CLICK ON PHOTO FOR MORE IMAGES FROM THE SSP GLASGOW EAST CAMPAIGN
Ritchie Venton on the outcome: "Thousands of Labour voters simply stayed at home in disgust with their record on food and fuel prices; failure to tackle poverty and inequality; assaults on the sick and disabled, and their wholesale neglect of the working class. Others did a straight swap to the SNP, as punishment for New Labour in an area they have treated with decades of contempt, stepping on people’s heads en route to grossly overpaid political careers."
Three parties launch (including the SSP) here Battle of the Currans (I know which one is the most principled!) here Battle of the Currans in "The Times" here
Former MSP Frances Curran , who has been selected to fight the Glasgow East by election for the Scottish Socialist Party, has vowed to “expose” New Labour desertion of working people in the area. Frances, who grew up in the East End, made it clear that New Labour will be her main target in a campaign which will focus on poverty , jobs , transport and other key issues facing voters.
The moving vigil in George Square for women victims of men’s violence a few
weeks ago was sadly overshadowed by a massive billboard of a bikini clad young
woman. Apparently the city fathers earn big bucks this way.
Images of seemingly sexually available women are so pervasive in our day to day
that it may as well have been the city
chambers that was adorned with such
advertising rather than the adjacent building. Where would be the harm?
The school I work in is awash with porn merchandise. Not showers of naked
ladies exactly but so many girls and young women have porn logos emblazoned on
their pencil cases, school bags etc that I hardly register it anymore.
How the hell has the playboy brand become so desirable for young girls and so
mainstream that it passes as acceptable school stationary?
It is a malevolent masterstroke. Playboy Enterprises profits from the
exploitation and degradation of women and girls. Yet I have lost count of how
many tell me they are getting Playboy stuff for their Christmas.
Playboy merchandise such as pencil cases and single duvet covers are targeted
to appeal to pre-teen and teenage girls. Hugh ‘I don’t care if a baby holds
up a playboy bunny rattle!’ Heffner and company are unashamedly
grooming girls
as consumers of a porn brand and promoting the Playmate and Playboy bunny as
something for young girls to aspire to.
The ‘Bin the Bunny’ Campaign aims to remind us of the fact that Playboy,
while being marketed to young women and girls as a ‘stylish and
sophisticated’ brand, is a pornography company.
‘Bin the Bunny – The Trilogy’ by Rabbit films (each film has, as its
central character a giant pro-feminist rabbit!) use satirical humour to expose
Playboy Enterprises’ exploitative practices against women and girls.
Playboy operates several porn channels in the UK. In which women are
‘bitches’, ‘sluts’ and ‘whores’.Perhaps Playboy Enterprises
marketing department decided that insulting and degrading women would attract
more paying customers. Perhaps they are trying to tell us something about the
product they are promoting and selling. A delightful list of some
shows on
Playboy TV includes; ‘Bound, gagged and shagged’,
‘Piss loving lesbian sluts’, ’Extreme insertions’, ‘Barely 18 Anal
Virgins’ and ‘Young and tempting’. Cynic that I am, I would still expect
eye brows to be raised if these were the slogans of choice emblazoned on school
bags.
At the FEM 08 Conference I attended a workshop where Jan MacLeod from Glasgow Women’s Support Project showed us the true nature of easily accessible ‘run
of the mill’ or ‘soft’ pornography. I was stunned. The images were
certainly horrendous but strangely I was left more wounded by the language and
its discourse of utter contempt for women and girls.
It is vital we remember that pornography is a misogynistic multi-billion dollar
industry which violates real women’s human rights. It is not harmless fantasy
as some would have it. That is why the bin the bunny campaign is so important.
Next
time you get into a taxi in Glasgow emblazoned with a lap dancing club
logo remind yourself that five minutes drive away is a school fit to burst its
PPP casing with playboy branded pre-pubescent girls. Another five minutes away
is a brothel whose website boasts of having ‘debt-bonded labour’.
Presumably so that men can do what they like with the captives.
Sexism, sexual violence and pornography all censor women. They are about
keeping women powerless and voiceless.
