In Foucault’s words, ‘visibility is a trap,’ and this isn’t all that it is. Visibility is a weapon, used by the state to afford privacy to some, and exposure to others: those that become a part of the mass body known as the ‘unemployed’. Take a step further, and you will see that those who are at the very bottom – the homeless – are afforded no privacy at all. They are out in the cold, subjected to the derision of those who could also quite easily fall into a state of constant visibility.
‘Their voices are missing, and this persistent erasure or negative representation reflects […] a cultural and political violence towards these women’
Despite the many disagreements in opinion, moralising will not get rid of the demand for sex, but rather endangers and isolates sex workers further. ‘Equality’ will only exist when all women are afforded the same basic rights, and those who are now ostracised are put at the forefront of the conversation. The commodification of the sex worker by the feminist is not a new phenomenon, and women such as Sophie Walker must recognise that they, themselves, are at risk of becoming the real perpetrators of female oppression.
‘I asked her what she wanted to photograph, and she said, ‘I want to take pictures of policemen kicking children,’ and I said ‘You’re in.’ It was the shortest interview I had ever done’