Article on woman losing benefits for refusing to work as prostitute.
I find this issue really interesting. I actually agree that, if prostitution is legal, it should be no more refusable than other objectionable jobs w/r/t unemployment bens. I am particularly moved by the statement of the brothel-owner, that she pays her taxes like any other employer and should have access to the same public services as other employers (particularly given German employment taxes). I also am curious to check out german bars, since they are apparently indistinguishable from brothels. However, I'm not really comfortable with making a woman work as a prostitute to avoid losing benefits to which she is otherwise entitled. I'm not entirely sure where my dysfunction is, but I have been having some fun over the last few days considering it.
Time for my counterfactuals: (i) A committed ethical vegan refuses to work at a meat-packing plant. (ii) a man refuses to work as a prostitute. (iii) An orthodox Jew refuses to work at a pork abattoir. (iv) The committed vegan refuses to work as a waiter at a saussage-house. (v) the committed vegan is one because he is a buddhist. (vi) a hypochondriac refuses to work as an orderly in a TB ward. (vii) a strict muslim refuses to take a job that would force her to work with non-related men in contravention of her religion (I don't know if this is ever applicable, but it is irrelevant for these purposes). (viii) Wiccan refuses to work at an evangelical church as a Sunday school teacher. (ix) woman refuses employment as a surrogate mother. (x) Our stalking horse: woman refuses work as prostitute.
My initial gut reaction is to find the following to be unacceptable job refusals: (i (but not v)), (ii), (iv (v or not v)), and (vi). (x) and (vii) are both right on the border, but I wouldn't require them to do it.
I think this shows (a) an assumption that society should perhaps make certain concessions to enable people to adhere to religious beliefs, moreso that other ethical beliefs (which I admit makes no sense at all), (b) a belief that women's morality is more important to protect than men's (which does make some sense since I think western (and most other) cultures punish women deemed immoral more severely than men, and often consider a wider collection of behaviors to be immoral for women), and (c) that I think segregation of the sexes, whether religious or not, is stupid.
Maybe I'm saved here by the fact that women aren't actually being forced into prostitution - they are free to choose not to engage in prostitution. They will merely be expected to accept the consequences of their self-imposed limitations, just like someone who objects to mucking out stables, serving meat or working with people of the opposite sex. I've long held that children who object to dissecting the frog should refuse to do it but live with the F. Society isn't required to make it painless to stick to your personal moral code, though sometimes it may be in society's benefit to do so with certain moral positions (yes, that was my whistleblower safe-harbor).
Maybe my objection is really that, just as I don't feel that one person's morality should be forced on another (by, say, criminalizing porn), I don’t feel that … well, the other's morality should be forced on the first person in the other direction, either. But I don't know how you square that with determining whether one receives social benefits to which one is otherwise entitled based on engaging in morally or ethically objectionable activities.
Then again, I am one of those libertarians who think prostitution should be legal and unemployment benefits shouldn't exist, hence alleviating the potential problem.
ed for crappy spelling
