Posted: November 3rd, 2010 | Author: maymay | Filed under: Briefs | Tags: 66, crime, India, international, kotbriefs, sexwork, stigma, women | 1 Comment »
A sex worker from Kolkata has died and two other women were injured in India this week due to burns sustained after a mob of about 50 people set fire to the guesthouse they were in. The mob of vigilantes believed the guesthouse, which had been raided by local police twice before, to be engaged in presumably prostitution-related "illegal activities." Evidently, however, despite any concerns for the guesthouse's occupants, the vigilantes decided manhandling the people there, pelting the building with stones, and ultimately committing arson that lead to murder was more appropriate behavior.
It is a grizzly reminder of the violence sex workers face at the hands of so-called "rescuers." While some of the loudest anti-prostitution activists are women, their advocacy perpetuates whore stigma to the detriment of all women; they're frauds.
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Posted: September 1st, 2010 | Author: Kink On Tap Editorial Staff | Filed under: Briefs | Tags: 57, culture, gender, health, India, international, parenting | Comments Off on Oh, No, It’s a Girl! South Asians Flock to Sex-Selection Clinics in U.S. – New America Media
"Last time I checked," geneticist Dr. Mark Hughes says, "your gender wasn't a disease." But that's not stopping Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg and others like him from using techniques originally developed to cure diseases from running "Family Balancing" clinics in the United States that offer "100% sex-selection program"s. Steinberg says that "for every woman I see regarding the breast cancer gene, I see 400 women who want to choose the sex of their child."
Sex-selection is a very hot issue, and at $18,000 a pop, Steinberg's clinic is an extremely lucrative business. His patients often travel to the US from India, Canada, and other countries where sex-selection is illegal. However, there are significant gender biases in US families, too, especially among Indian, Chinese, and Korean parents. And pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Steinberg's method, is just one method of sex-selection; another is actually abortion performed after an ultrasound. It all makes me wonder where to draw the line.
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