Guest Post | Breaking the Stigma: A PA Congressional Candidate’s Bid to Stand Up for Women’s Rights
Guest writer Amy Knecht is inspired by this woman's courage and progressive politics.
Calling Alexandra Hunt’s campaign to dislodge an entrenched, establishment incumbent in May’s Democratic primary quixotic isn’t a stretch.
Congressman Dwight Evans has represented Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District since 2016. Before that he was a state representative for 35 years. Never mind the 28-year-old Hunt’s unapologetic and transformative progressive platform that includes ending mass incarceration, making it easier to join unions, fighting for single-payer health care, pushing for a Green New Deal, and reining in U.S. imperialism abroad.
But then again, people called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first congressional run quixotic, that is until she defeated a 10-term incumbent.
One of the pillars of Hunt’s progressive campaign is decriminalizing sex work, an issue she takes to heart.
During college she was able to pay her tuition by exotic dancing. She admitted to being afraid that she might be stigmatized and feared getting kicked out of school if found out, so Hunt kept it secret. In an essay she wrote for the HuffPost, Hunt discussed how not being able to share her experience made the job all the more dangerous.
“If I had gone missing, like so many sex workers do, no one would have known how or where to find me … every person in this country should experience unconditional safety.” Despite holding on to her deep secret of working in exotic dance clubs and in sex work, Hunt graduated from the University of Richmond in 2014 with a bachelors degree and then moved to Philadelphia to attend Drexel and then Temple, receiving graduate degrees in 2016 and 2020. She’s now a public health researcher and social justice advocate. Yet while Hunt regards her former employment as beneficial in her bid for congress, she assures her readers that her story is not all that unique.
She also discussed in her article how the stigma of sex work uniquely affects women. Even though exotic dancing is legal employment, women in this industry are often shamed, slandered, or even cruelly persecuted. Take for example Melissa Petro, a New York City schoolteacher who was attacked by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Because Petro admitted publicly to her past involvement with sex work, Bloomberg and the press demonized the tenured art teacher and pinned the insult of "hooker teacher" to her name. In 2019 it was reported that 17 women had taken legal action against Bloomberg, and his company Bloomberg LP over the span of three decades. Yet Bloomberg’s vicious character assasination isn’t an uncommon thing among powerful men. There’s the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations, or former President Trump, who infamously coined the term, “grab her by the pussy.”
So how does this affect women in this industry? For one, it makes for a dangerous environment regardless of occupation. Secondly, it promotes a society in which women’s rights to bodily and sexual autonomy are stripped of them. Women are often exploited, trafficked, and abused as a result, with little support or protection.
Most recently Bucks County has been the center of a major crackdown in massage parlors that offer sexual services. The idea is to stop human trafficking, which is a very real problem nationwide and yes, here in the county as well, yet there have been skeptics to how Bucks County intends to proceed. In February, the Bucks County Beacon ran an article discussing this very issue. Kate D’Adamo, a national consultant on sex worker issues and sex trafficking was cited as stating that the new rules introduced by the Bucks County Board of Commissioners lacked such things as “rights for workers, outreach to vulnerable communities, investments in community based and worker led organizations who are able to offer services,” along with safe spaces to which women in sex work can find safety and support. D’Adamo, who runs her own company, Reframe Health and Justice Consulting, says that ordinances that don’t include resources for those involved in sex work aren’t really about helping women, rather, it is a means to “harass businesses and vulnerable populations.”
Hunt was also fired from a girls soccer coach position, a sport that she had played passionately since childhood. While admitting the discrimination was hurtful she expressed what “hurt the most” was losing her players. Hunt’s quest to change the narrative attests to the larger problem of American misogyny and sexism within the structure of societal norms. As she points out in her HuffPost essay, “Society sets up women with less capital than men, less power than men [who] objectify our bodies. Sex work turns that power model on its head and allows women to own our sexuality, own our bodies and use that to bring both money and power to level the playing field.”
Hunt simply believes the rights of sex workers need to be fought for and should be addressed by progressive platforms. She’s not wrong.
Women in this country have long been subjected to a patriarchal framework; a system of social structures and practices that are male dominated including social, political, secular and religious institutions. For women, that has meant their contributions, their efforts, and even their names have been largely left out of the annals of American history with women often subjected to a perverse double standard of living. These double standards exist everywhere and none so much as in the sex industry, which is largely designed for men, by men; women are merely objects to monetize and exploit. And while boys and men are also affected by harmful stigmas surrounding the sex industry, women by far, are penalized and suffer more.
As Women’s History month draws to a close, it’s important to remember that women like Alexandra Hunt are trail blazers amid a resurgent reactionary American tendency to roll back progressive gains for women, which includes bodily autonomy and reproductive justice.
Let’s support her.
To find out more about Alexandra Hunt and her campaign visit: https://linktr.ee/alexandrahuntforcongress