Under New Law, France Would No Longer Be Sexual Playground of Men Like Dominique Strauss-Kahn

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. I can't reconcile two contradictory belief systems

a) Women are strong and capable. They are fully the equal of any man and should enjoy the same rights, responsibilities and expectations.
b) Women who make bad choices are victims. We must prosecute the men who are parties to those bad choices because if a man and a woman agree to some course of action, but to a passer-by the agreement seems unjust, unfair or unseemly against the woman, then society should intervene to protect her from victimization. She needs help, he needs prosecution. In this way there appears to be a spectrum of agency, "Adults" > "women" > "children and the mentally unfit."

As a practical matter, the "help" she's getting is no help at all. Unless she is arrested, the sex trade continues uninterrupted (but the price goes down because an undiminished supply chases a somewhat diminished demand) and pimps and traffickers never fear prosecution.

If a guy buys street drugs from a dealer who spends the proceeds to buy weapons to prosecute a gang war, it's a tragedy, but everyone who is a party to it "chose their life of crime".

Do women ever "choose a life of crime"? Not that I ever hear, but that would go a long way to reassert the idea that women are capable of agency of their own lives.