Misogyny Is Alive In 2013: “Bad Bitches Only”

By

A wooden box.  Actually, a cage. With tarnished chains that hang down in lieu of walls, allowing all who are on the outside to gaze upon whichever object dwells in the cage at the given moment. Yes — object. A stripper pole stands in the center, with a small lamp, probably red or purple, that shines down on the object that writhes on the pole. A long string hangs down, waiting to be turned on so it can expose the contents of the cage.

This is clearly not a stripper club in Vegas, with all the glam and the glitz. This is a wooden cage, out in plain view, in a dead, gravel lot behind a Sigma Pi fraternity house, looking exactly like the cages that are used to imprison the 11.4 million girls and women who have been victims of human trafficking in the United States. This disgusting little box even comes with a “bad bitches only” sign.

I’m going to assume that nobody would be cruel enough to capitalize on sexual crimes against humanity for “the sake of the party”, that it must have been done out of naivety, so let me shed some light:

According to the U.S State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. More than 70 percent are female and half are children.

The International Labour Organization estimates that women and girls represent the largest share of forced labor victims with 11.4 million trafficked victims (55 percent) compared to 9.5 million (45 percent) men.

California harbors 3 of the FBI’s 13 highest child sex trafficking areas on the nation: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

And if these statistics don’t paint a gruesome enough picture, the following quotes from an issue of Vanity Fair titled “Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door” reflect the misogyny and danger these girls and women are introduced to on a daily basis:

“He called me a stupid bitch…a worthless piece of shit…I had to tell people I fell off stage because I had so many bruises on my ribs face and legs…I have a permanent twitch in my eye from him hitting me in my face so much.  I have none of my irreplaceable things from my youth.”
-From the victim-impact statement of Felicia, minor prostitute-stripper enslaved by trafficker Cored Davis.

“Prostitution is renting an organ for ten minutes.”
-A john interviewed by research psychology, Melissa Farley

“Would you please write down the type of person you think I am, given all that you’ve heard and read?…I’ve been called the worst of the worst by the government and it’s going to be hard for you to top that.”

-Letter postmarked June 27, 2008, to Amy Fine Collins, from Dennis Paris, a.k.a. “Rahmyti,” then inmate  at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, now at a high-security federal penitentiary in Arizona.

Two female students from the university addressed this distasteful set-up at the fraternity house by yelling out accusations of sexism and brutishness, since one young woman’s earlier request that the cage be removed from the neighborhood was rebuffed.  The group of frat boys responded with boos and obscenities.

Maybe they have no idea what sort of pain and torture these women and children go through every single day. Maybe they don’t realize that their filthy little box represents the enslavement and sexual exploitation of women and children across the world. Maybe they don’t realize what it will feel like when they send their future daughters on cruises or vacations, and have to warn her that she better be careful or she might be taken by the cute boy she just met at the club, and sold into the sex trade, forced to perform sexual acts in a strange country until her body physically gives out or her pimp kills her because she’s no longer of any use.

Although, I will say that these boys ending their refute with chants of “dynasty, dynasty” does suggest that perhaps they are aware of their piggish ways and simply don’t care. How refined.