Tesco can be a dangerous place.....#losetheladsmags

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on Liberal Democrat Voice asking if it was time to lose the lads' mags in light of a new campaign set up by UK Feminista and Object. Even though my article was quite mild, and suggested no legislative change whatsoever, merely urging a think about the damage lads' mags and our hypersexualised culture does to women, it attracted some quite aggressive comments. Any time a woman speaks up about these things, there is a queue of mostly men waiting to shout her down and call her names, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. As you can imagine, I'm not one to be put off.

The Lose the Lads' Mags campaign aims to rid the magazine shelves of pictures of half naked women. If men want to read the stuff that's in them, then that's up to them, but do women really have to be subjected to images of scantily clad women on the front covers of these things? What does it tell kids about the world in which they are growing up? Today, they are taking the campaign a step further by asking Tesco to lose the lads' mags.

Simple trips to the supermarket can be quite damaging in that regard. Let's face it, you take your little girl to Tesco and the first thing she's likely to see is pouting, half naked women from the covers of the likes of Nuts and Zoo, not always from a high shelf either. Then you go to the toy bit and she finds herself being pigeonholed into pink and sparkly. Rather than just let kids choose for themselves what they want to play with, toys are segregated into frills and froth for girls and practical, interesting ones for boys. Some egregious examples, like the Early Learning Centre marketing doctors' outfits for boys and nurses' outfits for girls were withdrawn after pressure built on social media.

And if the message is damaging for girls, it's part of the mix that tells boys that the world is run by and for men, that women are second class citizens. When they then, and most of them do, access internet porn and see women being treated as mere receptacles rather than equal partners, they accept that and their expectations of how their own relationships will work are adjusted accordingly.

People have the right to buy whatever rubbish they like. I certainly do. The lure of a Nigel Slater recipe card or Les Miserables DVD have even on rare occasion persuaded me to buy the Dail Fail. What the Lose the Lads' Mags campaign is about is about the imagery that pervades the public space. Women in demeaning, half naked poses on the front pages of magazines where anyone can see them sends a message that women are second class citizens and that has to be wrong and contributes to a misogyny that is much more malevolent than anything I remember when I was growing up. Laura Bates of Everyday Sexism today writes at the Huffington Post about the sorts of things they hear from young girls. There are triggery elements for sexual assault in what follows:

One 13-year-old girl wrote to the Everyday Sexism Project in desperation, saying "I am so scared to have sex it makes me cry nearly every day... some of the boys at school keep sending us these videos of sex... and it looks so horrible and like it hurts... [it's] so scary and painful and the woman is crying and getting hurt." Without any other information to offset these messages, she believed that this was simply what sex was like.

Other young people spoke of boys in school discussions saying "rape is a compliment really" and "it's not rape if you enjoy it". One woman told me of her shock at seeing her 12-year old sister's social networking profiles, where boys in her year left messages saying "Give me a blow job you slag" and "you have no idea how hard I would fuck the living shit out of you". When she refused to send them explicit photographs of herself, they called her "a frigid little bitch". Boys, too, are in desperate need of clear support to overcome the misleading messages they may be receiving online at a young age about their role in sexual relationships and how they should treat partners.

Yes, you read that right. 12 year olds leaving sexually explicit, insulting and intimidating messages on girls' social media profiles.

Last year I wrote about how uncomfortable I felt when a man next to me on the plane was reading one of these lads' mags. Why, I said, do men think it's ok to get their nuts out in public?

If men (I could say people, but who are we trying to kid here?) want to look at this stuff, then there's very little I can do to stop them, but for heavens' sake, can they not do it in the privacy of their own homes? When men ostentatiously read stuff like this in public, it's like they're making a huge statement that they see women as simply being there as window dressing, as decoration, as pleasure enhancers rather than their equals. They clearly feel that they have a right to own all the public space. I felt it was so rude of him and it made me feel uncomfortable. Now, I don't have the right to be protected from being offended, and nor am I asking for it, but I think I have every right to express my displeasure at such insensitive and crude behaviour.

There is so much that needs to be done in terms of changing a culture that is deeply damaging towards women. A debate about the images we consider appropriate in the public space is only a small part of it. In the 70s, every workplace would have had a girly calendar and women just had to put up with it. Things have changed now, and such displays are no longer seen as acceptable. Lads' mags are a regressive step back and their publishers need to think about the images that they put on the covers. If retailers can put pressure of them in that regard, so much the better.

