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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, a host of the new house

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works Now podcast. Every week, I'll be bringing you

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Speaker 1: three stories from our team about the weird and wondrous

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Speaker 1: developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture. Fresh episodes

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Speaker 1: will be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music,

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Speaker 1: and everywhere else that find podcasts are found. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.

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Speaker 1: And the last podcast episode we did, we talked about

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Speaker 1: the comfort women's system in Japan during World War Two,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like when it comes to World War

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Speaker 1: Two in particular and uh sex, slavery, rape, and prostitution,

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Speaker 1: that Japan and comfort women get most of our attention

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Speaker 1: and there is a misconception that it was really isolated

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Speaker 1: to that part of the world. But once we started

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Speaker 1: doing some research on war and prostitution and looking at

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Speaker 1: huh did did anything like this happen with the Allies

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Speaker 1: during World War Two? We ended up in in quite

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Speaker 1: a rabbit hole, friends um of learning about how when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the military, the US military and prostitution,

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Speaker 1: it's really as American as apple pie. Uh yeah, And

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Speaker 1: while I knew this on a surface level, I had

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Speaker 1: never taken this much time to really fully understand how

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Speaker 1: war and rape and sex work, whether it is coerced

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Speaker 1: or not, how inextricably linked they are, how in so

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Speaker 1: many ways, like women who survived wars are nonetheless the

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Speaker 1: casualties of war, Yeah, without a doubt. And I mean

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Speaker 1: we could do, you know, fifteen or thirty episodes about this,

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Speaker 1: about wartime prostitutions, stretching back through the dawn of freaking time,

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Speaker 1: but we we opted to limit ourselves. Yeah, So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna this this episode is going to focus on the

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Speaker 1: United States from the Civil War up to World War Two,

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Speaker 1: because we're gonna come full circle and up back in Japan.

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Speaker 1: And one thing that jumped out to me really quickly, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: when we first started reading about this issue, and even

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Speaker 1: with contemporary stories focusing on the U. S Military and

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Speaker 1: especially military contractors who are still stationed in South Korea

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Speaker 1: and the sex trade, so stayed with that, even those

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Speaker 1: we just have these blanket statements as a given about

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Speaker 1: how you know, the U. S. Military and sex and

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Speaker 1: prostitution have always been you know, inextricably linked in order

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Speaker 1: to keep morale up and in order to keep soldiers happy.

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Speaker 1: And it makes sense. But at the same time, I

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Speaker 1: was like, this wasn't none of my history books. Why

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Speaker 1: am I just now learning about this in detail? Oh

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Speaker 1: so many reasons why it's not in your history book,

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Speaker 1: of course, But I mean it goes back to it

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Speaker 1: echoes for sure. What we talked about in our episode

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Speaker 1: on comfort women about this like underlying assumption that boys

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Speaker 1: will be boys, and we need to both support and

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Speaker 1: control They're like sexual appetite in a in an environment

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Speaker 1: where uh, you know they're gonna do it. They're gonna

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Speaker 1: either rape or have sex, so we better at least

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Speaker 1: set up a system where we can keep an eye

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Speaker 1: on them. Well. And it's the whole thing of women

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Speaker 1: being the spoils of war um. And we do need

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Speaker 1: to make an important distinction at this point between you

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Speaker 1: know what we're going to talk about, which has more

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Speaker 1: to do with sex workers and voluntary prostitution in these cases,

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Speaker 1: compared to sex slavery that was happening with the comfort

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Speaker 1: stations in the Japan where women were literally lied to, kidnapped, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And and forcibly coerced into those comfort stations. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time too, you can't get away from the

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Speaker 1: fact that a lot of the reasons why these women,

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Speaker 1: you know, who were servicing Allied soldiers, the reason why

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Speaker 1: they were doing is because they were economically coerced. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean they had no other choice. You

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Speaker 1: see this in the American Civil War too, where uh,

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Speaker 1: with their husband's away or dead, or just not making

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Speaker 1: any money. During the Civil War, Uh, women could make

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Speaker 1: a lot more money being prostitutes, especially once and not

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Speaker 1: to spoil too much, but especially once systems were regulated

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Speaker 1: and fees were standardized and increased in in certain areas. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you could make a time more money selling sex then

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Speaker 1: you could, you know, stitching uniforms. Yeah. And and sex

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Speaker 1: work was nothing new during the Civil War. I mean

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Speaker 1: it was pretty common actually, I mean probably to a

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Speaker 1: surprising degree when we think about nineteenth century prudery. Um.

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Speaker 1: But there was a piece you're reading from case Western

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Speaker 1: Reserve University about this massive problem that STDs caused during

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Speaker 1: the Civil War. UM Court martial records list over one

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand instances of sexual misconduct. First of all, UM,

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Speaker 1: and the way the Army responded to this was Okay,

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Speaker 1: we don't need all of these assaults happening, But I mean,

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Speaker 1: what else is going to happen. You have these guys

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Speaker 1: who are young, they've grown up, you know, on farms

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Speaker 1: and in small towns, and this is the first time

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Speaker 1: they're really out in the war. They're you know, hanging out,

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Speaker 1: putting their lives on the line. They're drinking, like rates

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Speaker 1: of drinking were really high, and they were encountering, you know,

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Speaker 1: prostitutes for the first time. So, I mean things are

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Speaker 1: going to happen. I mean, this is when you first

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Speaker 1: start to see this. Listen, boys will be boys kind

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Speaker 1: of attitude. So so what are we gonna do to

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Speaker 1: placate those natural proclivities as they were treated? Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so as you can imagine with this sort of permissive attitude,

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Speaker 1: that's that's like I feel like it echoes like I'm

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Speaker 1: at college for the first time and condoms don't really

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Speaker 1: exist yet in a way that to use plus prostitutes,

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Speaker 1: um college plus prostitutes. And one of the consequences during

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Speaker 1: the Civil War is that the Surgeon General of the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Army documented more than a hundred and eighty three thousand

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Speaker 1: cases of venereal disease. And so I mean, just imagine

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Speaker 1: how much higher that would be if you also counted

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Speaker 1: the Confederate Army. You had more than seventy three thousand

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Speaker 1: cases of syphilis, more than a hundred nine thousand cases

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Speaker 1: of gonorrhea. And I'm not laughing. I'm laughing, but I'm not.

