Women's Views on News |
| Sex, money and the future of equality Posted: 24 Aug 2016 12:17 PM PDT
Never before have prostitution, strip clubs and pornography been as profitable, widely used or embedded in mainstream culture as they are today. How society should respond to the rise of the sex trade is shaping up to be one of the twenty-first century’s Big Questions. Should it be legal to pay for sex? Isn’t it a woman’s choice whether she strips for money? Could online porn be warping the attitudes of a generation of boys? An increasingly popular set of answers maintains that prostitution is just work, porn is fantasy, demand is inevitable; so fully legalise the sex trade and it can be made safe. But Kat Banyard – like so many others – contends that these are profoundly dangerous myths. Sexual consent is not a commodity, objectification and abuse are inherent to prostitution, and the sex trade poses a grave threat to the struggle for women’s equality. Skilfully weaving together first-hand investigation, interviews and the latest research, in her recent book 'Pimp State' Banyard presents a powerful arguement that means sex trade myth-makers will find themselves on the wrong side of history. Sarah Ditum, writing about Pimp State for the Guardian, said it is a detailed account of the case against the sex industry, and for the Nordic model: tightly argued, closely evidenced, and persuasive in its call to action. Methodically and thoroughly, Ditum continued, Banyard dismantles the “myths” that support this presumption. Pimp State doesn’t limit itself to activities conventionally regarded as prostitution. Banyard is concerned with the entire field of commercial sexual services, including lap dancing and pornography And, as Ditum concludes: ‘there are many who would like to establish a pimp state in the UK, but Banyard shows why they must be stopped, and how to stop them.’ In 2014, Banyard launched the ‘End Demand‘ campaign to bring the "Nordic model" to the UK – a legal framework that treats the act of purchasing sex as violence against women, criminalising buyers, decriminalising the prostituted, and establishing services to support those exiting the trade. Banyard is also the author of 'The Equality Illusion' and one of the founders of the campaign group UK Feminista. And in 2010 she was named in the Guardian newspaper as “the most influential young feminist in the country” and in 2011 she was selected as one of the Observer’s 50 contemporary innovators, described as “Game-changers whose vision is transforming the world around us”. When The Equality Illusion was published, in 2011, women working full-time in the UK were paid on average 17 per cent less an hour than men; 1 in 3 women worldwide had been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused because of her gender and of the parliamentary seats across the globe only 15 per cent were held by women and less than 20 per cent of UK MPs were women and 96 per cent of executive directors of the UK’s top hundred companies were men. Structuring the book around a normal day, Banyard set out the major issues for twenty-first century feminism, from work and education to sex, relationships and having children, and drew on her own campaigning experience as well as academic research and dozens of her own interviews. In 2014 The Equality Illusion was used as a key text in the development of the play 'Blurred Lines', written by Nick Payne and directed by Carrie Cracknell, which premiered at the National Theatre with an all-female cast. Although ‘written by a man’ it was created in close collaboration with Carrie Cracknell and the eight members of the cast, and is not a particularly comfortable experience for a male reviewer. This is not because it consists of seventy minutes of radicalised polemic damning all men to one of Dante's more unpleasant circles of hell but rather because it does the reverse; performances are restrained, arguments are calm and reasonable, but clearly lying underneath the surface is an anger. An anger one suspects is born out both of individual experience and universal frustration.  |
| Disabled people need rights not games Posted: 24 Aug 2016 12:10 PM PDT
At the end of last year the UK became the first country in the world to be investigated by the United Nations for grave and systematic violations of Disabled People’s Rights. This is as a direct result of the disproportionate impact of austerity on disabled people and ideological attacks waged by the Conservative government that have seen disabled people and the poorest members of society hit by cut after cut after cut. In 2012, the campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), in partnership with UK Uncut, were able to use the media interest around the London Paralympics to draw attention to the disgraceful practices of ATOS, one of the sponsors of the Paralympics and the company responsible for carrying out the notorious work ‘capability assessment’ that has caused much harm and suffering. In 2014, Atos pulled out of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) contract after it had become unworkable due to the success of the campaign against them. This September, DPAC will be using the interest surrounding the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio to draw attention to the cumulative impact of the cuts on disabled people that are taking disabled people’s rights back decades after attacks on every area of our lives – from education to independent living to employment to income. DPAC will not be protesting the Games themselves, but will be using this opportunity to raise awareness of the increasing number of disabled people whose access not only to sport and recreation but even to basic human rights – to eat, to drink and to use the toilet – are being taken away as a result of the ongoing and relentless cuts. DPAC is in the process of finalising the programme for the week, but it will include an exhibition of work by disabled artists, the launch of a report evaluating the impact of the closure of the independent living fund one year on, a national day of action, a protest calling for No More Benefit Deaths and the “Resistance Beyond Borders” conference at which international campaigners will speak on how to collectivise opposition to the impact of austerity on disabled people. As things stand, the dates are: 4 September – Art for Rights –London; 5 September – Demand the Right to Independent Living – London; 6 September – a National Day of Action – everywhere; 7 September – No More Claimant Deaths – London; 8 September, from midnight to coincide with the Paralympic's opening ceremony – Online Action – everywhere; and on 10 September – a Conference with international speakers – London. To find or keep up with details click here.  |
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