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'saloons had “family rooms” or “wine rooms” where women worked as bartenders + drank alongside men... [these] women were understood to be part of the “sporting world,” on the spectrum from being open to casual encounters to straightforwardly selling sex.' https://bit.ly/3n5nhPx
"Often drunk, frequently profane, and almost always disreputable, the sporting women who socialized and solicited in saloons were visible, vocal players integral to urban nightlife." Interesting theory about how a certain kind of sexism took over.
'And then during WWI govt targeted “disease-spreading women” as threat to troops. Sexually active women, selling sex or not, could be swept up in raids. This changed the power dynamic in drinking venues... vice crackdowns meant women might be arrested for approaching strange men'
'Vice investigations in this period show men and women swapped vulgar and often unisex insults. Women approached men as often as the reverse & were often quick to attack the sexual adequacy of men who turned down their advances.' NB: Sex-selling women worked on their own.
So despite a generally sexist world, women selling sex could work on their own. When the govt targeted women as 'disease-spreaders' they were banned in the taverns and needed intermediaries to contact clients. An interesting specific reason for some prostitutes' loss of agency.
''crackdowns meant women might be arrested for approaching strange men so they depended on male go-betweens -waiters bartenders doormen- to make connections... anti-vice investigations no longer recorded negotiations between men & women but conversations between men about women.'
It's creation of stigma where it didn't exist in that form, the naming of prostitutes as 'disease-spreaders'. And as always in patriarchy, the solution was to manipulate man, give them a cut of money earned to get around a ban. So from autonomy to dependency in one move.
In this story there are two kinds of women, with waiters becoming the source to tell clients which were “charity girls” & which professionals... Info like she's "a regular guy, not out for the money but likes to go out for a good time & if you treat her right will go the limit.”
'Men began referring to women as genitalia: 'If a woman wasn’t a “whore,” she might be “charity gash” or a “bleeder”[sexually unavailable implying menstruation and exploiting men.] Their orientation toward women was no longer as sparring partners but as objects...'
My interest: this shows a concrete move on male authorities' part that took agency from women (to flirt, talk smut & offer sex for money/something) and inserted the necessity for male intermediaries who are later accused of exploiting women, who are presented as helpless victims.
Researcher: '“The virulence of wartime campaigns against sexually active women fostered an extreme misogyny that encouraged men to denigrate women they met in these places.” Now: it's a specific time and place but I'll bet applies in many others.
