PROFESSOR’S PERSPECTIVE

July 27th, 2015 Posted by Uncategorized No Comment yet

Staphanie Wahab, PhD, Sociology,  is a Professor at Portland State University, focused on race, class, gender, and violence in the lives of sex workers.

Who are you?

​ My name is Stephanie Wahab. I am mother, partner, sister, friend, Social Work Professor, immigrant, daughter of a Palestinian refugee, and competitive swimmer​.

 

What was your motivation for teaching social work?

​ I didn’t set out for a career in academia. I was a community activist, organizer and direct social work practice person through and through. My social work experience began in the very early 90’s when I was fresh out of college and looking for work. I took a job as a domestic violence advocate at a confidential battered women’s’ shelter through the YWCA in San Diego, CA. I knew immediately that I’d found my niche. I enjoyed working with people in crisis situations. I was able to listen, remain calm and it felt good to help people in a time of need. I decided I needed to be educated around “how” to help so I signed up for an MSW program at the University of Washington in Seattle. Once there, I learned about the very complicated history Social Work has with issues of helping, particularly within the context of social justice, oppression and privilege.

 

What do you mean by “privilege?”

I was surprised to learn that so much of Social Work history was rooted in social and moral control-particularly with people engaged in sex work. As I began an internship in the MSW program with people in the sex industry (mostly street workers and escorts) through People of Color Against AIDS Network (POCANN), the influence of social and moral control in social work with “fallen women” became glaringly obvious and I became fixated on unlearning everything I’d ever been told about sex workers and on learning about sex work from the people who did it.

 

And then what?

I ended up with a PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Washington and my dissertation was a small participatory action research project with sex workers. I focused on the intersections of race, class, gender and violence in the lives of the women in the study, and was equally focused on understanding their experiences of sex work from their perspectives. The other piece of my research involved looking at the various feminist theories and narratives (outside of social work) about sex work as a means of interrupting some of the hegemonic narratives in sex work, namely, the radical feminist notions of sex work as violence. Throughout this process I remained (and still do) connected to and involved with a number of sex workers’ rights organizations.

 

How long have you been doing this work?

I’ve been teaching Social Work since 2000. I love teaching. I also have a complicated relationship with Social Work which keeps the work dynamic and engaging. Because of where and how Social Work is positioned within the hierarchy of systems in society, social workers are often in the position of interrupting oppression and injustice while simultaneously perpetuating it. To better understand this statement, I highly recommend people read Paul Kivel’s piece, Social service or social justice? (http://www.wholecommunities.org/pdf/privilege/socialchange.pdf).

Ultimately, I teach Social Work because I believe we are well positioned, with a close proximity to oppression and privilege, to affect social change.

 

Do you support decriminalization of sex work?

​ I do AND I don’t think it is enough. While decriminalization will improve the working conditions for some people, largely white, straight, able bodied, legal citizens, it won’t be enough to end the state criminalization of people of color, poor, trans, queer, disabled, immigrant folks. Emi Koyama has written quite eloquently about this on her blog: http://eminism.org/blog/entry/362

The Nordic Model of legalizing sex work has been accused of giving more power to law enforcement, by enacting control over the workers. What are your thoughts on this?

​ I’m not in favor of the Swedish model nor what often gets called “end demand” programs. This model focuses on criminalizing the client, not the workers. However, programs working with sex workers across the United States have found that intensive “end demand” programs increase law enforcement activities against all people in public space. Furthermore, these programs allow conservatives to channel hard won social service funding into policing efforts. This downloadable fact sheet cites research that illustrates the real results of “end demand” programming.

 

Have you ever sold sex?

I’ve never sold sex though thought about it seriously.

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