THE ECONOMIC POWER OF SHAME

My grandmother was raped in 1940 and became pregnant.  In 1940, it was a HORRIBLE SHAME if you became pregnant out of wedlock.  My grandmother was born in 1909, so she was actually 31 at the time.  Back then, if you were born out of wedlock they used to stamp the word "bastard" on your birth certificates.  

She told me the shame she was dealing with because of being pregnant and unmarried are why she decided to basically run away from home.  She was in MO at the time, but the story goes she hitchhiked to San Diego to enter into a "single mothers' home" there. There used to be a chain of these homes all over the world for these "unwed mothers" as they were also called.  You'd stay there until you had the baby and then they'd adopt the baby out for you.  Of course getting a nice hefty adoption fee in the process.  But to "give these women a fresh start" they felt it was worth the price of caring for these women for nine months.  

Somewhere along the line, my grandmother decided she didn't want to adopt the baby nor did she want to stay in this unwed mothers' home either.  As she was in hospice, she finally told me the legacy of how she left this home and tried to go support herself.  She didn't want to go back home to a family and friends who not only didn't believe her when she said she was raped, but also didn't want to deal with the "shame" of everything, baby included.  

Only she couldn't find a place to live.  No one would rent anything to her in 1940 because she was a "fallen woman" being unmarried now with a baby in tow.   She said they treated her as if she was going to open a brothel on their property because only "prostitutes" or "fallen women" with loose morals would be existing in this world without a wedding band on their ring finger.  Nor could she find a job either.  No one wanted to have a "scarlet woman" in their establishment "giving them a bad name".  

She told me how she found herself literally with nowhere to live or work and on the streets.  Calling home and talking to her sister, her sister came out to "rescue" her.  With her sister not being a single unwed mother of a "bastard" baby, she was able to get a place for them to live and watch the baby so my grandmother could get a job.  Only she STILL couldn't find work.  

The story goes her rapist was also a stalker and had joined the navy so he could follow her to San Diego.  She knew where he was stationed, so she says she marched up to his ship and demanded to speak to his supervisor.  She told him she needed to be marriaged so she could deal with this stigma.  They gave him a few days off for the wedding and honeymoon, and made a deal to have a marriage in name only.  My mother was conceived to consummate their marriage and make it "legal".  

He would send her half of his check for a time to support the children.  She saved up the money and used it to buy herself a bar because no one would still hire her as a married mother either.  You see now a wife with two children was not supposed to work at all.  That's why she bought herself a bar - so she could be financially independent. 

I grew up with a lot of protesting and opposition towards this shame.  As a result of TV shows about single women working like Mary Tyler Moore for example, or One Day at a Time, the idea of a single unwed mother became commonplace.  I watched as the "unwed mother's homes" basically shut down in direct proportion to the rise of birth control and Roe v. Wade.  By the time girls in my high school in the 1970's were getting on birth control pills and having legal abortions available to them, I didn't even hear talk of these "unwed mother homes" any longer.  

Where did this shame come from?  Who was profiting the most off of this shame?  The Catholic Church and the government.  By forbidding birth control, there's babies.  Without birth control or legal abortions, you got babies born to moms who don't want them or can't support them.  With shame making it so you couldn't get work or rent a place to live, you are more open to the idea of adopting out your child.  These homes made money off those adoptions.   

So from the way I saw it, the people who made the most money off shame were also the ones creating that shame.

I look at what is considered "shame" today and who is profiting economically off that today and I see the same relationships between who is creating it and who is profiting economically off that shame.  Take for example the whole diet industry and the BILLIONS they rake in - so are you going to tell me they don't have an economic motive to spread "fat shame"?  When you combine in with the diet industry the plastic surgery industry, even psychiatry, and all the interconnected related industries that are making their money off the idea there's something "wrong" with you or "shameful" if you're over weight - there is a clear economic force driving that shame that profits off it.  

I ask you, would the Kim K. XXX tape be as profitable as it was if she'd simply made the tape and there wasn't all the press about how it was "leaked against her will?"  Didn't "shame" make that a more profitable film also?  Not that it was just adult, but it was done and published against her will - supposedly.  

Recently I heard the "leaked" tapes of Mimi with this same company was the most profitable film in their library, even more than the Kim K., tape.  It also comes out later she had lied about the tape being leaked against her will.  But it worked.  It caused more people to watch it than would have otherwise because she was crying all over social media about how "shamed" she was by this tape.

I think a lot of people know the economic power of shame and use it as a means of control and to make money.  

What else do you think is "shameful" today and used to make money by the very people creating that shame do you think?