Demand a National 24 Hour Rape and Sexual Assault Helpline - SIGN THE PETITION!

As part of At the Root’s first campaign (which will be launched soon), I have set up a petition to the Prime Minister, asking that the Government provide the funding and expertise for a much-needed 24 Hour National Helpline for Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault. The petition reads:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Provide the funding to set up a National 24 Hour Helpline for Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault.

Far too many people in the UK do not have access to a Rape Crisis centre or a Sexual Assault Referral Centre. The facilities that do exist for victims of rape and sexual assault are seriously stretched, as they struggle with not enough funding and not enough staff.

In those areas where victims do have access to a Rape Crisis Centre or SARC, people often have difficulty getting through on the telephone, and once through, cannot always talk for as long as is needed due to other pressures on the over-worked staff.

It is time that the funding and expertise were put in place to set up a National 24 Hour Helpline for victims of rape and sexual assault. It is very much needed, in this country where rape and sexual assault are prevelant, yet the conviction rate for these crimes is at an all time low.

The government must take this issue seriously, and setting up a national 24 hour helpline would be a vital step in helping the thousands of victims who have no access to a Rape Crisis Centre or SARC.”

Please follow this link to sign the petition, and try to get as many other people as you can to do so too. To get a response from the PM we need at least 200 signatures, so if you feel as strongly about this issue as I do, please spread the word.

Thanks

Debs xx

Sign the petition and lobby your MP - get lapdancing establishments reclassified!

(Cross-posted at The Burning Times)

I have just received this from Object - 2 things we can all do to help their campaign to get lapdancing establishments reclassified.

Get more information about Object and their activities/how you can get involved here.

“Want to see the end of lap dancing clubs licensed as coffee shops? Take 2 minutes to do 2 things :

1. Petition the Prime MinisterPetition the PM onlineWe need 200 signatures to ‘receive a response’ from the PMWe have gathered over 50 already , one week into the petition’s launch@ http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lapdancing

2. Lobby Your MPFind your MP’s name and email her/him directly @ http://www.theyworkforyou.com (nearly 50 MPs have already signed the EDM below, within 2 weeks of our campaign launch) Copy and paste the model letter below :

I am writing to you as my MP to ask you to sign EDM 1375 and support Roberta Blackman-Wood¹s Ten Minute Rule Bill calling for lap dancing clubs to be licensed as Sex Encounter Establishments.

A Sex Encounter Establishment is a venue which Œprovides performances for the purpose of sexual stimulation (without physical contact)¹ - this may include toplessness or nudity. It includes premises such as peep shows. A lap dancing club thus surely is a Sex Encounter Establishment.

However under the 2003 Licensing Act, lap dancing clubs are licensed like cafes ­ under a simple Premises License. This means local authorities can only limit location or numbers of clubs or control them in the same way they could a café. It means local people have very limited say in where clubs set up (eg in residential areas, near schools or women¹s shelters) and how they operate. It means the social effects of lap dancing ­ clearly more akin to a peep show or sex shop than a café ­ simply cannot be taken into consideration.

Yet only a simple amendment to the 2003 Licensing Act is required to allow lap dancing to be licensed, regulated and recognised for what it is. A single clause in the Act - which prevents lap dancing clubs from being licensed as Sex Encounter Establishments if they first obtain a Premises License (to provide music and sell alcohol) ­ needs to be removed.

It should be noted that this route to improve the licensing of lap dancing uses existing, proven legislation rather than requiring drafting of new legislation.

It should also be noted that recognising lap dancing clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments has no bearing on theatre with a clear narrative and genuine artistic aspiration which involves some nudity or titillation. This is already established by the fact that such theatre has long been differentiated from venues, such as peep shows, which clearly require a Sex Encounter Establishment License.

Re-categorising lap dancing is urgently needed given that research suggests that many lap dancing venues may go beyond even the definition of a Sex Encounter Establishment ­ with touching, intimate touching and other forms of sexual services, particularly in private rooms and booths. It is urgently needed given that venues can drastically change the character of an area and may even be linked to the creation of Œno go¹ zones for women. It is urgently needed given that their normalising is part of a wider culture of sexual objectification inextricably linked to the high levels of discrimination and abuse currently experienced by women.

The call to re-categorise lap dancing is spear-headed by the human rights group, OBJECT (www.object.org.uk), and involves a broad coalition of MPs, Peers, local authorities, academics, individuals and organisations.

Thank you for your time and I do look forward to hearing from you.”

You have 2 minutes….go!

How Male Violence Against Women and Children Continues to be Defined as ‘Isolated Incidents’ - whereas Female Violence is Interpreted as Deviancy, by Jennifer Drew

Male violence against women and children continues unabated as we know, but increasingly this being portrayed within the media and society as either ‘isolated incidents.’ Whereas female violence is reported in a sensationalised manner with women’s and girls’ behaviour being increasingly minutely scrutinised, judged to be deviant with claims that women and girls are becoming more ‘masculinised.’

The Scotsman reported two separate murder cases both of which involve two different sets of children having been violently murdered. These cases have been designated as ‘family tragedies’ rather than deliberate acts of murder committed by someone. In both cases, the mothers were estranged from the fathers. In one of the cases, police were reported as not looking for anyone else in connection with this murder, which leads me to believe the murders were committed by someone known to the two boys. As yet, no one has been charged with the murder of these young people but given the fact it is undisputed that when a woman separates from her male partner, especially if he has a history of committing sexual/and or physical violence against her and she has children, this is the most dangerous time for her and her children. Why? Because some men believe they own their female partner and her children and if they can’t ‘have her and the children’ they will either murder the woman or her children. If a father murders the woman’s children it is not a crime of passion but rather one of cold blooded punishment, because the man believes by murdering the woman’s children he is not only punishing her for daring to leave him but also place accountability with her. Such a murderous act in his mind not only excuses his accountability but her actions drove him to commit murder so she is therefore guilty of murder not him.

Yet, we continue to have such cases reported as ‘family tragedies’ thereby implying everyone including the male murderers has suffered a tragedy. Of course the victims had no say in what happened to them, their lives were extinguished because a man decides he has the right to murder them in order to punish the woman.

On the same day, there was a report in the BBC news website on targeting internal trafficking. In fact this report was about the increasing trafficking of teenage girls living in the UK for the purpose of men’s sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. But no, we can’t have the real definition can we? So, instead we have ‘internal trafficking in humans.’ A film is currently being made about the systematic targeting of teenage girls living in the UK who are being targeted, groomed and then blackmailed, coerced or threatened into entering prostitution. I have a big problem with one sentence contained in this report and that is the claim ‘British schoolgirls some as young as 12 – are seduced (seduced?) by older teenage boys who then pass them on into prostitution. The boys are not ‘seducing’ these girls rather they are engaged in systematic grooming and abuse for the sole purpose of forcing these young girls into prostitution. Seduction is a convenient way of hiding the realities of male sexual violence against women and girls. A spokesperson for Operation Pentameter 1 claims this widespread male sexual exploitation of young girls first became known to them two years ago. In fact The Coalition For The Removal Of Pimping have been lobbying authorities for some years now about the ever increasing male targeting of young girls for male sexual exploitation – but until recently it has been ignored or else treated as ‘isolated incidents.’ Ah, that phrase again ‘isolated incidents.’ More background information concerning the male sexual exploitation of young girls is available from Crop’s website and contrary to claims it is predominantly young girls not boys who are being targeted. Of course, we need not ask ourselves the question why so many men think it is their right to have sexual access to young girls or why so many men think it is their right to buy young girls’ bodies in order to rape and sexually abuse them. Profit is one motive for the pimps and male traffickers but another of course is men’s increasing demand for ever younger and younger females.

But when it is supposedly the case young women are apparently becoming increasingly more violent, then women’s behaviour and actions are minutely examined and scrutinised for signs of deviancy. On the same day, the BBC magazine has an article entitled ‘Why are Girls Fighting Like Boys?’ According to this article girls are becoming increasingly violent and committing physical violence against other women and girls. Oh horror!! Women and girls are becoming like men and boys!! Whatever next – are these women and girls morphing into men and boys I ask myself? Of course not, the reasons are more complex than this article simplistically claims. Statistics have been used to reinforce myth that women and girls are becoming equally violent as men and boys but in reality this is not true. Truth is some women and girls have always committed acts of physical violence but it has always been perceived as female deviancy and far worse than male sexual and physical violence. Reality is most women and girls are not violent – most violent crimes continue to be committed by men and boys – not women and girls. One of the reasons is not because women and girls are innately less aggressive than men and boys – it is because society punishes women and girls more severely than men and boys, so women and girls’ behaviour is more tightly controlled and suppressed than men and boys. Male sexual and physical violence continues to be excused and justified as ‘boys being boys.’ A clever way of excusing how men and boys are socialised into accepting male violence as supposedly innate and natural. But back to violent girls – this is a myth which originates in the US and now it has made its way over here to the UK. Of course feminism must be to blame because feminism has encouraged women and girls to consider themselves equal to men and boys with the result that violent acts are now considered an appropriate way of obtaining power over a lesser group or individual.

As one of the experts quoted in this report states ‘female displays of aggression have a function within a group.’ In other words they are not mindless acts of female violence committed against another female. It is more complex than that. Another expert, Elle Godsi is quoted as saying ‘But you only have to look at how Myra Hindley was treated as an icon. A lot more men are far more violent than her and given far lighter sentences. Generally we perceive women who don’t fit into traditional (feminine – my word) roles in extreme terms.’ In other words women who don’t adopt or adhere to narrow male-centered ideas of appropriate feminine behaviour are labelled sexualised deviants or monsters. Sounds familiar? Female violence does exist but its reasons are complex and one of them is how young women in particular attempt to challenge male domination and control. Our society is still a male-dominated one and female gangs are often formed as a way for girls to protect themselves from male violence and also affirm female allegiance, female friendship and attempt to gain a smidgen of power which is still denied to many women and girls.

Meda Chesney-Lind and Katherine Irwin have just published a book entitled ‘Beyond Bad Girls’ and this book debunks the myth of ‘mean girls or bad girls’ and how it has been reduced to sensationalised media reporting. Meda Chesney-Lind is internationally recognised as an expert on girls’ and women’s crimes and Katherine Irwin is also a well-respected expert on female crime and female criminal behaviour. It is written in non-academic obtuse language and instead clearly proves how women and girls are from equal to men and boys in today’s western society. It also shows how women and girls are still systematically treated and punished as ‘sexualised deviants’ compared to men and boys’ violent behaviours. For once this book is not expensive by academic standards since it is only £13.99.