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Speaker 1: I just like stupefied uh that were treated by surgeons

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Speaker 1: for the Union army. And this adds up to a

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Speaker 1: documented eight point two percent of Union troops who contracted

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Speaker 1: wartime STDs and f y. I there was this assumption

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Speaker 1: by the white leader ship that black soldiers, UM surely

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Speaker 1: had much higher rates of STDs, so they were considered

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Speaker 1: kind of more more of a liability. But in fact,

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Speaker 1: both alcoholism and STD rates amongst black soldiers was way, way,

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Speaker 1: way lower than the white Union soldiers. Just just a

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Speaker 1: side note there, UM. This case Western Reserve University piece

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Speaker 1: we're reading also cites soldiers letter home to his wife,

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Speaker 1: UM complaining that you would think that there was not

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Speaker 1: a married man in the regiment and there was heaven. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then there was another soldier who wrote home complaining

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Speaker 1: of the pox and the clap I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: just this is just a part of you know, a

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Speaker 1: soldier's life. You get the clap and then you die. Well,

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Speaker 1: the army wanted to prevent that as much as they could.

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Speaker 1: Between eighteen sixty three and eighteen sixty five, v D

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Speaker 1: so out of control in the Union Army that the

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Speaker 1: government started sanctioning prostitution outposts in the lovely hamlet of Nashville, Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: which had fallen to the Union in eighteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: and in Memphis. And these outposts included regular STD checkups

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Speaker 1: for the women. Oh thank goodness, it's not like again.

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Speaker 1: They were treating you know, colds and coughs, though they

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Speaker 1: were mainly concerned about what was going on with STDs.

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Speaker 1: But here's a thing. So this is where we get

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Speaker 1: into the issue of these sex workers being there voluntarily,

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Speaker 1: and um they were actually like alright, cool, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: down for some medical care, healthcare, thanks Obama. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: the way this whole thing went down was that General

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Speaker 1: George Spalding, who was essentially just like one, you know,

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Speaker 1: notch below h Ulysses S. Grant, came down to Nashville

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Speaker 1: where all these Union soldiers were, and there had already

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Speaker 1: been like it wasn't necessarily legalized. But there was Smoky

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Speaker 1: Row in Nashville, which was the their known kind of

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Speaker 1: red light district, and the union soldiers were up to

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Speaker 1: no good hanging out on Smoky roll Row all the

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Speaker 1: time contracting STDs, which I mean the STD problem wasn't

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Speaker 1: so much moral prudery but an issue of just downtime.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you would you would you were out, like

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Speaker 1: you couldn't fight if you ended up contracting an STD

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Speaker 1: and had to get it treated. Um. So he's like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? This is a bad situation. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm going to try to like ship all

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Speaker 1: of these prostitutes out of Nashville. I'm just gonna like

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Speaker 1: round them up and get him out. And there was

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Speaker 1: even like a newspaper announcement on the day that like

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Speaker 1: all of the sex workers were put on the train. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I mean the press followed, the press followed that boat.

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Speaker 1: It's oh no, no, they put those women on a riverboat.

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Speaker 1: It was a brand this this guy's brand new riverboat

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Speaker 1: which he bought, you know, to be a riverboat. But

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Speaker 1: what's his name? Spalding was like, yeah, cool, here are

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Speaker 1: a bunch of prostitutes. I believe there were a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eleven plus some children. And the press followed this

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Speaker 1: with such glee. They reported, and I'm I'm I hope

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Speaker 1: when you're imagining this with me, please have some Binny

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Speaker 1: Hill music playing in your head as well, because the

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Speaker 1: boat at each stop was turned away. So just picture

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Speaker 1: this as the boat is going up the river up north,

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Speaker 1: and they're like, we'll just get rid of them in Cincinnati. Nope,

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Speaker 1: Cincinnati turns them away. They like every stop up the river.

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Speaker 1: These cities, even though they themselves undoubtedly had prostitutes working

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Speaker 1: within their city walls, they were like, we don't want

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Speaker 1: your prostitutes. We don't want to be known as the

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Speaker 1: city that accepted the river boat of prostitutes. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, the women aren't happy, right the liquor ran

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Speaker 1: out on day two. Uh, they're stuck on this boat.

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Speaker 1: They don't get Bravos so they can't watch real housewives.

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Speaker 1: I mean, come on, people, and the crew there was

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Speaker 1: a crew three men for all of these women, plus

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Speaker 1: some kids. And finally, I think it's like they left

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Speaker 1: in August August in the South. They left on this

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Speaker 1: boat in August. By October, they literally stayed on the

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Speaker 1: river through the fall. In October, they have to come

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Speaker 1: back to Nashville because the dudes like, guys, my boat

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Speaker 1: is destroyed. Like love the ladies. Everything's great. However, the

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Speaker 1: boat never recovered. This guy didn't get capen sated for

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Speaker 1: his destroyed boat until after the war. He spent the

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Speaker 1: entire war like writing letters like m dear sirs, please,

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Speaker 1: my boat is destroyed. Uh. And when he finally did

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Speaker 1: get compensated, he was like, I can't. I can't use

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Speaker 1: this boat for anything else. It was and will remain

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Speaker 1: a floating whorehouse. Well, I'm not so much concerned about

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Speaker 1: the boats well being, but the inhumane and unsanitary conditions

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Speaker 1: these women had to live in. Because clearly Spalding did

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Speaker 1: not think this thing through. He had no real destination.

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Speaker 1: He was like, just get him out. Women are just

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Speaker 1: you know, it's just property. Just move him around. Um.

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Speaker 1: So obviously that blows up in his face and he's

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Speaker 1: like fine. So Spalding then goes to Plan B. And

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Speaker 1: Plan B is government sanctioned prostitution in Nashville. That's right, friends,

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Speaker 1: Nashville legalized prostitution during the Civil War. So with this

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Speaker 1: was like, okay, prostitutes, you can stay, but you have

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Speaker 1: to get licensed for five dollars. For five dollars, and

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Speaker 1: with that licensing, you have to get a medical check up,

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Speaker 1: um to screen you for any st d S and

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Speaker 1: treat him if you got them. And we're going to

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Speaker 1: regulate this whole thing. And the money was actually pretty good.

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Speaker 1: You have sex workers from the North actually coming down

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Speaker 1: to Nashville being like, hey, I want some healthcare. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'll go to Nashville. Um, And at least from the

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Speaker 1: reports that we read, these women were like, this is

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Speaker 1: pretty good. We're actually being treated like employees and not

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Speaker 1: just property. So um, we don't we don't really mind

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Speaker 1: this too much. And a surgeon general who helped hatch

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Speaker 1: this plan really patted himself on the back as well,

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Speaker 1: because he was like, you know what I mean, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's still prostitution, but at least our STD rates are

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Speaker 1: under control, So I mean, this is this is just

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Speaker 1: one instance of how this happens. So off course, after

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Speaker 1: the Civil War prostitution is shut down, they're like okay, nope, okay,

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Speaker 1: now we've gotta pull the plug. Smoky row, you gotta

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Speaker 1: you gotta clean up your act now. Yeah. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like it was the surge in general. It might

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Speaker 1: be somebody else who took note of how this shift

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Speaker 1: from pre to post regulation the women were suddenly like

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Speaker 1: a vision of propriety. They went from being these depraved

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Speaker 1: hoores in the back alleys who were dirty and unkempt,

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Speaker 1: to being you know, happy and healthy, making more money well,

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Speaker 1: and to that point of dirtiness versus cleanliness. This is

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Speaker 1: also where we start to get that stigmatizing rhetoric that

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Speaker 1: is still very much alive and well, um when it

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Speaker 1: comes to STDs today, the idea that contracting and STD

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Speaker 1: makes you dirty, right, you know, I mean it's just

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Speaker 1: the moralizing of the whole thing and de incentivizing it. Um.

