12/16/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I am excited that you are going to be designating Francis Perkins’ homestead a National Monument! If she were alive today, she could have been open about her sexuality & we would know what the nature of her relationships with her housemates might have been. What I love about her story is that she had so much influence even though she lived an alternative lifestyle. She must have been Mx Charismatic! Do you think she could have been POTUS in a different era?

            As you honor her service & her success in helping FDR implement the New Deal, please remark on her efforts to help newly immigrant girls to avoid prostitution. We don’t hear much about the ill effects of sex work these days, even though it continues to be the job of last resort for many women.

            SoW, I was troubled to read in the NYT today that Drs & nurses in Burma have become “date girls” in order to feed their families. I don’t have to tell you that is dangerous, degrading work. As a feminist I am conflicted about whether women should have the right to earn money in this way or if the cost is too high.

            In my uncle’s book about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, he mentions prostitutes as the only women in the Hell on Wheels towns that cropped up as the Union Pacific made its way West. Without law enforcement of any kind, these towns were wild. I can only imagine the risk for the women in the brothels.

            I encourage you to have a conversation with Acting Sec. Of Labor, Julie Su, & others in your cabinet about the UN’s recommendation “to recognize that the demand for prostitution must be targeted to curb trafficking & the exploitation of women and girls” & the “development of training programs for government bodies such as law enforcement to hold perpetrators, including traffickers, pimps, & buyers, accountable rather than criminalizing victims.”

            Please make some noise about it because we know the next POTUS won’t.

            BYBS,