But of course linking all these three stories or narratives is the central one wherein male sexual/physical violence against women and girls is part of what is supposedly normal and innate masculine behaviour. Women and girls, are however, held to a far higher and different standard wherein any deviation from their supposed ‘feminine role’ is reported as innate deviancy and madness. Male violence continues to be reported as unfortunate and tragic isolated incidents, whereas female violence is reported as something which is innately wrong with women’s and girls’ behaviour and as such it needs to be punished more severely. I believe the selective misrepresentation of both male and female acts of violence is used to maintain the patriarchal order wherein women and girls who dare to rebel against male control continue to be punished more severely and labelled sexual deviants. This is why we need to critically analyse how reports of both male and physical violence are re-interpreted by the media and how they serve to justify widespread beliefs that men and women are innately different.

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Two-families-two-tragedies-and.4049830.jp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7383484.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7380400.stm
http://wwwcrop1.org.uk/
Beyond Bad Girls by Meda Chesney-Lind and Katherine Irwin, ISBN 0415948282 publisher Routledge

 

 

“Nothing is going to deter me from masturbation, and prostitution is an extention of that.”

*Trigger Warning*

(Cross-posted at The Burning Times)

Thanks to Jennifer Drew for emailing me information about a report published recently by Scotland’s Women’s Support Project. It is entitled Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland, and is “A research report based on interviews with 110 men who bought women in prostitution,” by Jan MacLeod, Melissa Farley, Lynn Anderson and Jacqueline Golding. 

Reading the report, and especially the quotes from some of the men (a particularly telling example of which I have used as the title for this post), I was reminded very much of another post I wrote some time ago, after I had had the misfortune to stumble upon a site called Punternet, where men who bought women for sex across the UK gave reviews of those women, as though they were talking about a used car or a microwave oven. I mention this not least to show that the types of attitudes expressed by the men questioned for this report are not peculiar to Scotland. Also, the “masturbation” quote I have used as a title is extremely resonant with a comment made by Kiuku in this comment thread, saying, “It is rape because it is basically men masturbating into your body,” except the quote in this study is from a man, a punter himself, unwittingly admitting to the rape of prostituted women.

Here is the quote, along with some others from the report:

“Nothing is going to deter me from masturbation and prostitution is an extension of that.”

“If a guy wants his hole, go and get it done with, get it out your system.”

“They know what they’re there for. You get what you pay for without the ‘no.’”

“It depends on if the woman has track marks on her vagina. That’s a real turn off.”

“I was with a group of pals. We’d been talking about it for years, I think all blokes do. 8 of us specifically went to get the puff and prostitutes… It was a rite of passage. We went to prostitutes three times a day. We were like pigs in shit…”

Another punter was a frequent prostitution tourist in Asia. He detailed the harsh conditions women were subject to in Thai and Cambodian prostitution. Exposing his narcissism and his sadism, he rationalised the commission of sexual violence against women and children.
“I don’t get pleasure from other people’s suffering. I struggle with it but I can’t deny my own pleasures. In Cambodia I knocked back a lot of children; it makes it hard to sleep at night. But I don’t see the point in making a moral stance.”

“I think it would help a couple if they weren’t happy and the husband was going with a prostitute now and then – may help cement the relationship. If the wife doesn’t know, it might make him happy.”

Just in case anyone was under the illusion that men who use prostituted women see them as human beings, or something. These quotes are followed in the report by a woman speaking from the other side of the ‘transaction’.

“Every day I was witness to the worst of men. Their carelessness and grand entitlement. The way they can so profoundly disconnect from what it is they’re having sex with, the way they think they own the world, watch them purchase a female. I was witness to their deep delusions. Spoiled babies all of them, and so many of them called [telephoned] prostitutes. I thought,maybe all men called prostitutes. It was a terrible thought, but really, what did I care. There was a system in place that was older and stronger than I could begin to imagine. Who was I? I was just a girl. What was I going to do about it? If I had any power I would make it so that nobody was ever bought or sold or rented,” Michelle Tea, 2004

These men’s contempt for the women they are paying for (and by extention, all women) could not be clearer. They are deluded, self-important pricks. They are also rapists, but, hey, let’s not be too inflammatory here. No, let’s. They are rapists, and “masturbation man”, who just came right out and said if he’s fed up of masturbating on his own, he’ll go out and buy a woman to masturbate into, admits it, whether he knows it or not.

I’m going to spin wildly off-topic for a moment, and bring Johnny Vegas into the discussion. Except it’s not off-topic at all - it’s pretty much the same thing, and exactly the same attitude towards women. Unless you live in a cave half-way up a mountain, you will be aware that lovable, fat oaf Johnny has distinguished himself this week by sexually assaulting a woman live on stage as part of his side-splitting act.* Apparently, this is okay, because Johnny is “funny” and some sycophants in the audience laughed whilst he did it. According to eye-witness accounts, he actually fingered the woman through her clothes, which, as Cruella rightly points out, means penetration, which means rape. So, well-known comedian rapes woman live on stage, with, presumably, several hundred eye-witnesses, but it’s okay because…why? He’s funny? He’s ‘just a normal bloke’? He lost control for a minute? What? Rape is a criminal offence (as is the “lesser” offence of sexual assault, which definitely took place), so, why has Johnny not been charged? Why is he not being questioned by the police? Why are most people acting like this is perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour? Because, we live in a rapist society, that’s why. Because the majority of men hold attitudes towards women reflected by the johns who took part in this research, and would cheer Johnny on from the audience, and laugh and think it was a really good night out. And just as Johnny walks free, and receives pats on the back from other men, so do the men who use prostituted women walk free, and are congratulated by their friends for proving what great men they are.