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Speaker 1: Because I mean the government had a very vested interest

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Speaker 1: in keeping STD rates low so they could keep their

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Speaker 1: military mobility high. Um. And even though you know, not

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Speaker 1: all soldiers frequented brothels um, it was still possible for

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Speaker 1: them to mail order French safes as old school condoms

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Speaker 1: were called, um, along with erotic magazines and literature and pictures.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they had like guys kind of who were

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Speaker 1: their runners to make sure that they whether they were

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Speaker 1: going to someone in person or someone in print that

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Speaker 1: they could have their you know, their their sexual needs relieved.

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Speaker 1: So that gets us through the Civil War, and when

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Speaker 1: we get to World War One, this is when we

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Speaker 1: really see the rise of slut shaming STD propaganda. Really

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Speaker 1: reinforcing women is just dangerous, but also STDs as this dirt, dirty,

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Speaker 1: shameful thing and patriotic condoms. Um yeah, I mean std

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Speaker 1: s were still a massive problem, as you might imagine.

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Speaker 1: As Mother Jones reported during World War One, the army

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Speaker 1: lost seven million person days and discharged more than ten

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Speaker 1: thousand men because they were sick from STDs, things like

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Speaker 1: gna rhea, having to be laid up in bed, getting

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Speaker 1: treatment um frequently in different branches of the hospital that

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Speaker 1: were considered to have less great conditions, in less great

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Speaker 1: care um and so you lost your pay essentially if

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Speaker 1: you had an STD and had to be in the

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Speaker 1: hospital to be treated for it. And trench foot, for instance,

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Speaker 1: is uh a kind of nasty disease that was really

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Speaker 1: associated with life in World War One of literally like

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Speaker 1: life in the trenches, how unsanitary that could get UM.

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Speaker 1: But Allied soldiers were five times likelier to be admitted

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Speaker 1: to a hospital for an STD than trench foot um.

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Speaker 1: And to that point about how the hospitals were segregated, um,

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Speaker 1: they were it was it was considered like a thing

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Speaker 1: of dishonor if you were there for STD. So they

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Speaker 1: were like often their own dishonorable ward. But on the upside,

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Speaker 1: because this was such a problem, and again government vested

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Speaker 1: interest in this. This laid the foundation for sex education,

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Speaker 1: which in the United States again it could still use

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Speaker 1: some work, but that was when they finally the medical

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Speaker 1: community finally started paying closer attention, being like, Okay, we

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Speaker 1: might need to really investigate how this works and maybe

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Speaker 1: educate people about how these things are contracted and spread

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Speaker 1: and what they due to your bodies and how to

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Speaker 1: treat in all of that. You imagine that. So there's

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Speaker 1: I mean glass half foul Carroll line sex education. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so thanks to the war, thanks to the war,

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Speaker 1: because of the war. During the war, uh, suddenly you've

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Speaker 1: got all of these men experiencing and using condoms for

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Speaker 1: the first time, except really for American men because morality

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Speaker 1: and the ever present opinion among so many Americans that

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Speaker 1: if you present men, women, girls, boys, whoever with birth

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Speaker 1: control or contraception options. Uh, it will only promote vice

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Speaker 1: and sexual deviance in some way. Yeah, So the government

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Speaker 1: would not give American soldiers condoms on moral grounds were like,

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Speaker 1: that is a bridge too far, save sex. Uh, Instead,

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Speaker 1: we're going to give them dough boy prophylactic kits. And

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Speaker 1: it's it's it just it was basically a kit to

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Speaker 1: treat an STD. Once you had it, it was like,

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Speaker 1: come on, that's not propyle access at all. I know, Um,

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Speaker 1: that's post file axis. Thankfully, by World War two, things

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Speaker 1: would be a little bit better in terms of uh

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Speaker 1: the STD rates and better is very much um in quotes.

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Speaker 1: But France at the time offered a quote unquote safe

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Speaker 1: brothel for U. S. Soldiers to use because the STD

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Speaker 1: rate was so high. And France was like listen, we

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of harkening back to that system in

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Speaker 1: Nashville's like we we gotta set up here, like everyone's

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Speaker 1: checked out, it's STD free. But of course government officials

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Speaker 1: just blanched at the very idea. UM. Germany, meanwhile, was

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Speaker 1: far more liberal slash smarter UM. They started giving soldiers

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Speaker 1: condoms in nineteen fourteen, and finally in nineteen seventeen, British

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Speaker 1: soldiers began receiving them, but mostly from volunteers and government

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Speaker 1: sanctioned brothels. So so interesting, Uh, give guys a helmet,

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Speaker 1: but don't give him a condom. Interesting. So we're not

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Speaker 1: giving them condoms and they're having sex with people, and

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Speaker 1: somehow though, this is the women's fault. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we see this a lot in that propaganda, in the

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Speaker 1: posters promoting health and safe sex and don't get syphilis

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Speaker 1: you guys. But so many of those posters, which are

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Speaker 1: funny to post on pinterest, uh and Tumblr, so many

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Speaker 1: of them are just slut shamy. Oh yeah, I mean.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is this is all about patriotism and morale,

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Speaker 1: so there's no possible way that they could pin any

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Speaker 1: responsibility on the soldiers themselves. So of course the women

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Speaker 1: are the obvious targets. Um. And I mean this, this

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Speaker 1: idea of women being sexual temptresses is by no means

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Speaker 1: new anyway. Um. And the thing about that propaganda, which

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Speaker 1: is you know, very pinnable, is that so many of

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Speaker 1: the you know, Internet posts that I see is so

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Speaker 1: like oh winky face nostalgia about it. But it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: when you really start to look at it. It's horrifying

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Speaker 1: and explains so much about rape culture today. Um. So

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Speaker 1: you have this one group, the American Social Hygiene Association,

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Speaker 1: which produced a lot of these and boy, boy howdy,

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Speaker 1: Uh they were doozies. Um. One of their posters taglines

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Speaker 1: was a girl who would yield to one man, has

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Speaker 1: probably had relations with another, very likely she is diseased.

