Sex Trafficking

Did you know that every two minutes a child between the ages of 5 and 10 is prepped for the sex trade industry? Or that the US is in the top three for sex trafficking?  Shocking? Yeah, I thought so too.  Today my group presented the world of sex trafficking and all that it has to offer.  Children as young as five are being sex trafficked, 600k to 800 people are trafficked a year and 70% of them are women and 50% of the 70% are female children.  Sick right?  Majorly..... but today in class some question arose that made me think; for example what if prostitution was legalized? Would sex trafficking decrease due to the fact that women can voluntarily enter it without being caught and sent to jail?

Here is how the sex trade industry works.  Let's say you are a single mother working 2 dead beat jobs and you want a change.  You look in the HELP WANTED section of the newspaper and then see the perfect job: "Wanted, women looking for housing and job. Will fly you to Russia to work" . Sounds perfect right? Well, then you get to Russia and find out you have to repay the cost of the flight, housing, and food.  So guess how you are working off your debt?  The job they are providing you with like written in the ad? No, WRONG! Instead, you're going to be working in the sex trade industry and see up to 30 clients a day.

Maybe the sex trade industry will change soon...not in the immediate future, but maybe by 2030.

Women Wages

As I was reading Material World by Valenti I became highly pissed off.  We're in 2010 and the wages for women are still at a measly 76% of what men make.  What got me even more heated up was the fact that in 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics "decided that reporting women's wages wasn't a priority anymore-she they stopped". The BLS thought it was a good idea to stop reporting one of the biggest problems that women are facing...wages.  In addition, UNC did an interesting study on how women can narrow the pay gap.  All we have to do, is strive for the senior VP level and we can make up for what is lost.  Funny thing is, women have the worst glass ceiling you can possibly think of!  How is this world going to finally understand that women can hang with the big boys and vice versa.  Gender shouldn't matter, but it does.  You can be a head honcho of a company and still report to a man or female, maybe one day without discrimination, but I don't see that anytime soon. 

Princess Boy

Princess Boy Video
This is a video I saw on facebook that someone had posted about a young boy who prefers to dress up in girls clothing. What I love about the video is the support system he has from his whole family and his teachers at school. I love the fact that in order to make him feel more comfortable on halloween, three men from his school put on a ballet performance for his whole school to teach other children that  it was okay. The tolerance that they are teaching I think is something that needs to be taught in every school. These days children are so mean. I think all parents should take a cue from the older brother of this little boy and just be proud of their kids no matter what they like to do and teach them about acceptance of everyone.

Male vs. Female Sex life

The last class we had was very interesting. I never realized how differently men and women were treated relating to their sexual life. Men could sleep with a ton of females and be a hero, versus a woman in the same situation would be considered a slut. It's very interesting how the perception changes with your gender. Another example is an older man is considered a pervert when looking at a younger woman, versus the female in the same situation would be considered a cougar. Both of those terms have negative meaning. An image can last a life time, and it causes women to stay on their toes and watch what they're doing when they shouldn't have to. I would hope that someday this will change, and harsh words could not be used to diminish people for their actions. A persons personal life is their business, and their choices are their choices, and they do not need to be labeled for it, especially in a diminishing way.