Taking those images out of the public space will give the vital work that comes through education, to promoting understanding, as Laura Bates says, of what a healthy relationship should be, more chance of success.  Is it really too much to ask that women are treated as equal citizens in the media? Caroline Lucas has a Westminster Hall debate on media sexism tomorrow and as I'm in London, I hope to be able to see it. I'll tell you all about it when I do.

If you want to tell Tesco to lose the lads' mags, then you can do so via Facebook, Twitter and Email here.

Kids can't escape sexism - not even in the classroom

Picture a school, somewhere in the UK. A classroom full of teenagers is asked by their teacher to discuss in groups what they thought the world would be like in 30 years' time.

An all female group were talking about things like terrorism, liberalism, tolerance, the poverty gap and international co-operation. 

The teacher came over to their table and asked them if they were talking about futuristic fashion.

This happened. It shouldn't have. Girls should not be pigeon-holed in this way. That teacher probably doesn't have the first clue that he was being sexist. He probably didn't mean to cause offence. People who interact with kids do have a special responsibility to engage their brains before they open their mouths, though.

The great value of the Everyday Sexism project is that it shows how commonplace these sorts of incidents are and raise awareness of what sexist behaviour is. Many women experience examples of sexist, demeaning behaviour on a daily basis. They are fundraising now to expand their operations. You might want to consider giving them a donation here. I have. A word of warning, though. The video is quite triggery for sexual assault.

Page 3 is the tip of a huge iceberg which threatens our society #nomorepage3

The No More Page 3 Campaign hurtles towards 50,000 signatures, and has attracted the backing of some more Liberal Democrat MPs, MSPs and councillors.

Julian Huppert, Tom Brake and Stephen Williams have signed up, along with Alison McInnes MSP, Sarah Ludford MEP and Ruth Dombey the Leader of Sutton Borough Council.

I asked Julian Huppert on Twitter why he supported the campaign and this was his reply:

I'm pleased to see this - but there are still a good 50 Lib Dem MPs who have yet to sign. If you know any of them, why not contact them and tell them about the campaign and invite them to sign.

Tim Farron has not signed the letter, but he did tell me on Twitter the other day that he was not a fan of Page 3:

There are a couple of things I'd like to make clear, though. I might support the campaign to end Page 3, but that it doesn't mean I have either a hang up about nudity or sex. What I do object to is the exclusivity of one particular group of people being set up to be leered at, especially when that one group of people does not have an equal share of power.

There have been a few intelligent articles against the Page 3 campaign written by people I respect. Martin Robbins suggests the page 3 campaign is sinister and  makes it more difficult for mothers to breastfeed in public. I beg to differ with that one. I think that the presence of Page 3 actually encourages the idea that breasts are only for sex. I was almost thrown out of a tea room for breastfeeding Anna when she was 4 months old. The manager failed to see the irony of providing the Sun to read for her customers.

Iain Roberts wrote on Liberal Democrat Voice recently that:

So what’s really the problem? I suspect the Page 3 debate may be asking the wrong question. It isn’t Page 3 (or indeed pornography in general) that’s intrinsically good or bad. The problems we see may be caused by a society that sends out all sorts of mixed messages about how men and women should be and behave.

It's all a bit which came first, the chicken or the egg. We have to look, I think, at who has the power in society and we find that, even in a developed industrialised, educated society, men have more than their fair share. Martin and Iain write from a position of privilege. I wonder how they would feel if the gender situation was reversed. If Page 3 showed pictures of men's backsides or worse every day, never any women at all. How would they feel if everywhere around them, there were women leering at these pictures of men saying "Ooh, I'd like a bit of that.". You'd also have to imagine that there were a majority of women in Parliament, as judges, that men were predominantly cast in caring roles and seen as responsible for domestic tasks. Add to this a situation where their female colleagues are paid around 15% more than. And then pile on top of that every magazine being filled with pictures of what men should look like, what weight they should be and how they have to stay looking nice for their wives or they'll be left for a younger, more compliant model. In short, a world made for women by women. 