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Speaker 1: I mean that sounds just like like a Reddit post,

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Speaker 1: you know, I was just gonna say that, it sounds

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Speaker 1: exactly like what, you know, like a nice guy of

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Speaker 1: Okay Cupid would say. Um. You also have one where

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Speaker 1: I think they were trying to be a kind of funny. Um,

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Speaker 1: they referred to like a drawing of an attractive woman

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Speaker 1: on a poster as a booby trap. Watch out, fellas,

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Speaker 1: she's gonna get you. And you also have STDs being

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Speaker 1: anthropomorphized as women. So you have renderings again of like,

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Speaker 1: you know, conventionally attractive white woman who is wearing a

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Speaker 1: label venereal carrier, who's like waiting around a corner as

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Speaker 1: a soldiers, like walking up as if she's gonna pounce

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Speaker 1: on him. You know, watch out, guys, you gotta you

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Speaker 1: gotta stay away, because what women love to do more

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Speaker 1: than anything else is give people STDs. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you know this about it, but it's true. Um.

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Speaker 1: So the whole message is like women are poisonous temptresses,

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Speaker 1: you cannot be trusted, or women who I've had sex

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Speaker 1: before our temptresses. And also STDs equal dirty shame, dirty shame. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And there was this woman, Eddie Route in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: while she was a New Zealand nurse in Egypt, and

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Speaker 1: she was like, sick of all of this. It's not

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Speaker 1: exactly productive to have this like handwringing moralizing over STDs

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Speaker 1: and sex when you could just be treating and preventing

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Speaker 1: STDs from happening in the first place. Uh. She was

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Speaker 1: convinced that rather than treat STDs as like a moral failing,

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Speaker 1: treat them as a medical issue, which they are and

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Speaker 1: which they were. And so her solution was to create

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Speaker 1: these prophylactic kits that were actually prophylactic kits and not

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Speaker 1: like postphylactic um and they included condoms. And her solution

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Speaker 1: was to create these put together these prophylactic kits that

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Speaker 1: included condoms. And she also advocated for clean brothels. And

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Speaker 1: you would have thought this woman was like advocating for

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Speaker 1: just the entire world to be a nudist colony, like

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Speaker 1: let's all have orgies together. People freaked out, And in

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, if you printed her name you faced a fine.

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Speaker 1: I was so surprised to read this too, because in

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Speaker 1: terms of women's rights, at least, New Zealand has been

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Speaker 1: historically very progressive. Shout out Kiwi's listening. Um, So I was, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was surprised to see how how Eddie was treated

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Speaker 1: like her Yeah, her name was not allowed to be

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Speaker 1: printed in newspapers. But the French, again, we're like you guys, listen,

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Speaker 1: we can do this. Um. They were super chill about it.

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Speaker 1: They of course supported Routes ideas about the quote unquote

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Speaker 1: clean brothels. Right, we shouldn't say clean. That clean. Dirty

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Speaker 1: language is super stigmatizing, so the licensed and regulated brothels

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00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 1: to be more accurate. Um. So in nineteen eighteen, Route

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Speaker 1: establishes a hygienic brothel in Paris for troops from New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Um and you also have the French reviving that sanctioned

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Speaker 1: prostitution system. Um that we saw similar to Nashville during

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Speaker 1: the Civil War. That helped keep the sex trade going

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Speaker 1: on there std free because here's the thing, they knew

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Speaker 1: that during wartime women are usually destitute and have to

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Speaker 1: turn to prostitution. You have that economic coersion factor, so

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00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 1: better to keep them healthy in the process. And then

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Speaker 1: we start to see some maneuvers that essentially legally and

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Speaker 1: officially placed blame on sex workers and prostitutes. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: a move that the US would replicate during World War Two.

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Speaker 1: Britain in nineteen sixteen made it a crime for a

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Speaker 1: prostitute you solicit a man in uniform, and in nineteen

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00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: eighteen it became illegal for women with venereal disease to

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Speaker 1: have sex with any soldiers, and police could medically examine

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Speaker 1: suspected not actual literal licensed, but suspected prostitutes. Yeah, I mean.

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Speaker 1: And and when it comes to British soldiers and studs

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00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: during World War One, their most effective defense was actually

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Speaker 1: cutting their wages because then they just couldn't afford to

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Speaker 1: go to a brothel. That was the only thing. It

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00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: was just like if if the soldiers had enough money,

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00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: they were gonna go, right. So you see, during this time,

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Speaker 1: Canadian and Australian soldiers who earned significantly more money than

401
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Speaker 1: their British counterparts, uh, contracting super high rates of STDs,

402
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Speaker 1: and the bore Brits, the literally poor Brits, were kind

403
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: of protected because once you bought your food and you know,

404
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: whatever other essentials you needed, it really didn't leave you

405
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: much money to go get your kicks and a brothel

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00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: licensed or not. But with all of this you can

407
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: see how again the sex trade goes part and parcel

408
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: with warfare. And we're going to talk about World War

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00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: two when we come right back from a quick break.

410
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429
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Speaker 1: We're talking freshly dipped strawberries starting at or double the

430
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Speaker 1: berries for just ten dollars more. And this is an

431
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432
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Speaker 1: code how stuff works. Click on the microphone in the

433
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: top right corner and type in three separate words how

434
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: stuff works. Go to Barry's dot com, click on the

435
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: microphone and enter our code how stuff works. That's three

436
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: separate words, how stuff works. This is a limited time

437
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: offer and Mom's Day is next week, so make sure

438
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: to order now so by the time we get to

439
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: World War two at least penicillin exists. This is very

440
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: good News for the treatment of STDs because prior to

441
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: its arrival, syphilis was the fourth leading cause of death

442
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: in the US. That's crazy, yeah, like beat out like

443
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: only by cancer. Well, and also two other things, because

444
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: it was the fourth, but I mean it was that widespread,

445
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: partially just because we didn't have treatments. Um so, Rather though,

446
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: than focusing so much on World War prostitution happening overseas,

447
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: which it absolutely did, what we really want to talk

448
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: about is the survey aliens of women's sex lives on

449
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: the American home front and the rise of what some

450
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: people in the government called patriot tuts. Yeah, this was history. Again,

451
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: like no idea, I had no idea. Mind blowing. My

452
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: mind was blown. And this is coming from a fabulously

453
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: titled book by Maryland Haggardy called Victory Girls, Khaki Wackys

454
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: and Patriot Tuts. The regulation of female sexuality during World

455
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: War Two and geez regulated it was. I mean, you

456
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: women could barely walk down the street because authorities were

457
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: so convinced that any woman out on her own was

458
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: clearly some suspicious prostitute. And if she wasn't a prostitute yet,

459
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: she probably would be. She was a walking STD. So

460
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: here's a fact that blew my mind, Caroline. The US

461
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: government effectively established a wartime sexual support system, as Hagardy

462
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: described it in the United States, um in around military

463
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: bases to ensure soldiers could get plenty of play, but

464
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: without the STDs. So you have like the closer that

465
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: you get to barracks, you know, the more and more

466
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: like regulated things become. Um. But also with women increasingly

467
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: stepping into traditional men's jobs and roles outside of the

468
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: home a k a. Rosie the riveters, this gender panic

469
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: helps fuel the sexual surveillance on women on the home front.

470
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, man, women are leaving the home, what

471
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: are they going to do next? Are they going to

472
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: be like us and feel like they deserve sex all

473
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: the time. And when it comes so to that surveillance,

474
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: working class women and women of color were the most scrutinized,

475
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: and black men were also assumed to be vectors of

476
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: venarial disease because racism. So we just see the layers

477
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: of classism and racism intertwined with this. And again we

478
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: still have this interpretation of STDs as a moral failing

479
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: rather than a biological process. Yeah, and I mean, you know,

480
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: not to go off on too much of a tangent,

481
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: but that's echoes and lingering sentiments from the progressive era

482
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:15,719
Speaker 1: when you viewed, for instance, poverty as a character failing.

483
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: You viewed illness, sickness, any of that as something that

484
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: reflected on the morality of the person who experienced it

485
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: rather than an institutional or systematic problem. And so the

486
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: same attitude applied to racist ideas about black people being

487
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: more prone to carrying venereal diseases, or you know, poor

488
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: people being dirty and wanted and not being able to

489
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: control their sexuality. Well, and if you put this in

490
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: the backdrop to in an era of extreme patriotism, you know,

491
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: std s were just downright an American, you know, I

492
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: mean there there's so many, so many ways that the

493
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: government was trying to, you know, regulate our lives, to

494
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: to just ensure that, you know, the soldiers stayed as

495
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: healthy as possible. And in the process of this, a

496
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:12,240
Speaker 1: U S Public Health Service physician named Otis Anderson coined

497
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: the term patriot tute to both stigmatize the women in

498
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: the military who were installed at us O dance halls

499
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: and servicemen's clubs to maintain morale, you know, have some

500
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: pretty gals around, and also to tour soldiers from going

501
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: to prostitutes. So I mean this is this is a

502
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: similar kind of like sexual servicing where women were I

503
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: mean it was voluntary, yes, but women were nonetheless recruited.

504
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: Attractive women were recruited to come to these dance halls,

505
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: like come dance with an old soldier before he goes

506
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: off to war. Gals give a man a smile in

507
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:52,280
Speaker 1: the hopes that with these quote unquote good and clean

508
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: girls around, they wouldn't need to go to a prostitute.

509
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: But who's to say that these soldiers also were not

510
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 1: having their way with these women too. Yeah, but you

511
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: get these weird attitudes reflected about what constitutes a good girl,

512
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: appear and clean girl, which is again holdovers from that

513
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: progressive era attitude about true womanhood and that a true

514
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: woman was a pure, chased white woman in the home,

515
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,399
Speaker 1: you know, versus like sex workers who were just they

516
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: were necessary in these military men's minds, and they were

517
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: often sanctioned by the military and licensed to you know,

518
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: especially in Europe as we saw. But yet we we

519
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 1: hate them and fear them and and call them sluts

520
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: and prostitutes. Yeah, I mean there was this whole dichotomy

521
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: at work of thinking of women as sexually dangerous, particularly

522
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:58,720
Speaker 1: if they're sex workers, but also they're sexually alluring morale builders,

523
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 1: potentially these quote unquote patriot tuts that we can only

524
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: assume have you know, never participated in any kind of

525
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: sexual exploration whatsoever. And those two things were still conflated

526
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 1: at the same time. And Haggardy describes this mindset as

527
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: sensual patriotism. It's like this, the sensual sensual patriotism that

528
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: those quote good girls possessed versus s t d s.

529
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: And the USO did directly advertise for proper white girls

530
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: to come, but there was this fine line because that

531
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: surveillance was still happening. So if you were one of

532
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,320
Speaker 1: those gals of the dance halls, just given a fellow

533
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: smile before he ships off, if you seem to be

534
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: getting a little too cozy with that soldier boy not

535
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: to be confused with the rapper um, the government might

536
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: label you a prostitute. I had to really like think

537
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: for that reference. For us, I know that's already becoming

538
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: a deep cut. I'm aging so quickly, and we see

539
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: this handwringing over women's role in the spread of v D.

540
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: We see it just continue. In n there's an author

541
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: pens this piece called v D Menace and Challenge, where she, yes,

542
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: she the author writes about the quote problem of the

543
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: non commercial girl who is supplanting the prostitute as the

544
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: main source of venereal infection in the arms services. It

545
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 1: is she who is in large part responsible for the

546
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: increase of venereal disease in this country. As if women

547
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,800
Speaker 1: like they just sneeze and v D is just spread

548
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 1: to these innocent, helpless men. So much vintage slut shaming um.

549
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: And we also speaking of which like we had in

550
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: World War Two, we have all of that anti STD

551
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: propaganda come up yet again, I mean, and and a

552
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,240
Speaker 1: lot that she was I mean funded obviously by the government.

553
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: You have some of them that are I mean, the

554
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 1: graphic design is really cool, you know, the stuff that

555
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: came out of the works Progress administration. Um. But it's

556
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: just reinforced that idea of female sexuality is dangerous. So

557
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: in addition to posters, you had films, including the two

558
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: US Navy film The Ship of Shame, which urged semen

559
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: to quote put it on before you put it in, Fellas,

560
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,359
Speaker 1: I like my eyeballs fell out of my head when

561
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: I read that, Like, I couldn't believe put it on

562
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 1: before you put it in was on an official poster. Well,

563
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: it was in the it was in the video kind

564
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: of like one of those awkward sex said videos, except

565
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 1: it all took place on a boat, well, the ship

566
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: of shame, the Ship of Shame. And then you have

567
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: posters with taglines like she may look clean, but dot

568
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: dot dot again we have all of that clean, dirty

569
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: language going on, and then uh, this one that just

570
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: got really to the point, loose women may also be

571
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: loaded all caps with disease. Yeah, and they were big

572
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,479
Speaker 1: into showing and telling because that poster had a woman

573
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: winking and it also had a picture of a gun. Well, Caroline,

574
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: I also have to describe this one last poster to you. Uh,

575
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 1: it depicts an attractive woman sitting in an armchair and

576
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: she's wearing a dress, which of course is labeled vinereal disease,

577
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,359
Speaker 1: And you have are we sure that's just not her name,

578
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: it's just sewed onto a dress scenario? I mean, venereal

579
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: does sound like, you know, like a nineties name. Um,

580
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: and she on the wall. Behind her, there's a portrait

581
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: of an Army guy, an Air Force guy, and a navyman,

582
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: a man in the Navy, and the tagline above it

583
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: is don't be her pin up boy. You have gender

584
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 1: role reversal, slight shaming, injurious sexuality everything in this one poster. Well,

585
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: there were some other tactics too. There was one poster

586
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 1: uh that featured a really sad lady Liberty behind these

587
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: two military members uh, and the tagline was like, y'all, sister, sweetheart,

588
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: old wife might not know that you have VD, but

589
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 1: I do and I will suffer for it. God Lady

590
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 1: Liberties like, God, yeah, she she is. And there was

591
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: another poster to that sort of tried to play on

592
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 1: men's shame. It didn't. It actually didn't shame women, which

593
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: is mind boggling. It was trying to shame the soldiers themselves.