So, again this proves these types of attitudes are not specific to the particular men who took part in this study. It is prevelant, it is the norm - if you are a man and you don’t hold those attitudes, you are in the minority.

Here are more excepts from the report, showing horrible, though unsurprising, attitudes towards prostitution, and the women who are prostituted.

More sex partners = more likelihood to use prosituted women.

“Based on our and others’ findings it is noteworthy that men’s decision to buy women for sex is not because of their lack of a sex partner. In fact, in one study the opposite was the case.Johnson,Wadsworth,Wellings et al. (1994) reported that the more sex partners a man has ever had, the more likely he is to have paid for sex. Ward, Mercer,Wellings and colleagues (2005) in UK found that men who paid for sex were significantly likely to report 10 or more sex partners in the past 5 years. Only a minority of these men’s lifetime sex partners (19%) were women in prostitution.”

Peer pressure to use prostituted women.

Interviewees spoke about intense pressure from other men to use prostitutes. “There was pressure to go along with the guys. It was a common experience for young guys, for their 16th or 18th birthday.” One of our interviewees said that he visited the Amsterdam legal prostitution zone with his friends as a “rite of passage”. One of this young man’s friends chose not to buy sex and as a result was harassed and teased by the rest of the group. “There was an atmosphere of all the lads egging each other on,” another man told us. “One in particular was a virgin and seemed like he didn’t want to do it but all the guys pushed him into it and he did it.” Another man described how a group of his friends took him on a London pub-crawl to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. When they arrived at a club that functioned as a brothel, his friends”shoved” him in the door where he discovered that they had paid in advance for him to use a prostitute. Unable to publicly – or privately – refuse prostitution, he proceeded to sexually exploit the young woman via prostitution, but told the interviewer “I’ve always wished I hadn’t and just pretended to my friends that I’d done it.”

Use of prostituted women as “a necessary part of working life.”

20% of the men we interviewed had been in the Armed Forces and half of those bought a woman in prostitution during their time in military service. Respondents told us that their superior officers were aware of the use of prostitutes by men under their command. In some instances, prostituted women were bought and offered to soldiers as a reward by commanding officers. “The girl was a present from the Sergeant, a thank you: ‘I’ve brought you some girls.’ In Belfast it was organised through the Sergeant. We’d ask him and he would set it up. It was nothing, a necessary part of working life. In Edinburgh – I’ve seen squaddies sneaking prostitutes out in the morning.”

Shameful faith in Rape Myths.

Rape myths are a part of culturally supported attitudes that normalise rape (Lonsway andFitzgerald, 1994). Rape myths include “women say no but they mean yes,” and “rape accusations are women’s way of getting even with men.” Rape myths have been theoretically and empirically linked to other attitudes regarding sex roles and also to coercive interpersonal behaviour (Burt, 1980; Field, 1978; Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, & Tanaka, 1991). One-fourth to one-third of the men we interviewed endorsed rape-tolerant attitudes. A third of the punters stated that rape happens because men get sexually carried away (32%) or their sex drive gets “out of control” (34%). 12% told us that the rape of a prostitute or call girl was not possible. 10% asserted that the concept of rape simply does not apply to women in prostitution. 22% of our interviewees explained that once he pays for it, the customer is entitled to do whatever he wants to the woman he buys. These attitudes are what make prostitution so dangerous for the women. One of the men we interviewed stated, “They’ll basically do anything for money.” The belief that the money they paid cancelled out the harm or exonerated the punter was a recurring theme in our interviews.

Use of prostituted women = greater sexual aggression against non-prostituted women.

54% of the men who frequently used women in prostitution had committed sexually aggressive acts against non-prostitute partners compared to 30% of the less frequent users. The more frequently a punter used women in prostitution, the more likely he was to have committed sexually coercive acts against non-prostituting women (chi-square 1, 109) = 4.701, p= .030). 10% of the men we interviewed stated that they would rape a woman if they could be assured that they would not be caught. Acknowledging their sexually coercive behaviours with non prostitutewomen, 12% told us that they had had sex with a woman partner after they had continually verbally pressured her into sex. 43% had pressured women into having sex by lying to them.

‘Prostitutes enjoy it.’

Based on interviews with New Zealand men who buy women in prostitution, Plumridge (1997), like Jeffreys in Australia (1997), understood that men manufacture the idea of what a prostitute thinks and feels, ascribing reactions and desires to her in a way that is sexually arousing to the punter, but which may have little basis in reality. In fact, Plumridge’s interviewees were observed to “cheerfully reject information that contradicted” their idea of what prostitution was like for the prostitute (Plumridge, 1997).

“Prostitution is there to sate men’s lust.”

