Half of prostitutes were former servants already treated as objects

Evidence

It has been noted that, among other things, many “girls” were once servants; this is what Parent-Duchâtelet established for all countries, what Lily Braun noted in Germany and Ryckère in Belgium. About 50 percent of prostitutes were first servants. One look at “maids’ rooms” is enough to explain this fact. Exploited, enslaved, treated as an object rather than as a person, the maid or chambermaid cannot look forward to any improvement of her lot; sometimes she has to submit to the whims of the master of the house: from domestic slavery and sexual subordination to the master, she slides into a slavery that could not be more degrading and that she dreams will be better. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1648

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘On Sacrifice’ — the slide of the servant from domestic objectification to sexual commodification parallels how degraded labor conditions make bodily self-disposal seem the only lever.
• XREF: Connects to the maid figure in Jane Eyre — Bertha as servant-object — and to domestic-servant themes across the reader’s library. — connects to: Bribery framing absolved slaveowners while making female submission appear consensual — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 73; Prostitution rose because conscription uprooted families and abandoned women; Routine dehumanization protects prostitutes from encountering clients as free persons.

Broader Connections

• Routine dehumanization protects prostitutes from encountering clients as free persons. #corroborates (0.82)
• Bribery framing absolved slaveowners while making female submission appear consensual #expands (0.75) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 73
• Prostitution rose because conscription uprooted families and abandoned women #qualifies (0.72)