594
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: And it showed a wife in an armchair with two

595
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,800
Speaker 1: children playing on the floor in front of her, and

596
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: it basically said, like, you know, I I can't believe

597
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: how syphilis almost hurt my family. But in a way,

598
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: doesn't that still bring shame to the wife Because it's

599
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: like if you bring home syphilis to that woman. You're

600
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: going to make her dirty too. And I feel like

601
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: it's still it's you're still only seeing the women being

602
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: affected by all of this. This is true. I am

603
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: not letting those propaganda posters off the hook, nor nor

604
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 1: should you. Um. Prior to Pearl Harbor, though, the Army, Navy,

605
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: Federal Security Agency, state health departments, and the American Social

606
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: Hygiene Association collectively outlined the eight point agreement on v

607
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: D control, including the repression of prostitution and contact reporting.

608
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: And contact reporting it just means letting the informing the

609
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 1: military who you've had sex with. And in her book,

610
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: Hegardy observes these eight points marked the official start of

611
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 1: wartime socio political efforts to control female sexuality. And from

612
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: there we start to get legislation around this. Yeah, in

613
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: Congress passes the May Act, which makes prostitution around on

614
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: domestic military basis a federal crime. We also see the

615
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: establishment of the Social Protection Division, overseen by FBI legend

616
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: elliott Ness to basically monitor fretfully women's and angrily women's morality. Yeah,

617
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: I mean, we had talked about the surveillance that started

618
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: going on before the US entered the war, and it

619
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: was really focused around the military basis. But with this,

620
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: I mean they were blanketing the entire country really to

621
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: kind of uproot all of those those bad girls, those

622
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 1: women who are going to ensnare their soldiers. And records

623
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 1: from the Social Protection Division contain a veritable the sourus

624
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: of slutty descriptors that they came up with for women,

625
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: including disorderly girls, vagrance, pre delinquents, suspected prostitute, potentially promiscuous woman,

626
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 1: possibly foolish and immoral women, non adaptable, grass grabbers, hordes

627
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: of horrors, good time Charlotte's, and patriot tuts. There's old

628
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: patriot tutes coming up again. Patriot tutes Caroline was like

629
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 1: used in official government documentation. Yeah, that's what blows my

630
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: mind that this wasn't just like dismissive language that someone

631
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: found in some memo that someone shot off, Like this

632
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: was official language about women. And I mean these efforts

633
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: contributed to this hyper sexualization of women to the point

634
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: of labeling many under surveillance as prostitutes and promiscuous with

635
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: the objective of socially rehabilitating them. Both prostitutes and other

636
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: perceived sexually delinquent women, and local officials detained and forcibly

637
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: tested women identified by soldiers who had contracted STDs and

638
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: report to them as sexual contacts and whether single are married.

639
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,919
Speaker 1: If you were a woman alone in public, you could

640
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: arouse suspicion and for instance, in June nineteen, six months

641
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: after Pearl Harbor in Oklahoma City, nine hundred girls and

642
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 1: women were arrested on morals charges. That same year, during

643
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: one six month period, authorities arrested women in fifteen states

644
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: on morals charges. My eyes are about to pop out

645
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 1: of my head, Caroline, Well, because what's going on is

646
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: the penalization of gender essentially, like if you were a woman,

647
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: you were just like guilty, you were presumed to be

648
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: guilty by association almost. But the scary thing is too,

649
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 1: the power that the government gave law enforcement at the

650
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: time to stop women and girls on the street, take

651
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: them forcibly to a health clinic for STD test and

652
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:05,320
Speaker 1: ki who knows what happened in between all of that time,

653
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:07,760
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, there was one case of a woman

654
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: who was eating at a diner alone. Her husband was

655
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: what he was, in the military, so he was away,

656
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh my god, a woman alone,

657
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: they dragged her off. She tests negative for any STDs,

658
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: and it's like, thank goodness, because, as the writer points out,

659
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: if she had tested positive for whatever reason and for

660
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: whatever STD, she probably would have gone to jail and

661
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: been forcibly treated. So also in this cultural climate to

662
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:44,720
Speaker 1: this wasn't just surveillance happening among female civilians. You also

663
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: have suspicion of members of the Women's Army Corps thinking

664
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: that they might have been prostitutes and lesbians in disguise.

665
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm picturing I'm picturing again the Benny

666
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: Hill music, and like all of these paranoid, insane men

667
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: in the government and in law enforcement and in the

668
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: military who were just in an absolute panic over women.

669
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: They were just like seeing things. But if there were

670
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:21,800
Speaker 1: a Leslie Nope style binder of like war plans that

671
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: the US used and they opened it up, I mean,

672
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: this is what protocol from the past wars, you know.

673
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's always the responsibility for this stuff

674
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 1: is always fallen on the women, and soldiers absolutely internalized

675
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: the message of female sex and sexuality as patriotic benefits

676
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: to their disposal. So while women are being demonized and

677
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: singled out for possibly being dangerous. Soldiers are also receiving

678
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: the message that they should nonetheless have access to quote

679
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 1: unquote clean women. Um, there's sense of military training in

680
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:05,879
Speaker 1: World War Two around safer sex under the presumption that again,

681
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:08,439
Speaker 1: boys will be boys. So it's like, listen, you're gonna

682
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: do what you're gonna do. We would prefer that you

683
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 1: not rape anyone, and when you have sex, make sure

684
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: that you don't contracting STD because that will, you know,

685
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: take you out of off the battlefield. Yeah, and and

686
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: we see this this I don't want to say emergence

687
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: because it's more of a perpetuation and almost an amplification

688
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 1: of both sexual bravado and hyper masculinity as almost necessary

689
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: attributes to display as a military man. And hegrid He

690
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:42,919
Speaker 1: writes about this. She says the constant attention paid to sex,

691
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 1: including safe sex through lectures, films, pamphlets, and posters, along

692
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: with the military practice of providing instruction and profile access,

693
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: finally uh created dissonance between any notion of male continence

694
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: or sexual reserve in the stereotype of the virile aggress

695
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 1: of military mail. They're getting mixed messages essentially about what

696
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:05,919
Speaker 1: it means to be a true man or a true

697
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: military man and being responsible and practicing safe sex. And

698
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: you have anecdotal reports too of soldiers who are about

699
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: to ship out aggressively and sometimes non consensually demanding sex

700
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: with the whole thought process of well, if I'm about

701
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: to go put my life on the line for the

702
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 1: US of A, then I deserve unfettered access to women's bodies.