Approximately a third of the punters justified prostitution simply as a way for men to satisfy their sexual desires. This is the most commonly offered justification for prostitution. For them, prostitution is a place where men have “freedom to do anything they want in a consequence-free environment.” The men we interviewed did not question the notion that men have the absolute right to have their sexual needs met whenever and wherever they want. For example, “Prostitution is there to sate men’s lust.”Men’s sex drive itself was considered inevitable and undeterrable by the punters we interviewed. “We would need to become like sea horses, hermaphrodites, become one sex, that’s the only way to stop prostitution.” Many of our interviewees considered men’s demand for prostitution as inevitable and unchangeable and as having a rightful place in society.“T “There will always be supply and demand. If everyone was rich how would you get a cleaner for the hotel toilet?” “There’s a market. Women will always be drawn into prostitution if there’s a demand.” “It’s human nature.” “It’s part of society.”

Women “choose” prostitution.

Almost all (96%) of the punters interviewed in this research stated that to a significant extent (50% or more of the time) prostitution was a consenting act between two adults. 93% agreed with the rationalisation for prostitution that women have the “right” to sell sex, transforming the intrinsically harmful institution of prostitution into a positive human right for prostitutes. In real life however, prostituting women are clear that they prefer the “right” to escape prostitution (Farley et al., 2003).

The experience of having to acquiesce to unwanted sex in order to survive economically results in psychological damage. This fact has been established via many studies that document depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, and bipolar disorder in women in prostitution. (McKeganey, 2006, Routes Out of Prostitution InterventionTeam, 2004, Farley et al., 2003) Articulating the appearance of choice but with underlying coercion, women have described prostitution as “paid rape” and “volunteer slavery.” These conditions exist in prostitution regardless of its legal status or its location on the street, in a massage brothel, in a lap dance club, a flat, or in a business class hotel. In order to endure the unwanted sex, women dissociate either by emotionally distancing themselves from the reality of prostitution or by use of drugs and alcohol.

Without prostitution “innocent” women would be raped.

Several of the punters explained that if men’s sexual needs were not met then rape was inevitable. They reasoned that if prostitution did not exist then some men would rape women who were not prostitutes. While none admitted that they themselves would rape, they were adamant that other men were incapable of controlling their impulse to sexual predation. A significant number of the punters subscribed to the catharsis theory of rape and prostitution. This theory posits an inverse relationship between prostitution and rape. 41% of our interviewees believed that the availability of prostitutes makes the rape of other women less likely.

‘It’s just a job, like any other.’

The notion that men are not responsible for violence, rape, or sexual exploitation if their sexual expectations are unmet has been promoted with respect to rape and incest, as well as prostitution. Some social scientists define the purchase of women in prostitution as normal, maintaining that men’s prostitution behaviour is simply part of human nature. This definition of normalcy is then reflected in public policy that defines prostitution as a form of labour (sexwork) where prostitution is considered an unpleasant job but not different from other kinds of unpleasant jobs, like factory work. From this perspective prostituted women are viewed as”simply another category of workers with special problems and needs” (Bullough & Bullough,1996). The notion that prostitution is work tends to make its harm invisible.

Prostitution is rape.

“People who might be tempted to commit a sexual crime could get rid of their frustration if they can go with a prostitute.” Another man said “Prostitution keeps a lot of people off the street who might otherwise attack women, such as shy people with no confidence.” Chillingly, one man stated, “Men decide to use a prostitute as a surrogate instead of getting sex through subterfuge or force.”A slightly veiled version of this theory was also expressed: “There will never be an end to prostitution; if men are looking for sex then someone is going to provide it.”

“Some guys watch a lot of pornography and expect their partners to perform certain acts.”

Other researchers have found that men search for sex acts that they can’t obtain from their regular partners (McKeganey, 1994; Plumridge et al, 1997). Pointing out the role of pornography in guiding his sexual preferences, one punter clarified the relation between pornography and prostitution. “Some guys watch a lot of pornography and expect their partners to perform certain acts. They’ll either pressure their partner to a certain point or then go and get what they want.”

“It’s the oldest profession.”

The men struggled with an open-ended question about what it would take to end prostitution. Many were stumped, declaring that prostitution would never end, even that it would take”Armageddon” to end prostitution. Like a mantra, they repeated, “It’s the oldest profession,” suggesting that the historical existence of a phenomenon justified its continuation. Yet these men would not be likely to justify murder simply because murder has been around for a long time. Unable to think beyond the conceptual limits of their entitlement to sex, other punters told us that in order to stop the institution of prostitution, all women would have to function as prostitutes. “Women would have to be available for sex at any opportunity, whenever men wanted it.” “You’d have to invent women sex robots.”

In conclusion.

Once viewed as a form of violence against women stemming from sex inequality, prostitution is best understood as a transaction in which there are two roles: exploiter/predator and victim/prey. Since there is a vast power differential between the punter and the woman he buys in terms of her poverty, social status, abuse history, and often immigration status, the women (or men) who are purchased in prostitution would not be categorised as criminals because they are victims.

Like porn, prostitution bolsters men whilst destroying women. Prostitution is rape; it is the rape of women who are being paid to provide an apparently essential service, if these johns are to be believed. These same johns would have us believe that the existence of prostitution reduces the incidence of rape. However, this study shows that the greater the frequency with which men use prostituted women, the more likely they are to be sexually aggressive with other women. So, to put it bluntly, prostitution is paid rape of women, which causes unpaid rape of women. Rape is a criminal offence, therefore we should be prosecuting the men use pay women for sex. That is the only way to dispell the myth that prostitution is in any way normal, or necessary to human nature. That is the only way that use of prostituted women can become something a man should be ashamed of, rather that some kind of rite of passage or achievement. That is the only way to show respect for, and belief in, the women who are prostituted; to acknowledge their abuse, and to prevent it, and to provide effective exit strategies so that they can survive without having to accept money from rapists.