That's a bit how it is for women. It's not a mindset, it's an actual cultural phenomenon that needs to change. Page 3 is a symptom of the patriarchal nonsense that rules our world, not its cause. Nobody's arguing about that. Getting rid of it would be a huge step forward. Things have changed in the last 40 years, but not enough.

The 70s were the age of Benny Hill, of scantily clad women on beer cans, of Carry On films, of Miss World, of leering men with medallions. I grew up in that environment, bombarded with all these images and it certainly left me with a sense of injustice that women were treated as playthings just because they had breasts. 

Things are a bit better now - sexual harassment, if not eliminated, is not tolerated and there are healthier expectations of appropriate behaviour at work. But there are vestiges of that very sinister culture which give out the same messages. Page 3 is one of them. Iain argues that there is no evidence linking Page 3 or porn to abuse. That's not what the Deputy Children's Commissioner told Parliament earlier this year. Young people are acting out what they see in pornography where often women are portrayed as mere receptacles, in subjugative roles. How much easier is that for young boys to think that sex is there to benefit them and them alone if they are brought up in an environment where women are depicted, in everyday publications, as sexual playthings? A whole generation of kids is growing up with some very harmful ideas about appropriate behaviour within a relationship and that way lies the potential for abuse to just get worse. Maybe the reason some sexual abuse doesn't get reported is because girls are growing up thinking that's the way things are. If that's the case, then that's a massive step backwards from the fair and liberal society we want to deliver. 

Not only do we have the Deputy Children's Commissioner's evidence to go on, but Laura Bates from the Everyday Sexism project wrote an extremely disturbing article about the way young women are treated at university freshers' events and beyond. Particularly gut wrenching is the practice of "slut dropping."

The process, they explained, involves driving around town with friends in the early hours of the morning and offering a lift home to a young woman they deem a “slut” (usually a woman in a “post-club state”). After asking her address, they drive as fast and as far as possible in the opposite direction before forcing the woman out of the car and using a camera to film her “standing by the side of the road as they drive away”.  It’s difficult to know how widely this has occurred but the concept is reminiscent of a disturbing new trend of ‘slut-shaming’. On one occasion, the first-year added, it had taken the girl eight hours to get home. When asked how he knew, he explained that they were ‘friends’ on Facebook.

So, a young woman making her way home is subjected to a terrifying ordeal and left in a vulnerable situation at the hands of someone she vaguely knows. Can you imagine how she must have felt, how she must have feared for what was going to happen to her? The idea of decrying a woman as a slut just for having been at a nightclub and deeming she must somehow be punished should be repugnant to all. I have no doubt that some people will have a go at me for not being able to take a joke but I'm sure most people will consider it distasteful at worst.

On Saturday night's X Factor, Tulisa described one of contestants as a MILF - a term commonly used in pornography. It means "Moms I Like to F***". When did that sort of language and idea become appropriate for a family show? And don't tell me that it was ok because it was after the watershed. It's a show watched by families and there were bound to be children around. The half hearted apology given by presenter Dermot O'Leary "that's why we love her" showed that ITV really didn't get it.

When you are getting the Police called to schools because of Facebook pages giving the names of the establishment's "sluts and players", you know it's high time for some serious action on the issue. Education is always the key and it appears to me that kids need to get a few strong messages about what is appropriate behaviour.

I wasn't best chuffed to see Nick Clegg's take on the Page 3 debate as reported in the Guardian. He seems to have misunderstood what the campaign is trying to do, which is to get the Sun to realise that it's inappropriate for modern society and withdraw the feature itself. Nick is right that banning Page 3 would be illiberal, but it's not what the campaign is about. He said himself that he wouldn't have it in his  house around his 3 young boys. I was going to write a piece specifically around Nick's comments, which gained him the Sun's accolade of "Hero of the Week", but my colleague Paul Walter has done so admirably so I don't need to.

It's very clear to me that there are very frightening and worrying things going on as regards the treatment and portrayal of women and girls. This is very unhealthy and needs liberal action, urgently. Page 3 is a small but significant part of what's wrong. If that tumbles, it would be a symbol of progress being made. I actually think that the pressures on young girls have got much worse since I was that age - and as I have a teenage daughter, that worries me greatly.

If you agree with me and haven't already signed the petition calling on the editor of the Sun to remove the Page 3 feature, you can do so here.