Myths and Realities of Prostitution in a Male Driven World
Heidi Liverman
Women are often forced to become prostitutes during their teenage years. Men’s attitudes toward women begin at birth. Women are often treated like second class citizens and there is no shortage of actions by men to continue this problem, as children learn through imitating parental figures, media, and society in general. This attitude is shown not only in everyday professional settings, but also in everyday street life settings. Worse than the way men view women in general are the actions and attitudes of men towards prostitutes. This paper will explore how men’s attitudes toward prostitutes, whether brothel workers in a legal setting or prostitutes on the street, often hinges on the same overall perception. This paper intends to show how attitudes are not shifting in a positive way toward women, but how men still view women as a lesser gender, even if the men are street dwellers themselves. Studying this problem will uncover how attitude adjustments could help change the amount of violence, victims, and arrests. The patriarchal mentality in which women are perceived as being lower class citizens has been documented well and will be shown by studying the previous work of many authors of books, scholastic journals, and newspaper articles.
Heidi Liverman is a returning student of Lander University from the early 90s. She is currently a senior in sociology. She is a full-time student, a full-time employee of the Greenwood Public Defenders, a wife, and mother of three children.
