Women frequently turn to prostitution, stripping et al because it's the only well paid work they can readily get.

If career success in other fields were easier to access for women, it would be easier to make other choices.

This has become a trope.

Women frequently turn to prostitution because it pays extremely well, too.

Unemployment is 3.7%. Anyone remotely employable can get a job today, but especially women.

Women made up ~47% of the workforce in 2017 and are on track to hold more jobs than men in a few years, even with a lower participation rate.

Female unemployment rate trended significantly lower than male unemployment rate during the last recession.

Women are the majority on college campuses, and earn a majority of bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.

Women are paid the same for the same work, when they choose to focus on their careers as much as men are expected to. And women hold special legal status to take leave to have children (there is no Federal paternity leave in the US, however some states offer it).

Career success has never been more achievable for women in particular. Inside and outside the specific field of prostitution.

>And women hold special legal status to take leave to have children (there is no Federal paternity leave in the US, however some states offer it).

Are you talking about the FMLA? It covers fathers and mothers. It's also unpaid and only lasts 12 weeks.

Wow, Wikipedia needs help on this one.

Ctrl-F 'paternity' and look at the table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

Yep, the table listed there is wrong. The text before the table also makes it sound like it's referencing paid parental leave, which is still wrong becauase the US doesn't require paid maternal leave either.

Streetwalkers do this because they are poor and lack the skill to do something else. Some people simply don't have the skill to do things.

I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting which dose not pay as much as under C-level manager or where the glass ceiling is.

I'm currently poor. I don't lack the skill to do something else. I've been offered money for sex. I've always turned it down.

Homeless men with no skills sometimes find day labor jobs. They are much less often offered money or a place to stay in exchange for sex.

I used Glass Ceiling as shorthand for removing barriers generally. Given the response here, I don't think it's worth the time and effort to try to "clarify." I don't think most people here actually want to understand the point. They are too busy shooting the idea down to wonder if there's any merit to the idea.

> Homeless men with no skills sometimes find day labor jobs. They are much less often offered money or a place to stay in exchange for sex.

This actually is not true. Some time ago I had opportune to speak with a homeless man about his situation, and his options. It turns out that he is offered money for sex quite often, perhaps daily. By his telling, he has never done it either.

The proposals are from gay men.

I was on the street with my two adult sons. They each got such an offer once from a much older man. I had a lot more such offers.

There may be the occasional statistical outlier. But, on average, you are going to see homeless women offered money for sex a great deal more often than homeless men.

If you want to rebut that, please cite sources, not anecdata. I've had a class on homelessness and public policy. I spent nearly six years homeless. I still blog about the topic. Your sample of one doesn't remotely convince me that my assertion is inaccurate.

I didn't say it never happens. I said it is much less common.

Their anecdata is "I know one guy..." My statement is that I have had a college class on the subject, I have years of personal firsthand experience as part of a mixed gender family and I still write about the topic, which means I still talk to homeless people and read up on the topic on a regular basis.

Your casual dismissal of my knowledge as mere anecdata on par with theirs isn't in the least bit "interesting".

> I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting

The glass ceiling is something of a poor metaphor, because what it really refers to is a series of progressively more burdensome barriers to advancement, not a single level beyond which no women progress and below which advancement is egalitarian.

And it becomes very palpable at very low levels in many industries.

The way I see it, the problem is that people think women need skills to qualify for jobs in the first place.

As a man, many of my first jobs I got simply because the boss thought I was a promising PFY and was convinced I'd learn everything I needed within the first few days. It's a double standard.