703
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: And Caroline, this brings to mine Greece too, and that

704
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: scene where the guy tricks the girl uh into having

705
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 1: sex with him and they sing that whole song let's

706
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:43,800
Speaker 1: do it for our country. You know what it reminds

707
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 1: me of, like rape culture? Well yeah, in in the world. Yeah. Um.

708
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: But the government, though, Caroline, they had a solution for

709
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 1: all of this, especially you know, for making sure that

710
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: the soldiers stayed as healthy as possible, kept them all

711
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 1: you know in commission policymakers, both military and civilians, generally

712
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: agreed that male soldiers shouldn't it really couldn't be sexually restrained.

713
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: Come on, and any attempts to do so would only

714
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: result in quote rape and seduction. Again. It's like, I mean,

715
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: you know what's gonna happen. Uh. So, as a result,

716
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: the military considered sanctioned brothels to provide as some people

717
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker 1: called it, a buffer of horrors that is direct language.

718
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 1: Is that like a murder of crows? Yeah, a buffer

719
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: of horrors to protect the good women in the surrounding

720
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: areas from would be rapists being the soldiers. Yeah, I

721
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,839
Speaker 1: mean this was we're we're not sitting here as feminists

722
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: like coming up with this narrative. People like, this is

723
00:49:57,120 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: what military and government officials we're putting together in their reports.

724
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: These were the conclusions that they were reaching. And what

725
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: brings this episode focusing on the American military, uh full

726
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:17,760
Speaker 1: circle and meets with our previous episodes topic of comfort

727
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: women and sexual slavery in well in Asian countries propagated

728
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: by Japanese soldiers, is the fact that the comfort women's

729
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: system was essentially reintroduced slash never left because of the

730
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: American soldiers who then came in. Yeah, once you know,

731
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: Japan surrendered, Japanese officials knew that American troops would then

732
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: be coming in to occupy and that they would want

733
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: sex and kind of like that whole buffer of horace mindset.

734
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 1: They were like listen, we don't want these white guys

735
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: coming in and rapeing all of our women, so we

736
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: need to revive the comfort stations. And in two thousand eleven,

737
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:09,320
Speaker 1: the Associated Press reported that American authorities were complicit in

738
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 1: the Japanese re establishing those brothels that did include forest

739
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 1: prostitution and the number of American gis who frequented them.

740
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: And we should note that Americans one hundred percent knew

741
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: about the horrors of the comfort women's system by this point,

742
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,280
Speaker 1: like the government knew that that was that that had happened,

743
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: but they were still like, you know what, okay. And

744
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: the official history of the Ibakari Prefectural Police Department, whose

745
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo, says, quote sadly, we

746
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 1: police had the set up sexual comfort stations for the

747
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 1: occupation troops. The strategy was through the special work of

748
00:51:56,560 --> 00:52:00,920
Speaker 1: experienced women to create a breakwater to protect regular women

749
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: and girls. Those women were regular women and girls, and

750
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: the ones who had experience quote unquote likely had experience

751
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: because they had been forced into the system by Japanese

752
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: soldiers during World War Two. Well, and there have been

753
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: scholars who have noted that with this relatively brief revival,

754
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 1: Like most of the women um came of their own will,

755
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 1: but again we have the economic coercion factor. It was

756
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: like they had no other choice that they wanted to survive.

757
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,319
Speaker 1: They couldn't feed themselves. They're like, well, I need a job.

758
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 1: Well yeah, And again some of them did come of

759
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 1: their own free will, but a lot of the time

760
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:43,800
Speaker 1: there was still that deception factor. You still had ads

761
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: in newspapers saying we need a secretary and a woman

762
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 1: showing up and they're like, yeah, you can type some stuff,

763
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:53,839
Speaker 1: but we also need you to do this other thing,

764
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 1: and here's money for it. So the only reason though

765
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: that General MacArthur shut all this down and I TE

766
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: six was due to concern from military chaplains who were like, hey,

767
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: I don't think this is ko sure, and the pr

768
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: risk of anyone finding out about those brothels, and just

769
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: like what happened with the comfort women who had been

770
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 1: having to you know, forcibly following Japanese troops wherever they went. Immediately,

771
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 1: those tens of thousands of sex workers were out of

772
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 1: a job, many with STDs, and thus forced to continue

773
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: selling sex in order to survive and what did the

774
00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: Americans do? They went home to a hero's welcome, a

775
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: quarter of them with STDs, you know. And it's and

776
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: it's one thing too that jumped out to me in

777
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,880
Speaker 1: reading about all of this, Caroline, is how, of course

778
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 1: General MacArthur would want to cover this up. You know,

779
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: this would be a pr disaster for all of these

780
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 1: white boys to be having sex with women of color.

781
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: But there are accounts of Americans and other Allied troops

782
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: frequenting French brothels. But the portrayals of that are very like,

783
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: you know, kind of cheeky and romantic. It's like, of

784
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: course a man couldn't resist a French prostitute. So because

785
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 1: it's like white people having sex with white people and

786
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 1: that's totally okay. And all of this kind of just

787
00:54:17,040 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 1: makes me um want to take a nap because it's exhausting.

788
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: It is exhausting, And so I think it does shed

789
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: uh some interesting light and context for discussions about red

790
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: light districts around bases, American bases that exist now, because

791
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 1: you do have the argument from a lot of people

792
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: of like, well, there, you know, these women are choosing

793
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: this line of work and uh, they're earning a lot

794
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: of money doing this. They want to do it, and

795
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:51,279
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to paint with a broad

796
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:55,719
Speaker 1: brush and say no or yes either way, but I

797
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,799
Speaker 1: it's hard to argue that that line of work, whether

798
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: it was in the Civil War, World War one, World

799
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: War two, or today around any basis that it's entirely

800
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:12,719
Speaker 1: an issue of freely choosing that occupation because it's the

801
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:16,439
Speaker 1: thing you want to do. There is still a big

802
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:23,279
Speaker 1: issue of socioeconomics of what options are available to people, um.

