Dear Editors and Founders of Rabble.ca
We write to you because we are disturbed by your response to the recent smear campaigns against Rabble contributor, writer, and fellow leftist Meghan Murphy.
We are disappointed in your statement regarding the attacks and the petitions against Meghan. It is troubling that Rabble repeated the libelous claims made about Meghan rather than making a fulsome defense of her right to hold or present opinions critical of the sex industry and its apologists. We note that your statement gives an inordinate amount of attention to appeasing those maligning Meghan.
Attacking Meghan for using her platform to present feminist analysis and critique has the effect of squashing and threatening those whose voices she reflects. As women of colour and indigenous feminists, we are more aware than ever that our dissent is not welcome by Rabble. Your tyrannical enforcement of neo-liberal ideals is to the detriment of women of colour and indigenous women working to end racism, sexism and colonialism in the midst of overwhelming poverty imposed on us by unfettered capitalism and imperialist agendas. We expect more openness, democratic practice and intellectual rigour from you who pride yourselves as progressives and who lay claim to alliance with the oppressed.
Pornography and pop culture portray Indigenous women as “squaws”, Asian women as “geishas”, and Black women as being animalistic – available for any kind of sex with anybody at all times. These profitable and easily consumable images serve to further marginalize racialized women as these oversimplified tropes are turned into commodities to be exchanged through monetary transaction, and thus fuelling a particular demand for these women, who already have very limited choices, in prostitution. Indigenous women, Asian women and Black women are immersed in racialized sexism in our society. The idea of giving “equal opportunity” to all women to be objectified will not help end racism or sexism. In fact, such fetishizing has highly negative consequences particularly for poor, working class women of colour.
As an example, the phenomenon of Asian massage parlours and their associated advertising have served to normalize the prostituting of Asian women, as well as the racist and sexist notion that Asian women are naturally or inherently inclined toward prostitution. In most cases, prostituted women in Asian massage parlours have no status in Canada. No pimp, nor any sex industry profiteer, has truly fought for immigrant women's rights to have residence status or economic and social security in Canada. When they lay claim that they support immigrant women's rights to not be deported, it is only done in the context of wanting to funnel more women into prostitution under the banner of "supporting migrant sex workers" - which, in reality, is a way of taking advantage of the fact that many of these migrant women are unable to speak English and are financially insecure.
Rather than attack one of your own to silence women of colour and indigenous women, we urge Rabble to challenge Playboy, Allure Magazine and the pro-pimp/john/brothel-keeper version of feminism. We challenge Rabble to turn to supporting the feminists who strive to dismantle the rape culture that dehumanizes women of colour and normalizes male demand for racialized sexist experiences. We urge you to defend feminists’ rights to defend ourselves and fight back as we continue organizing to break the current social order where Asian women, Black women and Indigenous women are expected to service male privilege.
Please reconsider your responsibilities and commitment as leftists who run a left publication. We urge you to commit to social change that will threaten the current sexist, racist, colonialist and capitalist society we live in. Please turn away from rationalizing and making excuses for this destructive ideology that panders to corporate capitalism serving only to maintain hierarchies of race, gender and class. We call on you for alliance rather than diversion, derision and attack.
Sincerely,
Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution
National Congress of Black Women Foundation-BC
Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry
