Object newsletter : September 2014

OBJECT September 2014 Newsletter Dear supporters, OBJECT has had a busy summer, and a successful AGM. As we look towards the General Election next May, we are excited to share campaign updates and some plans for the coming months. We hope you enjoy catching up with all the news in this bumper edition…

OBJECT News OBJECT’s AGM and visit to Crossbones Cemetery OBJECT’s Annual General Meeting took place on 6th September 2014, at the Better Bankside Community Space.

We were delighted to meet a fantastic group of OBJECT members, whose positivity and great ideas and comments made for a really inspiring day.

After the formal business – the receipt of accounts and the annual report – OBJECT’s CEO, Roz Hardie, led a session which agreed the members’ priorities for future work. It was recognised that an aim of ending violence against women and girls was central to our work, and that we would continue to work towards that ultimate aim by:  challenging the spread and normalising of the sex industry in all its forms,  continuing to join the dots between this and the pornification of the media and popular culture,  supporting women who have been harmed in the industry and in prioritising survivors’ voices,  lobbying those in power for legislative change, but supporting those who wish to speak out against objectification and commercial sexual exploitation,  reaching out to and educating young people, so that they can understand, challenge and take action.

As part of the day, OBJECT led an act of remembrance at Crossbones Cemetery. The cemetery was a place where ‘unmarried mothers’ were buried in centuries past, and the reality was that many of those women and children were exploited in prostitution. Rebecca Mott, an exited woman who campaigns for the abolition of prostitution, read a poem which she had written specially for the occasion, and we tied flowers and messages of remembrance to the railings. All of us there felt that remembering our sisters in the past, and those still exploited in prostitution, was important and moving, and we support the call for the ‘Nordic Model’, which tackles demand for prostitution by criminalising those who buy sex, those who profit from the sale of others, and by supporting women who wish to exit.

Shadowing by Rebecca Mott

I stand Here In the shadows Of countless Nameless Who are Made into Dust Made from being Nothing We must stand In silence Here Make Each and every Piece of Dust Bone Earth Somebody I stand here Shadowed By Countless Deaths Missing bodies Unreported Lives Gone In my Lifetime Those I have Known Unknown I stand Here In the shadow Of Whispers Screams Silences Of the Many Nameless Who have Vanished We must remember We will Remember For We must Remember

Thank you to everyone who attended the AGM, for your input and support. We have exciting times ahead, and great supporters standing with us.

Campaign News Protest Against the ‘XBIZ EU Pornographers’ Convention OBJECT protested against the ‘XBIZ EU’ pornographers’ convention, which was held in central London from September 25-28, and which focused on how to expand the porn industry and get round the regulatory framework.

Held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in central London from 25-28 September, the convention hosted networking events and seminars for pornography business owners and producers, among others. Prior to the event our CEO Roz Hardie was interviewed on London Live. Themes for discussion at the convention included the pros and cons of age verification, increasing online traffic to porn websites, and reversing ‘censorship’ trends. The UK Adult Producers’ awards ceremony was also held as part of the convention. Winners included the site ‘Fake Taxi’ – a porn site, which includes scenarios that eroticize fake taxi drivers coercing unsuspecting women passengers into sexual acts. A party for XBIZ EU attendees was also held at the lap dancing club Spearmint Rhino on Saturday 27 September.

A 2010 analysis of the 50 best-selling porn films revealed that violence within porn was endemic, with nearly 90% of all the scenes analysed showing physical aggression against women 1. The eroticization of violence against women is disturbingly significant in a context where over 425,000 UK women report sexual assault every year2. Indeed, research shows that after viewing pornography men are more likely to have increasingly aggressive behavioural tendencies3. Another study showed that young people who look at violent porn were six times more likely than non-viewers to report forcing someone into sexual acts.

We were pleased that our protest was supported by the section of the trades union Unite that organises taxi drivers. On the subject of the ‘fake taxi’ porn genre, Bobby Morton issued the following statement: “On behalf of the Taxi section of the Unite the Union Passenger Transport Sector, I wish to condemn the award nomination of FakeTaxi.com, as well as UKAP who are hosting the awards ceremony for best porn sites for XBIZ EU. Normally I would not sully my hands by writing about such an event, however the FakeTaxi.com site is extremely distressing and demeaning to women, and should be avoided at all costs. Further to this, it is also disrespectful to the thousands of taxi drivers in this country, both members and non-members, who are respectable people giving a service to the general public and who would never dream of taking part in the distasteful activities depicted in FakeTaxi.com.”