The full report, and other links relating to it, can be seen here.

(*”Allegedly”)

What Radical Feminism Means to Me, by Rebecca Mott

This is my personal response to the post by Womenspace.

I find belonging to any group very difficult. I always think I may be found out as a fraud, or may let the side down.

I have felt an outsider for the majority of my life, so belonging is quite terrifying for me.

I have found I may have a place with radical feminists, even though I still feel I can’t quite belong.

What has amazed me is though I may not understand or want everything that I thought made a radical feminist, I am still welcomed with open hearts.

I have rarely sat and formally done consciousness-raising. But through meeting many women I have learnt to listen and hear their realities.

I listened and heard when I volunteered at a refuge. As I heard their voices, I grew to see how predictable male violence was. How men used the same words to oppress women and girls. How the men always used the tactics of putting the blame on women and girls. How violent men never take any responsibility for the damage they put into the world.

All the women’s realities merged into one.
Slowly I saw my reality reflected in theirs.

I had always felt alone with the male violence I had lived with. I assumed there was little or nothing I could do about changing my life.

After all, I had learnt the lesson that I deserved all the violence that was done to me.
I was living in a surreal world, where I was working in the refuge, whilst living inside extreme male violence.

Something had to break.

I was continuing to do violent prostitution, but it was becoming harder and harder to be detached from my reality.

As I saw the men take no responsibility for their acts of degradation and tortures, I would remember the voices from the refuge.

I could no longer switch off from the rapes, the beatings. I could not be that person any more.
A seed had landed in me. A seed saying -
Damn it, you are worth far more than this crap.

I would say now that seed was a slow foundation for me becoming a radical feminist.
I have always believed that radical feminism saved my life.
It gave me an exit from male violence.
Radical feminists don’t just want to prevent all forms of male violence and oppression, they want to stop it.
This has allowed me to have hope for the first time in my life.

I was made to believe that rape, child sexual abuse, porn and prostitution have always been there and always will exist. That they a natural way for men to let off steam.
When I was abused at home, I knew in my heart it was wrong.
But I was surrounded by lies.

I was told my stepdad could not “control” himself, for my being was so provocative to him.
I was told that children were sexual beings, so I was not being abused. It was society that was wrong, not my stepdad.
I was told that having pain with sex meant it was good. My heart revolted against that.

These lies were remembered and made me a radical feminist.

I learnt lies through viewing porn.

I was told it’s only pictures, that they were acting. As I saw the pain and terror in the eyes.
I was told it was funny. All I had was bile in my throat.
I viewed porn and I remembered, and it made a radical feminist.
Having violent sex paid or unpaid with men was full of lies. It was non-stop lies.

In “dates rapes” -
I was told that I like rough sex, as they would torture me. I said nothing.
I was told it would make me forget my stepdad. It did not.
I was told it was done out of love. I could say nothing.

In prostitution -
I was told this was all I deserved. I could not believe that.
I was told it would not matter if I was murdered, as who gives a damn about a “dead whore”. I refused to die.
I was told I did not feel pain. As I could not cry or scream, as they forced more pain in me. But, I knew I would never be vulnerable in front of those men.

All this violence is why I have no choice but to be a radical feminist.
For through radical feminism I can speak out about their violence.
Speaking I see how common and ordinary that violence was. How many women and girls are living inside that terror.

I may not be able to change my past, but I want to help prevent male violence being seen as normal.

I know my radical feminism is focused on male violence, especially sexual violence to women and children. It is where I feel I can focus my energy.

I have never been very spiritual or think that much about the environment. I do eat meat.
I find having too many negative emotions about living in the world for that.

I still feel very detached from my own reality.

I get some spiritual fulfilment from Quakers and the Unitarian Church, I need that structure.
But mostly I am quite empty.

I find popular culture relaxes me a lot, then I doubt if I am a radical feminist.

All I know is I want to rid the world of rape, child sexual abuse, porn and prostitution.
They are not necessary evils.

And the only group I see that are serious about eradicating them are radical feminists.

Inspiration

For all of you reading this who, like me, only came to blogging relatively recently and so missed this way back in 2006 when it was published, via Arantxa, please read this from Heart, on What Radical Feminism Is and Isn’t.  Or, if you’ve already seen it, read it again anyway.

Radical feminism has to do with going about making change in the world, beginning in our own lives, including in our everyday, apparently small acts and decisions, but never ending there, and not because somebody persuaded us or convinced us that we should, but because we are so compelled by our concern and love for women, and our awareness of what women suffer in the world, and men, too, for that matter, that we can do no less.[...]

It’s very true that we all cut our deals under male heterosupremacy.  This is unavoidable.  At the same time, our love for women is going to compel us to lie awake nights dreaming up ways we — and ALL women — can STOP cutting those deals. 

Go and read the whole thing, it’s amazing.

Pimp Centre Plus

PimpCentrePlus believes the sex industry is degrading and humiliating to women and the government should not be promoting the sex industry as an employment option to women jobseekers who have an income of less than £4,000 a year in jobseeekers allowance. This is a poverty issue. The jobcentre is assisting the forcing of poor women into the sex industry. As the jobcentre is a public sector body, we also believe that this treatment which is unequal  and degrading to one gender as these jobs are offered only to women breaches the Gender Equality Duty.

