police, employers and co-workers were there to protect them

Question 24

Why is it a bad idea to close legal brothels

Answer 24

The logic of legalization is like that for marijuana and casino gambling: the principle that tolerating consensual vice is far superior to criminalizing it, forcing participants underground and perpetuating the risks and harms inherent in any black-market enterpris

Question 25

Empowerment Paradigm

Answer 25

• Highlights the ways in which sexual services qualify as work, involve human agency and may be validating or empowering for workers.
• Argue that most of the problems associated with prostitution are traceable to its criminalization and not intrinsic to sexual commerce – alternatives to criminalization have potential to enhance workers control over conditions, job satisfaction and socioeconomic status
• Defining sex work as a means of enhancement or upward mobility across the board

Question 26

Oppression Paradigm

Answer 26

• Anti-prostitution activists.
• The sex industry objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies
• The existence of prostitution rests on structural inequalities between men and women, women would not sell sex if they had the same socioeconomic opportunities as men.

Question 27

Polymorphus Paradigm

Answer 27

• Sensitive to the complexities and the structural conditions shaping sex work along a continuum of agency and subordination.
• Rather than painting prostitution broadly, we can identify those structural arrangements that have negative effects and reinforce those associated with more positive outcomes.
• Victimization, exploitation, agency, job satisfaction, self-esteem and other dimensions should be treated as variables that differ between types of sew work, geographical locates and other structural conditions.

Question 28

What are honour killings?

Answer 28

the murder of a woman or girl by male family members. The killers justify their actions by claiming that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family name

Question 29

How many accounts for honour killings in Canada since 2002

Answer 29

12 accounts

• From 2002 until only 2007 (the latest data), 212 women have been killed by their partners

Question 30

According to the article “Wars against Women” by Kwame Anthony Appiah,

Answer 30

if a young woman has sex before she is married, not only her honor but that of all her family is besmirched. There are very different demands for men and women – the code assumes any man is always free to seek sex with women to whom he is not married and that it is the woman’s “duty to refuse”, if the man succeeds the dishonor attaches to the woman

Question 31

What did Article 544 of the Italian Criminal Code recognize?

Answer 31

Article 544 of the Italian criminal code recognized a “Martrimonio riparalore, marriage that repaired the wrong done by rape, even of a minor

• Franca Viola was kidnapped and raped by Filippo Melodia in the small Sicilian town of Alcamo – she rejected his advances – he anticipated that once they had sex she would recognize that the only way to save her families honor was for her to marry him. Article 544 would protect him

Question 32

What does restoring the family honour require

Answer 32

• Restoring the family honor would require killing not only the man who seduced her but the girl herself.

The code that governs these honor killings has elements that are recognized to most people around the world – It has taken a lot of effort to persuade women and men that rape should not be treated as a source of shame for the victims

Question 33

Samia Sarwar an “honour” killing?

Answer 33

• Samia’s marriage was not successful
• She got preggy with her second son but the bd did not want to be involved
• Her parents did not want her to have a divorce as it would bring dishonour to the family name
• Samia Sarwar fell in love with another man, she fled in 1999 and decided with a Pakistani human rights lawyer to begin divorce proceedings against her husband
• The Sarwars persuaded their daughter and her lawyer that they were finally willing to agree to the divorce – she agreed to meet with her mother at her lawyer’s office, her mother came with a man she said was a driver. Then shot her in the head
• No one was ever convicted for her murder and her father remains a prominent figure in Peshawar

Question 34

The Qisas and Diyat Ordinance

Answer 34

to treat murder and other less serious bodily harm as offenses against a person and his or her family rather than against the state

Question 35

What “honourable” strategies are suggested by the author that are helpful in reversing this kind of behaviour above?

Answer 35

• Collective Shaming: brought pressure on the government of Pakistan and on its political authorities to mitigate the more egregious abuses of women’s human rights
• Democratization of culture: responding to changes around them, they didn’t abandon honor, they redefined their honor codes to adjust to new social conditions.

Question 36

Honor codes

Answer 36

The belief that at all costs your honor codes are sacred or divine, anyone that offends it deserves violence.

Question 37

What are the different types of honour codes

Answer 37

• Slavery,
  “the natural order of thing” – you cannot write a constitution suggesting all men are equal and not practice it
• The Draw,
  It’s against the criminal and religious code, yet the draw was an exception, winners were not arrested as they were saving the honor of the family – it was the honorable thing to do – exceptions were made for that custom under the law.
• Foot binding
  was considered as obeying the honor codes and the honorable thing to do as a woman
• Marriage and sexuality:
  The obligation to wed after pregnancy due to societal and parental pressure.

Question 38

Shafia murder trial

Answer 38

• Daughters grew up in a western society – hung out with boys and flirted.
• Daughters found drowned in the car – car was rammed into the canal.
• The belief so steadfast in honor codes that shame is put on a greater value than life.
• Undermines charter values. Respect everything in other cultures until it offends the constitution. Anything unconstitutional is not protected or promoted by multiculturalism – cultures are protected to a degree.

-The belief that it is the right thing.
The hide behind cultural and rationalize murder.

Question 39

What is the solution to lessen honour killings

Answer 39

• Collective shaming: Draws attention to the harms of the honor code.
• Use of religious scholars to show the custom is un-Islamic and dishonors Islamic faith as it predates Islam
• Symbolic affiliation: shaming the people who do the act and those who tolerate it as they are affiliated with the act passively
• Altering the meaning of honor: honor does not mean protecting your family image rather it means protecting women health and life
• Time

Question 40

What are the limits of cultural freedom

Answer 40

• One cannot undermine the constitution (the laws of the land)
• One cannot undermine equality.
• One cannot engage in hate crimes.
• One cannot sanction violence.