We also drew our concerns to the attention of Transport for London who have promoted cab safety for women over many years and are pleased that they share our concerns with the site and are planning to write to XBIZ about these. Please see the leaflet that we handed out, here: http://www.slideshare.net/RozHardie/aardveark-fake-taxi-leaflet-to-be-printed 1

Bridges, A., et al., 2010. Aggression and Sexual Behaviour in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis Update.

Violence Against Women 2

3

Women’s Aid, 2013. Statistics about Domestic Violence.

Gahyun, Y., & Yang, D. (2012). Effects of exposure to pornography on male aggressive behavioural tendencies. The Open Psychology Journal, (5), 1-10.

We received TV coverage about our protest on ‘London Live’: http://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/201409-24/should-london-support-porn-industry-events The Independent covered our protest too: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-andtech/features/the-future-of-porn-virtual-reality-glasses-at-xbiz-9758909.html Thank you to all our activists and supporters who gave their time and energy to this protest.

Campaign Update: Success!

Another success for Object this year! The government is introducing age-rating on hard copy music videos, from 1st October 2014. Online music videos will carry age-ratings as part of a pilot scheme bringing them into line with films and video games. The voluntary pilot will involve Sony, Universal and Warner Music, as well as Youtube, Vevo and BBFC. OBJECT, together with Imkaan and EVAW, our partners in the Rewind & Reframe project, welcome this news, but will continue to call for consistency in regulating music videos and age-rating to be mandatory for online music videos as well.

OBJECT’s Campaigns and Outreach Officer, Betiel Baraki, was quoted in a Sky News article on the subject: http://news.sky.com/story/1345189/music-videos-to-be-given-age-ratings-in-uk and was interviewed

by BBC Essex radio (start listening from 1 hour 09 minutes): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026ygmj

Campaign Update OBJECT continued campaigning to reinforce procedures around temporary lap dancing events. We wrote to Minister Norman Baker to highlight the need for stronger measures, and issued a report on the subject to MPs and other stakeholders.

We also continued to monitor, publicise and offer support to efforts to object to lap dancing club applications. We regularly provide guidance and resources to members of the public campaigning against lap dancing clubs in their areas. We were interviewed on BBC Hereford and Worcester Radio talking about our support for an anti-lap dancing campaign in Worcester and the harms of the lap dancing industry. OBJECT was also quoted in a recent BBC News article about lap dancing and prostitution. Please see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28407999 We were present at the meeting of Camden Council, regarding the licensing of the Spearmint Rhino branch on Tottenham Court Road. We are currently undertaking further work to challenge the licence renewal of this venue. Please see this article in the Camden New Journal for more information: http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2014/sep/spearmint-rhino-lap-dancing-club-surviveslicensing-battle For campaign news, updates and toolkits to take action, please see here: http://www.object.org.uk/campaigns/lapdancing-take-action And if you would like advice on how to object to lap dancing clubs in your area, please email campaigns@object.org.uk

OBJECT in schools OBJECT has so far this year spoken to over 700 young people in schools, and has held workshop and assemblies for small and large groups. Our visits have made young people aware of objectification, and have given them the tools to challenge it and to speak out, and we have been invited back to give further workshops in this new academic year.

Outreach and education work is a very important part of our work, and we plan further activities in this area in the coming months.

If you would like OBJECT to speak at a school or college near you, or at another event, please contact outreach@object.org.uk

Call for compulsory SRE in schools OBJECT is pleased to be one of the supporters of a new campaign calling for compulsory sex and relationships education (SRE) in schools.

The End Violence Against Women Coalition and the Everyday Sexism Project petition says young people today are bombarded with negative and conflicting messages about sex, relationships and how men and women should treat each other – from music videos and popular culture, to online pornography, which they see whether or not they seek it out. This is the context in which abusive ‘sexting’ and sexual harassment are common in schools.

While children and teens are bombarded with sexist messages and images, there is often nothing to counter it in schools as they are not guaranteed to have the opportunity to discuss sex and relationships questions at school. As a result, issues such as sexual consent are understood in deeply gendered ways, with a ‘sexual double standard’ about men and women’s roles.

OBJECT’s CEO, Roz Hardie, commented: "OBJECT welcomes this campaign. Through our outreach work with children and teens we often hear that formal sex education is awful or non-existent. Hard-core online porn is often their main sex 'education', sometimes with the adults in their lives encouraging this as part of normalising abuse.

The adult entertainment industry has seeped into the mainstream, with strong business links to newspapers like the Sun, the Sport and the Star. Up and down the country dedicated educators want to address this and to promote healthy, consensual relationships. OBJECT believes that compulsory PHSE is essential to keeping children and teens safe."