The jobcentre justifies offering these jobs because Ann Summers won a court case in 2003 allowing it to advertise in Jobcentres. However the counsel for Ann Summers argued that it should be allowed to advertise its jobs because it was NOT a sex shop but a high street shop. Therefore the Jobcentre’s reasoning is irrational

For more information, and how to get involved in the campaign, see the website.

At the Root on Facebook!

At the Root - UK radical feminism now has a Facebook group page here!  This is for the ‘action-wing’ of the organisation, and I hope that through this group we will be able to discuss actions, and get organised so that we can start to campaign about some of the issues which are important to us. 

Please join the group and get involved.  Actions can be anything from collaborating on letters of complaint, and all signing it under the banner of ‘At the Root - UK radical feminism’, to organising meetings, marches, whatever we need to do - join us!

Some thoughts & a poem

Radical feminism is strength, hope & freedom. It’s a conviction. It’s self-determination. It’s on women’s terms, not men’s.  A theory and politics that derives wholly from women. For women’s liberation.

Radical feminism is for me.

But living this life, viewing the world through radical feminist eyes, working for women’s liberation, can be alienating.

Because…

1.      The template, the status quo, the dominant ideology is masculinity. Masculinity = male dominance = intrusive, entitled, brutish, out to protect itself above anything else. As a radical feminist, I oppose this masculinity. I want an end to male dominance.

But this is hard work. I mean, it’s easy to hold this conviction. What’s hard is living amongst this masculinity/male dominance every day.

Because masculinity/male dominance is played out all the time, and in its all-pervasiveness takes on an air of normality, innocence, of no consequence. It just is. This is the real world.

I’m not just talking about government, law, media, and the corporate world at large, the institutionalised versions of masculinity/male dominance.

I’m talking about the every day manifestations. Male entitlement to take up space, to get in the way, to shout the loudest, to be sexist except it’s just seen as ‘a joke and jeer over a beer’, to be aggressive, slam down doors, yell in the street to proclaim the space yours.

It surrounds me every day. It’s my neighbours. It’s student culture. It’s at train stations, on trains. It’s out there, up there, over there, right now.

This is deemed normal. So taking a stance against ‘normal’ is alienating, it’s exhausting. Always there, so much to do, what can you do?

2.      You put women first and don’t keep quiet. You leave the house to work for women’s liberation.

Where I’m from, to do this, is something new. New = strange. I’m told I take things too seriously, I see things that aren’t there (you might as well tell me I’m crazy), I should get off my high horse and calm down.

Apparently, my feminism is not ‘real life’. I am not in the ‘real world’. The ‘real world’ is head down, 9-5, getting excited about your latest purchase.

I’ve brought you down. So, time for a pick-me-up!

I came across a poem the other day by Somer Brodribb, Withdrawing Her Energy. It blew me away ‘cause it encapsulated what I’ve been writing about here.

A full version of the poem isn’t available online, so here’s some excerpts. It still retains its power.

The poem’s somewhat melancholy, it addresses that alienation, but it’s also infused with hope. Radical feminist hope.

Withdrawing Her Energy by Somer Brodribb

why don’t women just withdraw their energies she sniffed.

i thought you must be kidding
but okay i’m desperate and exhausted

and so i decided to Withdraw My Energy and see
maybe patriarchy
would just retreat too
is that how it works?
i’ve been smashing and smashing and all i really had to do
was just walk away??

——————————————————————–

anyway i walked to the bus station
so far no domination but it was early
and waited an hour in the schwartz bay terminal cafeteria
it was empty so no problem

for a while
until this stupid shit sits as close as possible to me
staring in my face in a cafeteria of fifty empty tables
sucking on candies and leering.

jesus christ doesn’t he KNOW that i’ve Withdrawn My Energies???
clearly i must not be doing this right
and then his friend comes over and they speak about women and advance
heh heh heh
you goin to Salt Spring?

—————————————————————————

and at the top of the ferry a red-haired high school student simply must sit at
my bloody table.
oh relax it’s just a boy.
i put on my sunglasses and stare out the window.

—————————————————————————-

I leave the ferry
race ahead pick a street and walk.
the red-haired boy seems to live on this of all streets for a while he is walking
behind me before he comes to his house.
don’t they realize women can be anti-social?
——————————————————————————-

i go for a coffee and wait for the ferry there’s no where else I can go it seems
without a car and private fucking boy escort

so i sit again at the top of the ferry in a corner table and four hockey watchers
are next
hehe heh heh wouldn’t it be great if you could just take the 45 second break and
hump hump give it to her eh?
yeah but go back in and play after it man?

