Oversimplifying Sex Slavery: Demi, Ashton, and Badvocacy
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Jessica MackTags:
Alanna Shaikh Ashton Kutcher Badvocacy Cambodia Celebrity Activism Celebrity Aid demi moore DNA Foundation Greg Mortenson Kanye West Madonna men Real Men Real Men Don't Buy Girls Campaign Sex Slavery sex trafficking Trafficking in Persons William Easterly
Photo credit: eBay
If you haven’t yet watched the “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” campaign, from Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s DNA Foundation, do. And be prepared to scratch your head, or maybe weep a little bit.
Others have already pointed out the confusing and offensive messages of the campaign, which feature hunky celebs delivering messages of what real men do (i.e. laundry, cook, iron, read directions, etc.) to suggest what they shouldn’t (i.e. buy girls). Sadly, what probably began as a really good intention has become an ever better example of what is wrong with celebrity aid today.
Even before the launch of the “Real Men” campaign, the DNA Foundation, launched in 2007, had rubbed me the wrong way. I first came across them last year, while doing research on anti-trafficking efforts. Their mission is to “raise awareness about child sex slavery, change the cultural stereotypes that facilitate this horrific problem, and rehabilitate innocent victims.” So how will they achieve their mission? The action center offers “three steps to end child slavery” (ready?): 1) Make your own “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” video; 2) “report” any suspicious activity on Craigslist; and 3) buy a tee-shirt.
My problem is less with these suggestions as it is with the implication that these activities will end child slavery. When supporting any kind of development initiative or charity work, you need two essential things to start: comprehensive information (about the issue and key players in the field); and a healthy dose of reality – there are very few panaceas or overnight fixes, if any exist at all.
The website is an homage to hyperbole and generalization. The first sentence that confronts you, which lacks citation, btw, is, “more people are slaves today than ever before and the numbers are soaring.” I think there’s a gratuitous use of the word “slave” which is borderline link-baiting and exploitative. The wording suggests that all individuals engaging in sex work are necessarily slaves, and that they must be rescued immediately.
Sex trafficking and slavery is one of the most complicated and layered global development issues out there. These ads oversimplify it in many ways. For one, by making it about men and geared toward men, it suggests that there is no one else involved in this horrible situation — that men drive this problem and are the ones with the power to stop it. In fact, trafficking and slavery is a sinister web which involves many players – some women, some men, and even family members. We can all influence the issue.
What about the individual woman’s experience? A gradient exists among those who have been kidnapped and enslaved, and those who are engaging in sex work commercially. It’s easy for anti-trafficking efforts to devolve into a paradigm whereby a [privileged] [man] rides in on a white horse to “rescue” a [poor] [woman]. With this dynamic, it’s easy to steamroll over individual rights, dignity, and complicated personal experiences.
As Alanna Shaikh pointed out in her analysis of Greg Mortenson’s (Three Cups of Tea) unfortunate fall from grace, the public is constantly looking for that panacea and that happy ending. Sometimes we allow a simple lie to continue because we don’t want to accept that the road to success if far messier and far more meandering. Initiatives like DNA, which overly-focus on the end point – a total end to sex slavery – and suggest it’s easy to get there risk actually undermining everything it really takes to get there. In that oversimplification, women’s rights, voices, and experiences get squashed.
Sometimes efforts to address one end of the spectrum end up hurting those at the other, and sometimes good intentions can do a lot of harm. In 2008, for instance, Cambodia passed the “Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation” to comply with the US policy on trafficking in persons. This basically set in motion a series of brothel raids that resulted in the abuse and criminalization of sex workers, and the unraveling of many effective health outreach programs which had used brothels as a platform.
I want to give Demi and Ashton credit for drawing attention to this horrible issue…but what if the attention they draw is ill-informed and mis-aligned? Isn’t that more harm than good? They might also take note as one celebrity initiative after another has flopped, all for different reasons but coming down to what Shaikh put her finger on: the sheer hope for a better world, but the lack of mettle to actually get there. Madonna’s Raising Malawi recently dissolved in a heap of disgrace, Kanye West’s foundation for high school drop-outs just mysteriously closed, and even Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute could fall into this camp.
Celebrity aid has now become a development issue in itself, (maybe soon warranting a new arm of the Global Fund?) and aid critics like Bill Easterly have discussed the fundamental flaws at length. Why not just support existing programs doing good work; why leverage your hubris to start your own (ineffective and competing) efforts? The best thing that could happen now is that Demi and Ashton pass the mic to someone who knows what they’re talking about, and some damage control can begin.
