Just a few musings about power and the female body…
The other day a rather frazzled friend of mine told me she was thinking of going on strike. I suggested to her that she would get a lot more attention if she did it in the nude. She promptly passed along this advice to an equally frazzled 80-something year old friend. We’re not sure where this is going but stay tuned. Meanwhile in Ghana,

“A group of Liberian women refugees who were accused by a minister of holding naked protests by the roadside are to be deported from Ghana.

Hundreds of the women were arrested on Monday and taken away from a refugee camp in 10 buses, witnesses say.

They were protesting at plans to send them home with $100 – they demand $1,000 or to be resettled in the West.

But the women deny that they stripped during their month-long protests. “It’s a lie,” one told the BBC.”

“Interior Minister Kwamena Bartels denied that Ghana was engaging in forced repatriation and pointed out that the Liberian war had ended in 2003.He said they had broken local laws by not informing the police of their protest.

“When women strip themselves naked and stand by a major highway, that is not a peaceful demonstration,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.”

Leaving aside that whether or not the women were even naked in the first place is being disputed, nudity and peacefulness are not mutually exclusive. However….

“Some of the refugees told the BBC they had been beaten by the Ghanaian police at Buduburam camp, west of the capital, Accra.”

Now that might be considered not peaceful.

Meanwhile back in the U.S….

SignOn San Diego has an excellent piece talking about the reality of prostitution, pointing out that high price call girls are only a small portion of the trade and that the conditions that most prostitutes face are far different,

“Many come from broken homes, were homeless at some point, were abused as children and suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, says Mary Anne Layden, director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program in the Center for Cognitive Therapy at University of Pennsylvania. She says many are not making any money because of a drug habit and a pimp or madam who takes half their earnings.”

““The story you’re not hearing being told is the violence in the sex trade, the story of the degradation, the large amount of women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder on par with returning veterans,” says Rachel Durschlag, founder and director of The Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE).”

Not really all that different than prostitution in Ghana…