No More Porn On London Transport
On Thursday evening, 4th September, 2008 approximately 6-7 members of LFN met outside Stratford Station. Our purpose was to invite members of the travelling public to sign a petition in respect of pornography being widely read on public transport. We wished to draw attention to the fact Transport for London has made it a criminal offence for anyone to consume alcohol, play loud music or openly eat food whilst travelling on buses, tubes or trams within the London area. Consumption of pornographic magazines and newspapers such as The Daily Sport, Daily Star, Nuts, Zoo, FHM etc are not considered 'offensive or likely to make a person's travel unpleasant.' The reason we wished to draw attention to this omission is because many women do not like or wish to be forced to view pornographic images systematically showing women in sexually degrading positions whilst they are travelling on public transport. Many men believe there is nothing wrong with opening their pornographic newspapers such as The Daily Sport and avidly consuming these images and advertisements offering sexual services to predominantly male consumers, whilst travelling in a public space. In fact viewing such images is on a continuum of male sexual harassment, wherein women are routinely subjected to male sexual insults and harassment. All of which are designed to enforce women's devalued social and sexual positions, together with the belief public spaces are male-only. Women who dare to access public spaces are supposedly infringing on male rights. Many women do not want or wish to be forced to view such images since this indirectly reinforces societal beliefs that women exist solely for the purpose of men's sexual consumption. Irrespective of whether or not the mainstreaming of pornography is acceptable, women who travel on public transport are not in a position to refuse to view such images, since using public transport is the only way many women can go from A to B. Transport For London has rightly decided alcohol, loud music and unpleasant food does negatively affect users of the public transport, but viewing pornographic images of women supposedly does not 'intimidate or negatively affect women's right of accessing and using public transport.' Eventually we intend to submit this petition to Transport For London, since we are currently lobbying TFL in order to seek a ban on consuming and reading pornographic material whilst travelling on public transport. The petition is one effective way of demonstrating that members of the travelling public are not in favour of being forced to view sexually degrading images of women, which naturalise and reinforce widespread belief that women are men's sexualised commodities. One of the members of LFN brought along a large poster collage, showing pornographic images obtained from The Daily Sport and Daily Star all of which had been published that same day. Yet these pseudo newspapers are deemed to be just 'newspapers' not pornography. This was used to reinforce the fact, widespread consumption and availability of pornographic newspapers is a reality and not just another 'feminist fantasy.' Whilst the action was taking place, an independent film crew was recording our activities. This film company are in the process of making a two-part documentary on pornography. We considered it an excellent opportunity for our activist work on pornography to reach a wider audience. Members of LFN did engage the travelling public in a dialogue and some of the responses from the travelling public was interesting to say the least!! On asking women what they thought about viewing images contained on the front page of the Daily Sport, I routinely received the reply 'well I don't like it but what can I do.' Or: 'it doesn't bother me now you see it all the time.' Or, 'I don't like it but I don't notice it now perhaps because I've become desensitised to it.' (This female respondent used the term 'desensitised' thereby showing she recognises how saturation of such images normalises male violence against women). Other members of the protest action received the following views/comments: One person when she approached a male was told by him 'when a man has been working hard, it is good for him to be able to look at these pictures to relax.' Upon which the presenter of the film documentary then approached this male and asked him 'if you are sitting looking at these images on a bus and a woman sitting next to you was obviously feeling uncomfortable and threatened, would you put the newspaper away?' The male replied 'no I should be able to do what I want.' The presenter then asked the male 'even if it makes a woman uncomfortable?' The male repeated 'It's me - I should be able to do what I like.' This says it all I think because this man obviously believes it is his right to consume any images he wishes, irrespective of negatively affecting women. After all, this man considers his rights supercede any woman's.
Another example by the same member is one wherein she entered into conversation with two members of a Pagan organisation. Although it was a man and a woman who were asked what they thought about such images, unfortunately the man dominated the conversation. The man's response was 'we should have more images of women like this (and he pointed to poster collage of images showing naked women in sexually degrading poses). Because pagans worship the Goddess and part of it is worshipping her beauty.' The LFN member responded by saying 'this is a very seductive argument but it is just the other side of the same coin of objectifying women - either degrading them as whores or worshipping them as Goddesses. Why aren't women just people - with flaws and talents - and equal to men?' The man's response was 'fair enough.' I think this member successfully challenged this man's presumption and at the very least caused him to consider his claims more carefully. One other member expressed her initial misgivings at our having a large poster displaying sexually degrading images of women because she believed it would be difficult to engage public support. This member rightly considered how such a ban would be enforced and also, would our group be perceived as advocating what the media constantly refers to as 'the nanny state,' which immediately attracts antagonism and claims of abuse of civil liberties. This member decided that despite her reservations she would participate since the aims were in line with her personal views and at the very least create a symbolic challenge to the normalisation of pornography. This member said it wasn't easy attempting to engage the travelling public as they surged out of the underground station, intent on getting to their destination in the shortest possible time. This member reported one very positive conversation with two fifteen year old girls. These young women informed the member that one of their male friends had a copy of the Sun the other day and these two young women had challenged him on viewing sexualised images of women contained in this 'newspaper.' Both young women were happy to sign the petition and the member was glad to have been there and able to let these girls and other women know they are not alone in not accepting the supposed 'naturalness and right' for such images to be widely consumed by males whilst travelling on public transport. To conclude, the poster showing sexually degrading images of naked young women did attract a certain amount of male voyeurism and male bravodo. All of which was intent on supposedly embarrassing us and also reinforcing men's supposed right to view and consume women's bodies as Yes, we learned a great deal and next time we would be better prepared with for example, having a list of FAQ and would also be better prepared to deal with males intent on disrupting or attempting to shock and/or prove they are 'real men' by salaciously leering at the images. Jennifer Drew Read the blog: http://nomorepornonlondontransport.blogspot.com/
sexualised playthings. On the other hand, as one member succinctly said it's very effective in clarifying exactly what we are talking about. The images taken from one day's tabloid pseudo newspapers was a grim education in itself!'