 

———————————————————————————-

with a large dog and a pick up truck a man comes over and says really sweetly
have you missed your bus?
he wants to give me a ride. god he looks normal. even the dog looks normal. after
all it will be an hour ride on the local Pat Bay 70 bus
why after all this is probably a nice man it’s just that i’ve never been able to tell
the difference between a jagged edge slasher and a suburban jogger
———————————————————————————-

and how come anyway
no one said to the marxists
oh why don’t you just withdraw your energies from capitalism?
or why don’t you just stop giving apartheid your time?

why don’t you just get in the truck?
it’s no good to fight you’ll see
you’re making too much of it
you think too much

Avoid confrontation. Don’t disturb.
Don’t get involved.
Life on the sidelines:
profit from neutrality (at first)
Become a mediator
and cover things up.
Give up on
women
liberation
movement

i said no, i’ve been encouraged
and i live this way

 

Object and Hooters

Hermione Eyre reports in the Independent on campaign group Object’s action outside the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday, the aim of which was to raise awareness of the creeping growth in lap dancing clubs in this country, and to call for the reclassification of these clubs as “sex encounter establishments.”

“A laissez-faire attitude to this subject is just not good enough. The working culture within these clubs is often exploitative. Firm evidence is scant, but a recent Lilith Project report shows that 61 per cent of dancers had been abused by customers at work. Outside, the problems are more obvious. Streets become “no-go” areas for women; neighbourhoods decline. Why else would Bradford’s National Museum of Photography Film and Television campaign so long, hard (and, it might be added, fruitlessly) to oppose the opening of a lap-dancing club near its premises? If these clubs are, as their proprietors insist, for looking but not touching, then their customers leave guyed up, often drunk and sexually stimulated, with a false sense of their mastery over women. The Eden Report of 2003 found that in areas around lap-dancing clubs, the numbers of reported rapes are three times above the national average.[...]

The Object group and a cross-party coalition of members supporting their campaign (called Stripping the Illusion) are calling for these clubs to be reclassified as “Sex Encounter Establishments”. This would be an essential amendment to the flawed primary legislation. Labour MP Celia Barlow, who is launching a private members’ bill to curtail the spread of strip joints around Brighton and Hove, admitted on Newsnight this week that her party’s legislation had been inadequate, while Jeremy Paxman, somewhat confusingly, asked the head of Spearmint Rhino three times if he “enjoyed” watching lap-dancing? His objective must have been to embarrass the man. But the debate has moved on from emotive questions of shame and morality. It is established fact that these clubs are bad for neighbourhoods.”

The prevalence of lap-dancing clubs in the UK, and indeed worldwide, is not really news, but doing something about it is.  On a depressingly similar note, Hooters, the unbelievably poor-taste and sexist American chain of restaurants named after that part of a woman’s anatomy that, for some reason, has become ridiculously fetishised, is said to be on the lookout for suitable venues in which to trade their wares (ie women) across the UK.

This is from the Wikipedia article about Hooters:

The Smoking Gun website obtained a copy of the Hooters Employee Handbook^[9] which notes that:

Customers can go to many places for wings and beer, but it is our Hooters Girls who make our concept unique. Hooters offers its customers the look of the “All American Cheerleader, Surfer, Girl Next Door.”

Female employees are required to sign that they “acknowledge and affirm” the following:

1. My job duties require I wear the designated Hooters Girl uniform.
2. My job duties require that I interact with and entertain the customers.
3. The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and sexual innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace.

I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements, or work environment to be offensive, intimidating, hostile, or unwelcome. “

In short, “I will do my job as instructed without questioning anything,” ie be the perfect female employee for a male-centric company.  Not exactly what you’d call progress, is it?  I find reading that list of places Hooters are thinking of going to quite horrifying, but it is a Jennifer stated in her comment here - things have come to such a stage where it is completely normal for women to be objectified and not seen as human beings.  What is not normal, and I fear will not be for a long time, is an attitude whereby women are granted full human-being status, and given rights accordingly.

We see, in the case of the Hooters disclaimer, as well as in the case of many lap-dancing establishments, that the female employees are required, through the very nature of the job, and through the enforcement of the management via disclaimers such as that above, to participate fully in their own exploitation.  They are required to acknowledge it, and then told they cannot do anything about it, if they want to earn a living. 

Obviously, Hooters are very aware of the “offensive, intimidating, hostile” nature of their employee’s work environment, and dress and manner requirements, otherwise such terminology would not be used in the disclaimer.  So, women are asked to work in this environment, to acknowledge the environment, and sign something that says they will put up and shut up.  Degradation, humiliation and exploitation, all in one.  Some people think this is funny. 

Thankfully, others are prepared to do something about it, such as the Facebook group ‘No to Hooters’, who are getting a petition together to protest against the proposed opening of a chain of the restaurant in Sheffield:

“They say it is “a wrong step in the development of a contemporary and stylish city. The Hooters concept is at the very least tacky, if not downright sexist, and is certainly not in keeping with the upmarket tone of the current Leopold Square”.

The campaigners say they already have support from Sheffield City Council, South Yorkshire Women’s Development Trust, officers from Sheffield Hallam University Students’ Union and students from the University of Sheffield.

Kirsty Bowen, a member of the campaign, said: “Hooters reinforces the damaging idea that women are objects for male pleasure. The chain may deny this as much as possible but the very fact that they are called Hooters, a derogatory word for women’s breasts speaks for itself. The bar will have a detrimental effect on the area and an increase in anti-social behaviour is the least we can expect from this proposal.”

Sign the petition here.  As for myself, I am surprisingly shocked by the length of the list of towns Hooters are thinking of setting up shop in, and I am very tired from all the world-domination plans I’ve been cooking up over the last couple of weeks, and so apologise for the lack of any really great blogging, but rest assured, Hooters will not come to any town within shouting distance of me without finding themselves with a serious battle on their hands.