803
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: And those are the underlying issues that we could then

804
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: talk for hours and hours about well. And also the

805
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,240
Speaker 1: deception too. I mean, some of these women are promised

806
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 1: things and end up you know, especially in South Korea

807
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: around these military bases, um, and it turns out that oh,

808
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: there they are kind of in a chattel system where

809
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 1: they're beholden to whoever is running this brothel. So the situation,

810
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 1: by no means is fixed, and by no means went

811
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: away after World War Two. In fact, it only got worse,

812
00:55:56,400 --> 00:56:01,239
Speaker 1: um with the Korean War and Vietnam. But with that

813
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: we now have to close things out. And the big

814
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:08,800
Speaker 1: takeaway from me, Caroline is just like how much it

815
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: totally explains our sexual slut shaming and sexist culture that

816
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 1: we still live in. Yeah, so, listeners, what do you

817
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: think about all this? Was this as surprising for you

818
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: as it was for us, um and especially interested to

819
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: hear from our listeners who are in the military, because

820
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: I think this also too speaks to the issues that

821
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: the military has had with sexual assault as well. So

822
00:56:37,800 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: we want to hear your first hand perspectives. As always,

823
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:43,759
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at how stuff works dot Com is where

824
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: you can send them. You can also tweet us at

825
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got

826
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: a couple of messages to share with you right now. Okay,

827
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Ali. She says, I

828
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:02,359
Speaker 1: started listening to podcasts a little over a year ago,

829
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:04,640
Speaker 1: and one of the first that I stumbled upon that

830
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: I loved was Sminty. I have to tell you how

831
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:10,399
Speaker 1: inspiring your podcast has been for me. I went through

832
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: grade school never having a teacher that inspired me or

833
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 1: made me want to be a better person like the

834
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 1: both of you do. I've struggled with dropping in and

835
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,640
Speaker 1: out of college because of not knowing what I'm passionate about,

836
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 1: which has been extremely frustrating as an almost twenty seven

837
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: year old woman. It has lowered my self esteem, especially

838
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: when my fiance and close friends have either bachelor's or

839
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: master's degrees. I still have no idea what I'm passionate

840
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:35,919
Speaker 1: about and have an internal struggle with that every day.

841
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 1: But what I want you to know is that you've

842
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 1: stirred something in me. I'm realizing now that just because

843
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 1: I haven't found what I'm passionate about, it doesn't mean

844
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:47,919
Speaker 1: that the passion inside me isn't there. I can feel

845
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 1: it bubbling to the surface and have to just keep

846
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 1: searching for the right outlet. I know one day I'll

847
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: find it. This new perspective that I have is because

848
00:57:56,520 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 1: of you and your strength and bravery to keep fighting

849
00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: the good fight. Thank you for being who you are, Hallie.

850
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:07,440
Speaker 1: Thank you for being who you are. And let me

851
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: tell age, it's not unusual to not know what your

852
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 1: passion is or how you want to direct that passion.

853
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: But I'm really glad to hear that we could maybe

854
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:19,959
Speaker 1: play a part in figuring it out. Yeah, that means

855
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you for taking the time to tell

856
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 1: us that too. So I've got to let her here.

857
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 1: From Emily on school dress codes, and body shaming. As

858
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: she writes, I've just recently started listening to podcasts, and

859
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,360
Speaker 1: yours is the first one I chose. All right, so

860
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: forgive me if what I'm requesting is something you've covered

861
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: in past podcast and Emily, you never have to apologize

862
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: for that. We have over seven episodes, and I forget

863
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: what we've talked about sometimes. Um, she continues, while listening

864
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 1: to your history of sexual harassment, something really struck a

865
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:52,840
Speaker 1: chord with me, and that was when you mentioned the

866
00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:56,280
Speaker 1: relation to current student dress code policies. I've been reading

867
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 1: a lot about these in the news lately, and I

868
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: agree it's a problem. I have a four year old daughter,

869
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: so it really worries me how I will handle this

870
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: when she gets older. It's funny. It definitely hits on

871
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: how I was raised. I was a rather endowed teen,

872
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,040
Speaker 1: which was not all it was cracked up to be,

873
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:12,959
Speaker 1: and I had to be careful what I wore because

874
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:16,920
Speaker 1: I didn't want to dress inappropriately, which I'm now understand

875
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:21,560
Speaker 1: is a really body shaming and sexist perception. Women can't

876
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 1: be to blame for men not being able to look

877
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: at them as more than sexual objects. And of course

878
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: this also goes into the body shaming women due to

879
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,680
Speaker 1: each other when someone is curvy or heavy, or dressing

880
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:33,919
Speaker 1: in a way that shows off their curves or heaven

881
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 1: forbid that. So I'm just curious to hear more about this.

882
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:41,840
Speaker 1: How do I balance appropriateness and fairness while not raising

883
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 1: a daughter that feels like she has to make things

884
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: easier for those crazed men? Or is there appropriate I

885
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 1: already balanced this fine line when she asked me things like, mom,

886
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 1: why can boys go out without shirts? On? How do

887
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:57,960
Speaker 1: I balance in this emerging world of women's empowerment that

888
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: I'm glad about, by the way, but I I'm still

889
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: trying to undo years of being raised in the old ways. Emily,

890
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 1: those are fabulous questions, And since Caroline and I do

891
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: not have children, I think this is a great one. Um.

892
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: Parents listening, if you have any suggestions of how you

893
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 1: have talked to your daughters in particular, but just your

894
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 1: kids in general about dressing and what is and isn't

895
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:24,280
Speaker 1: appropriate and um. One thing that came to mind Emily

896
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 1: reading your letter was the Fresh Air interview recently with

897
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 1: Peggy Orenstein, who just came up with a book on

898
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: girls and sex and she talks about dress codes and

899
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: at her daughter's school, basically, the girl's dress code is two.

900
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: You have to wear clothes that you can move freely in.

901
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: And I think that's a fantastic standard where it's like,

902
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: if you if you can't raise your arms comfortably or

903
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: touch your toes, you know, and worry about having like

904
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 1: adjust your clothes and pull it down whatever it might be,

905
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:59,919
Speaker 1: then then maybe find something more more comfortable that liberal

906
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: rates you. So maybe that will help um. But thanks

907
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: so much for your letter, Emily, and so happy to

908
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:09,520
Speaker 1: hear that you're a new listener, and to all of

909
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: our listeners, we love hearing from you as well. Again

910
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:14,680
Speaker 1: our email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works dot

911
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: com and for links to all of our social media

912
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, videos and podcasts

913
01:01:19,560 --> 01:01:23,520
Speaker 1: with our sources. So you can learn more about patriot tudes,

914
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot

915
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

916
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:35,680
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com