Painting informal laborers as victims reduces them to people who “must be protected,” ultimately muting their empowerment of choice by denying them the expression of consent
(Thierry Schaffauser ’10 member of ACT UP-Paris, the French chapter of the international ACT UP movement. In 2006, Schaffauser co-founded Les Putes, a Paris-based group defending sex workers' rights, and, since 8 December 2009, he has been a board member – responsible for international relations – of STRASS, the French sex workers trade union. In 2010, Schaffauser was the president of the GMB-IUSW, Adult Entertainment branch. EG)
It is an essentialist conception to consider sex work as always a violence whatever the period, the place, or the conditions. Sex workers are often seen only as women when many men and transsexual people are also working, and women are always seen as victims by essence. All acts of violence against a sex worker are thus analysed as intrinsically the result of sex work itself and not the conditions in which sex work is exercised.
It stops the real violence that exists in the sex industry being visible. We are told that we must stop sex work to avoid this violence. If we refuse, we become accomplices of the patriarchal system. We are accused of being responsible for maintaining an industry that harms women.
Yet warned feminists of the dangers of a "shared victimisation" sisterhood. A victim's status for women reduce them to beings who must be protected. It participates in the denial of their capacities. It denies sex workers the free disposal of our bodies, our self-determination, our capacity to express our sexual consent like children under 16. It reinforces the idea that sex workers are too stupid, lazy, without any skills, and without consciousness of their alienation.