Judy Ramirez

p. 1.

Hookers fight back

TORONTO – In 1975 the Ontario Appeal Court acquitted Ottawa prostitute Louise Rolland on the grounds that her wink to a prospective customer did not constitute "soliciting." The police were forced to stop harassing anyone they suspected, and charge only women who "made a nuisance of themselves." Arrests dropped dramatically. Hookers got a real boost in their working conditions, along with the possibility of making more and paying out less in fines. It didn't last long.

In Toronto, City Hall recently pushed the panic button and launched a heavy-handed campaign to "clean up Yonge St." Since it began, roughly six months ago, Toronto police have been making one sweep arrest after another. The scene of 6 or 7 women being dragged out of body rub parlours to waiting paddywagons has become a familiar one on the 6 o'clock news. The Courts have also cracked down as never before: they are keeping hookers awaiting sentence in custody, and imposing stiff fines and jail terms which are completely without precedent.

Central to this campaign of intimidation is the crackdown on sex shop operators. City Council recently approved 100 recommendations which would provide much stricter licensing regulations. The aim is to force sex shops to come under the "body rub parlour" category which most have managed to dodge so far. The yearly fee for body rub parlours is $3,300 as opposed to the $55 fee most nude amusements are presently paying!

In addition to getting its cut from the sex industry (the moralists are obviously not above pimping!) City Hall wants greater control over the "product." There is pressure on Ottawa to bring back the "vagrancy" laws which would allow any woman to be arrested for standing around on the corner. This street harassment would drive many women into the newly licensed body rub parlours, where regular Government inspection would be awaiting them. Also, changes in the zoning laws are being sought by City Hall, which could banish the "sex strip" to a deserted industrial area near the docks, thus bringing it "under control."

But whatever measures City Hall finally chooses, the politicians primary aim is clearly to bring hookers back in line because prostitution is losing its stigma. Hookers have become too visible, too upfront, and too numerous. Housewives are doing it for extra spending money. Students are doing it to put themselves through school. And young girls are getting into it because it beats being a cashier or a file clerk.

Politicians everywhere have tolerated "the world's oldest profession" as long as prostitutes remained isolated from other women. They have always been held up as the symbol of female degradation, precisely to keep the rest of us "coming across" for free. And not only in bed. For many of us it's a package deal which includes cooking, cleaning, shopping, and raising children.

But all that is changing. Women have been demanding wages in many ways, and "alarming" increases in the rate of prostitution have become common in large cities everywhere. So have struggles for welfare, daycare, unemployment insurance, family allowances, etc. And the politicians are worried.

When thousands of immigrant parents and children recently held a noisy protest march in Toronto, after the slain body of Manuel Jacques was found on Yonge St., City Hall and Queen's Park had a hey-day. The fact that those accused of Manuel's murder are four gay men, added more passion to the promises of cleaning up "the filth."

The issue for most of the immigrants marching, however, was the right of any immigrant boy to earn his money on the streets of Toronto. When you come halfway across the world in order to feed your family, and even young children must help earn the family's wage, the right to safety on the streets is the right to economic survival. And nobody knows what that's all about better than women of all races and nationalities who are earning their living on the Yonge Streets of Canada.

City Hall used the march to appoint a special prosecutor to deal with all the charges being laid in the Yonge St. crackdown, and to make solemn vows about speeding up the whole process. This from the very same politicians who are in no hurry to raise the wages of immigrant mothers who fill Toronto's sweat shops, so that our children won't be forced out on the streets to make up the difference!

Less money for women, in fact, is what the Yonge St.crackdown is all about, and similar crackdowns have been underway in New York, London, Vancouver, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, Boston. …But prostitutes everywhere are fighting back publicly, and winning unprecedented support. In recent months, mock street trials were held in S.F., Los Angeles, and Boston, which accused Government and business of pimping off prostitutes and off the work of all women.

The events were attended by hundreds of women, many of whom "testified" from the crowd about their struggle for money. In the Boston trial, Ms. Anonymous Prostitute, speaking for PUMA (Prostitutes' Union of Massachusetts) told the large crowd in the Boston Commons, "My crime is not actually having sex — work which all women are supposed to do for free — but, rather, demanding money for it." Wilmette Brown, of Black Women for Wages for Housework, said "They punish welfare mothers and prostitutes for getting money, for the work all women do — they make it a crime for women to refuse to be poor."

In Canada, prostitutes from Toronto to Vancouver are speaking out more openly than ever. Recently, one told the "Toronto Star: that she considers herself a social worker. "We perform a service for these men," she said. "We help them with their problems and stop them from taking their frustrations out on other people." In Quebec, a 19-year-old stripper who earns $425 a week told the "Montreal Star," "I'm into stripping and I don't feel degraded by it," If Government continues to cut back and unemployment continues to rise, many more women will be saying the same, because nothing is more degrading than having no money.

The Wages for Housework Campaign fully supports these demands and announces the upcoming visit of Margo St. James, of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) to Toronto! Housewives and hookers will be making a common cause Nov. 25-30 in a series of public events. Watch your local newspapers for more information.

"Every little girl learns by the time she's five how to put the hustle on her Daddy for a new toy." Margo St. James, founder of COYOTE (a loose woman's organization)