Roving Reporter's 'Dead Hooker' Joke Offensive

To the editors:

As a member of the panel at Harvard Law School last week discussing “The 10 Most Important Things to Do Right Now to Stop Sexual Violence,” the first suggestion I offered was to stop acquiescing in the enormous amount of sexual violence that permeates our society. We need only open our eyes to see that it is ubiquitous. Every day in the newspaper, we can find at least one story about a man killing his girlfriend or wife. Ads are filled with degrading images of weak, vacant women whose only value appears to be complete sexual availability to any man who wants her. Even at Harvard, The Crimson recently reported the fourth sexual assault on campus in two weeks (News, “Student Groped Near Campus,” Oct. 24).

Much to my dismay, just above the Crimson article covering the panel on sexual violence appeared a feature article in which Harvard students were asked what they hid from their parents for Parent’s Weekend. Joe K. Green ’05 replied “The dead hooker in the closet” (News, “Roving Reporter,” Oct. 24).

Having just returned from a conference on the sexual slavery and trafficking of women and children, I can assure you this is far from funny. Women who are prostituted are commonly beaten, raped and treated as disposable. Indeed, this is just the attitude reflected in Green’s attempt at humor. According to a study cited in Prostitution Research and Education, women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average. Most women and girls who enter into prostitution do so between the ages of 13 and 17, and over 75 percent of them have run away from sexual abuse inflicted upon them at home.

I urge Green and all in the Harvard community to think about what you are saying before you speak. Most people do not choose to have their bodies ravaged by strangers for money. Dire conditions usually exist before they find themselves in this position. Especially repugnant is Green’s suggestion, even in jest, that it is appropriate to murder a prostituted woman.

If Green had instead said that he hid “his dead black slave” in his closet, we would react with outrage. Why don’t we have a similar understanding here?

Diane L. Rosenfeld

Oct. 29, 2003

The writer is a lecturer on women’s studies.