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7:57 am
Sounds very much like Gayatri Chakrovorty Spivak’s formulation of ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’ (which in fact the 3 cups of tea debacle falls into also…). Here’s a great article from Harvard Law school I sometimes use to teach issues of transnational migration, trafficking and sex work – which makes clear how anti sex trafficking programs can become punitive to female transnational migrants in particular: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss18/kapur.shtml
10:26 am
Great analysis. I must admit that after reading the title I thought you were giving DnA a harsh time. I recently watched them on Piers Morgan and think they are genuinely interested in stopping human trafficking. However, I concur – their campaign seems infantile (also gender-biased, too simple,and self-centered as you mentioned) and needs to be developed substantially if they plan to support comprehensive solutions.
5:35 pm
While I am not a scholar, I actually thinks that over simplyfying things may actually be a good strategy to first bring attention to a complex subject. We live in a society where people are bombarded with messages and a basic one that is certainly stereoptyping and not 100% accurate will help raise awarnedd and create a buzz.
7:30 pm
NG, I can definitely see what you’re saying — for a mass media campaign, it’s impossible to explain the intricacies of a complex issue. I guess I still have a problem with peddling this notion that WE can fix THEIR lives — you know? It’s just how to we empower the general public to get involved with an issue while making sure they have a healthy dose of reality, and are not seeing themselves as these saviors? I think it’s sort of a quandary with aid in general…
2:34 am
NG: The problem with the DNA Foundation is that the “story” they want to bring attention to is very one-sided. Specifically, the so-called “abolitionist” side of the anti-trafficking movement, which if you look at their website and the groups that they link to, is absolutely where they’re coming from. For those of us who feel this side of the anti-trafficking movement is wrongheaded and painting a distorted picture that conflates moralistic concerns about sex work and “easy sex” with the very real problem of global forced labor and slavery, this is comes across as one of the more deeply problematic celebrity causes to date.
5:34 pm
Hi – Thanks for a terrific and provocative discussion! From my perspective as an evaluator of development projects, I agree that simple solutions don’t work, but perhaps simple messages can help mitigate the problem. What I appreciate about the project described is that it attacks the norm. (A visit to website discussions about the best bars and clubs in the Philippines is a chilling illustration, as is an hour spent in a hotel lobby watching the parade of young Filipinas with their Western/Asian/you-name-it “boyfriends”.)With no consequences to purchasers of sex from trafficked women–the Philippines anti-sex trafficking law applies to traffickers, not johns or “boyfriends”–perhaps the shame factor might help stem demand and undermine the financial incentive feeding the problem and inhibiting action that would hurt the flow of toursim dollars. Sex trafficking is no doubt very complicated, and there are a lot of unanswered questions–starting with what interventions actually work to reduce trafficking and support those individuals who have been trafficked so that they can provide for themselves and their families.
8:22 pm
You make some good points in this piece. The campaign is certainly problematic and does not get to the root of this horrible social problem.
The assumption that men just need to act like “real men” to curb sex trafficking does two things:
1) The problem is individual men are sexually deviant. By further perpetuating this idea, the systemic issues driving men engage in these relationships continue.
2) Without changing the legal/structural institutions surrounding the issue, the behavior will only be driven deeper into secrecy by campaigns such as these. By making these behaviors harder to engage in, traffickers (typically men, but not exclusively) can charge more.
The disempowerment of both women and men engaging in these behaviors. Part of the effort of the campaign is for US to fix OUR behaviors, but this is putting a bit too much faith that individuals will change behavior based on a t-shirt campaign.
3:33 pm
Lovely to see, once again, more privileged people extending their white hands down to “help” the helpless Others.
What about women who are in the sex industry who do not want to be saved? Who find autonomy within their jobs and agency with their bodies? I understand that the complexities of the sex slave industry are layered and multifaceted and when making this argument factors come into play such as what defines agency and autonomy as a sex worker and that sex slavery is abhorrent. Perhaps there needs to be public discourse on differentiating sex work and sex slavery/trafficking. The reason why I think there is a need for this is because while listening to NPR the other day, there was a story about prostitution in Brazil. Often, prostitutes choose to work in the sex industry while interning or going to school because it pays more. So, autonomy for sex workers is not only found in upper class white women in the US or Europe. I find a problem with the slogan “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” because although it may be aimed at those who are repressed and oppressed within the sex trade the “girls” it seeks to define remain ambiguous. Also, there are boys being sold as sex slaves, and this is just one of the many problems with such a slogan.
7:58 am
Jacklyn makes some really great points. The language used by many anti-trafficking efforts is telling: “girls” and “children”, save, rescue, victims, protection all applied very broadly and removes agency from the people they are seeking to help.
7:30 pm
Wow, this totally summed up all my opinions about this ad campaign, in words that I never could have articulated. Exactly.
My biggest concern is less the effect of these ads (because really, they are more confusing than effective) but the direction that celebrity aid is taking. Why do people with pretty faces think that that’s all they need to change the world? It’s rather insulting, though endearing maybe.