I will be completely honest, I had never heard of Zeze Millz or her show before @theslumflower (Chidera Eggerue) was a recent guest. A clip from their conversation last month went viral when Slumflower said heterosexual marriage is a form of sex work, and I agree.
When A Woman Marries A Man, She Benefits Financially
Not only has the gender wage gap remained the same for the last 20 years, with US women earning an average of 82% of what men earn, (according to a Pew Research Center analysis), but women pay a huge financial price for having children.
Paid family leave is really a misnomer when applied to childbearing as most large employers fund their leave through short-term disability (STD) coverage.
Having a baby is treated no differently than time off to heal from a broken leg or a mental breakdown.
While some companies will allow women to heal with full pay for up to six months, most stop paying the portion of salary not covered by STD after 3 months. Notice I didn’t say it was six months to bond with their babies, and that’s because “bonding” doesn’t qualify as a disability.
Additionally, STD payments do not count toward the annual earnings used to calculate social security (ss) benefits at retirement or if you become disabled. Some might argue that it’s only three to six months pay that doesn’t count towards ss over many years of wage earning, but multiply that by the number of children birthed and it can add up.
Employer sponsored retirement plans such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s may also be impacted if women decide they cannot afford to contribute during a leave. That’s less pre-tax dollars and potentially the loss of an employer match.
In reality, many women take longer leaves, part of which is usually unpaid, or they leave the workforce for a number of years. That’s a big hit to ss earnings and future retirement income. Even if a woman only takes a 12 week leave, she may be viewed as unreliable – shocking in the face of legal protections, but good luck proving you were passed over for a promotion because you had a baby, and could potentially have a second, and a third!
Statistically speaking, women earn less over their lifetimes than men. Women are further penalized financially for having children. Add in huge tax advantages for married couples and that seems like a giant check mark on the “pro” side for marriage.
Marriage Can Weaken A Women’s Legal Protection From Rape By Her Husband
At this point you may be wondering what this has to do with sex work, so let’s dive deeper. In my graphic Women’s Human Rights In America, A Very Brief History, I note that until 1993, some states still did not recognize rape within a marriage as a crime, and there are still some states that categorize rape within a marriage as a lessor crime than rape by a non spouse or domestic partner.
Women are offered financial incentives to get married, especially if they want to have children, while at the same time being married weakens their legal protection from sexual violence by their husbands (in some states). Taken to an extreme, there’s a message that married women owe their husbands sex, and if they don’t give it freely, he’s allowed to take it.
Historically, marriage was a legal and financial contract between families, not a love match between two people. Goods were exchanged, (money, livestock, etc.), for a daughter who would cook, clean, bear children, and satisfy their husband’s sexual urges.
The interesting thing about history, regardless of how long we look into the past, is that it informs the present. For every person who remembers “the good old days” someone else is triggered back to the dark times. One only need look to the defense of some of the rapists in the Gisèle Pelicot case in France to see the legacy of a wife as property, “Her husband gave his permission so I thought it was okay.”
There are conditions, both explicit and implicit within romantic love, and sex is one of them. I could not find any large studies from reliable sources to indicate that men make sex more of a requirement within a marriage than women do, however, financial concerns are an incentive to stay or a barrier to leave for women more than they are for men.
The sexualization of women and girls to sell goods and services is widely accepted, but when women try to use their sexuality to make money for themselves they are stigmatized and criminalized. Even when they are not trying to make money, their sexuality is seen as an invitation for crude comments at best and sexual violence at worst.
No one blames a rich person for being robbed because they were walking down the street wearing a Rolex. Stealing was, and always has been, a crime, and no one is ever accused of “asking for it.”
Most people probably won’t be convinced that modern heterosexual marriage within a post colonial, patriarchal society is a form of sex work no matter what I write. If you’re not already a believer, I doubt I’ll convince you that sex work is work, deserving of the rights and protections which are standard within all other industries.
However, I do challenge you to trace the origins of your beliefs and look for fact based evidence to justify them.
Too often we accept answers like,
That’s just the way it is.
In my mind, that’s not good enough.
Religious texts and moral agendas do not have any place in legislation created within a democratic country mandated to keep church and state separated.
I’m curious if women will feel comfortable questioning their sexual relationship within their marriages. Were you ever intimate with your husband because it had been a while and you felt you should? Have you ever felt pressured to be intimate and you just wanted to get it over with?
I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments. This is a judgment free, respectfully interactive space. Mean-spirited opinions will be deleted.
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