Back in January, Wendy McElroy gave an excellent speech at a conference about the European Union that was later published on the web, Equality vs. Freedom. McElroy does an excellent job of laying out the case for favoring freedom over equality in general, and highlights an excellent example of feminist hypocrisy on freedom.
Toward the end of the article she writes about debating Kathleen Barry about prostitution. McElroy believes that any sex between consenting adults — including sex for money — should be allowed, whereas Barry is well known as an outspoken opponent of prostitution (as McElroy notes, Barry was asked to write the part of the United Nation’s Code of Human Rights that deals with women).
Anyway, at their debate both Barry and McElroy argued that prostitution should be decriminalized. McElroy writes that by decriminalization she means that laws against prostitution should be eliminated. Barry had a similarly though twisted version of decriminalization. McElroy writes,
Barry meant that no laws should be applied to women involved in prostitution. Only the men should be arrested and punished. In other words, when a man and a woman commit the same act, the same crime, only the man would be legally liable.
This is very different from having one law that is applied unequally to men and women. The law being proposed would specifically and pointedly create two categories of people and two categories of punishment for the same offense: women who are exempt, men who are guilty. For committing the same act. This is a hideous development.
And, of course, a development that is all too common among contemporary feminists.
Source:
Equality vs. Freedom. Wendy McElroy, The Mises Institute, January 22, 2001.