Please support this important campaign by signing the petition: https://www.change.org/p/david-cameron-nick-clegg-ed-miliband-and-other-party-leaders-commit-tomaking-sex-and-relationships-education-in-schools-compulsory-to-include-sexual-consent-healthyand-respectful-relationships-gender-stereotypes-and-online-pornography Further information about the campaign can be found here: http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/171/evaw-and-everyday-sexism-launch-newpetition-for-compulsory-sre

OBJECT Speaking Out at Events, and in the Media We have had a busy couple of months, with invitations to speak at many events, and plenty of coverage in the press. We have been delighted to meet so many supporters and inspiring feminists.

Here is a little of what we’ve been up to: We were pleased to speak at a Young Fabians event, alongside EVAW and the 50:50 Campaign.

OBJECT spoke at the ‘Woman Up!’ conference in Carlisle. We were delighted to meet so many inspiring young feminists, as well as strengthening our links in the North-West of England.

Our CEO, Roz Hardie, took part in a debate on ‘London Live’ television, against MRA, Mike Buchanan, on the subject of objectification and feminism. It was a challenging discussion, but OBJECT came up out of it very well, winning the viewers’ vote on the debate.

You can see a short clip from the discussion here: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=360823260736012&set=vb.270715299746809&type=2&thea ter OBJECT was quoted in Daily Mail and the Cardiff local press, about a ‘shag chart’ which was handed out to freshers at Cardiff University: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2768507/Outrage-universityfreshers-handed-shagchart-mark-conquests-wall.html and http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/walesnews/anger-over-shagchart-being-handed-7829466

Celebrating Women’s Tennis In July, OBJECT and its supporters went to Wimbledon both to celebrate women tennis players and their achievements, and to highlight that sexist and unequal treatment of women in sport remains a major problem. We handed out leaflets (http://www.slideshare.net/RozHardie/wimbledon-leaflet)

on the history of women’s struggle for equal treatment in tennis and the continued objectification and marginalisation of women in sports, and talked to hundreds of receptive tennis fans about the issues.

Overall, a great day!

OBJECT Actions - Take Action and Get Involved!

Join Us at Our Activist Meetings If you are based in London please come and get involved at our next activist meetings, where you will meet like-minded people, and have a chance to plan and take action against objectification and misogyny.

Meetings will be held on the last Tuesday of each month, and the next one will be held on 28th October.

If you would like more information, or to attend the next meeting, please contact outreach@object.org.uk. We look forward to meeting you and to campaigning together.

Dates for the diary Feminism in London OBJECT will be at the Feminism in London conference on Saturday, 25 th October. It promises to be an exciting and interesting day, with great speakers and activities. Come and say hello to us at our stall, and find out more about our work and how to get involved!

For more information about the event, please see: http://static.feminisminlondon.co.uk/ Challenging Sexism in Schools OBJECT will be running a workshop at this conference on 15 th November, organised by Hackney NUT. Reclaim the Night OBJECT will be marching in solidarity with our sisters at the Reclaim the Night march in London on Saturday, 22nd November. We are also proud that Beti, our Campaigns and Outreach Officer, will be speaking at the event.

If you would like to march with us under the OBJECT banner, please email outreach@object.org.uk and we will send more details nearer the time.

Domestic Abuse Scotland: Equality and Respect For All OBJECT’s CEO, Roz Hardie, will be speaking at this conference in Edinburgh, on 11th December. More details can be found here: http://govknow.com/briefing-detail.html?id=1236&info=agenda

Other actions For regular news and updates, please follow OBJECT on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ObjectUpdate?ref=br_rs and on Twitter https://twitter.com/ObjectUpdate and share our updates with your friends!

Please support our work OBJECT is continuing to make a big impact for a small organisation, putting the issue of the objectification of women and girls on the media and political agenda, changing laws and policies, and empowering women and girls to come together and speak out.

In order to be able to continue our work in a challenging climate for campaigning organisations, we need your support.

Please consider joining OBJECT, or making a donation to support our campaigns. Every amount makes a difference, and helps us to plan and carry out our work most effectively.

Thank you.

To become a member of OBJECT, please see here: http://object.org.uk/join-us To make a donation to OBJECT, please see here: http://object.org.uk/donate

Thank you, as always, for your support of OBJECT’s work.

With best wishes, Betiel, Claire, Roz, Sarah and Sunna

Thanks to the wonderful Jacky Fleming for this brilliant image of OBJECT!

OBJECT empowers its supporters to challenge sexism and to make political and social change happen. We are organising lively grassroots activism across the UK and ensuring that the sexual objectification of women is debated at both a public and political level.

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