On Friday 20 January, I organised a demonstration against Tory MP Nadine Dorries’ Sex Education (required content) Bill 185, and announced a victory for the campaign mid way through the protest, to cheers from the crowd. It was reported that the Bill had suddenly been withdrawn from the parliamentary order paper (schedule), effectively killing it dead.

Around 250 people turned up to protest against the Bill, which would have required girls aged 13-16 to be given compulsory abstinence lessons, as part of their sex education. Over 2,000 people joined a campaign against the Bill on Facebook. As well as The Socialist Party and Youth Fight for Jobs and Education, the opposition was supported by the British Humanist Association, Abortion Rights UK, Education for Choice, the National Secular Society, Feminist Fightback, Queers Against the Cuts, Slut Means Speak Up, and others.

The Bill had many problems – it was sexist by being just for girls, and abstinence-only education has been proven not to work in reducing unplanned pregnancies and STIs. As the majority of comprehensive sex and relationships education (SRE) is not currently compulsory, many schools, particularly academies and religious schools, don’t have to teach comprehensive SRE, meaning that the Bill effectively could have meant abstinence-only education for many.

Although the Bill had little chance of passing its second reading due to scheduling, opposition was rallied in order to raise awareness of the need for statutory, evidence based, comprehensive SRE.

However, Dorries is threatening her intentions might become part of another bill she puts through, so whilst celebrating the success in defeating this Bill, campaigners are keeping an eye on Dorries and her Tory Government, as we know we haven’t heard the last of their attacks on womens’ rights, education and sexual liberation.

In May 2011 I read about Tory MP Nadine Dorries’ attack on sex education via a private member’s bill. She was proposing that girls (yes, just the girls) be given “information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity” as part of their sex education. Let’s quickly outline the glaring problems with this proposal:

1. Making abstinence education ‘just for girls’ positions women as the gatekeepers of sex. It positions men as having no responsibility for decision making about sex, or for understanding consent. It also supports an idea of women having no desire, and mens’ desire being uncontrollable.
2. Existing Sex and Relationships Education in the UK is not statutory. That means that some schools, in particular academies, Free Schools and religious schools, are highly likely to not teach comprehensive Sex and Relationships Education, because they disagree with the apparently ‘unsavoury’ content. Therefore, if this bill passes, these schools could end up teaching only abstinence, and the biology of reproduction in science classes. I.e. not the useful bits of SRE.
3. Now, abstinence education on its own doesn’t work. It’s been proven not to reduce STIs or pregnancy. A review of American sex-abstinence programs involving over 15,000 people by Oxford University found that they do not stop risky sexual behavior, or help in the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.
4. The bill is heteronormative, assuming that the only sex likely to happen is between a male and a female.
5. Comprehensive Sex and Relationships Education already advises on the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity.

The more I read about Dorries, the more I learnt about her multiple attacks on womens’ rights, such as trying to make counselling for women seeking abortion compulsory (we apparently can’t be trusted to decide for ourselves), and provided by religious anti-choice organisations, and trying repeatedly to reduce the time limit on abortions. A few days after the first reading of her abstinence education bill, Dorries went on the Vanessa Show and claimed that “if more children were taught to ‘just say no’ there would be less sexual abuse.” Seriously, she said that, on TV. This is blatant victim blaming.

Let’s examine Dorries’ motivations for a minute. It is clear to me that Dorries’ attacks are founded on her capitalist, fundamentalist Christian, ideology.

Firstly, her religion teaches her that sex outside of marriage is a sin – it’s wrong and shameful. Knowledge about sex is also dangerous. Her religion teaches her that abortion is immoral. Not only does that explain her direct and explicit attacks on abortion rights, but is relevant to this abstinence education bill, because she (wrongly) believes that abstinence education will reduce sex outside of marriage and therefore reduce unwanted pregnancies, therefore reducing abortions.

Secondly, her capitalist ideology relies heavily on the traditional idea of a nuclear family. For the ruling class, the family is a vital social and economic institution. It means married (presumed to be heterosexual) women being stay-at-home mothers and carers whilst the husband goes out to work – i.e. women providing unpaid labour. Capitalists have historically depended on the institution of marriage and the monogamy of women within the rules of marriage, to control the paternity of children for the purposes of inheritance of money and property. Dorries believes that any sex outside of marriage will lead to either abortions or single mothers on benefits. And she certainly doesn’t want the state to support either of those. A major contradiction of capitalism though, is that employers refuse to pay working class people a family living wage to one working parent as a sole breadwinner, forcing families into poverty and exploitative working conditions.

Dorries’ proposals, and the actions of her party, have nothing to do with helping women. The conservatives are responsible for pushing through cuts which disproportionately affect women:

• As women represent 65 per cent of the public sector workforce, they will bear the brunt of the estimated 400,000 public sector job losses over the next four years.
• On average women working in the public sector earn almost 40 per cent more per hour than female employees in the private sector. So even if replacement jobs were available in the private sector (which they’re not), it would represent a pay cut.
• Cuts to welfare will affect women twice as much as men because on average one fifth of womens’ income comes from welfare, whilst for men it is one tenth.
• £280 million of funding for a ten-year Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has been scrapped.
• While one in five women is likely to suffer rape or sexual attack during their lifetime, Government cuts to domestic violence and rape crisis services are averaging at over 40%.
• Legal aid cuts will make women in violent relationships particularly vulnerable.
• Lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are female, will be hit hardest by the spending cuts, losing 18.5 per cent of their net household income.

We must fight each and every attack on our rights or they will be taken away from us. Equality cannot be won under capitalism, but while we fight to change the system, we can’t let the ruling class destroy what rights we have won so far. So, back to Dorries and her abstinence education bill…

Not finding any focused campaign against her newest attack, back in May, I decided to set up a Facebook campaign: Stop Dorries’ abstinence for girls sex education bill. After a bit of tweeting, in two days the campaign had over 500 supporters. We’ve now got over 1,900.

We will be demonstrating against the abstinence education bill on the 20th January outside the Houses of Parliament, at 10:30am, Old Palace Yard, Westminster. The Socialist Party, Youth Fight For Jobs and Education, the British Humanist Association, Feminist Fightback, Abortion Rights UK, Queers Against The Cuts, Parents & Carers for Sex & Relationships Education, Education for Choice, The National Secular Society, Bristol Feminist Network, Left Front Art and Liberal Conspiracy are all supporting the demo. More information and the Facebook event are at http://on.fb.me/stopdorriesdemo.

Disclaimer: a shortened version of this post was previously published on The F Word.

On 20 January 2012, Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendment to sex education, Bill 185, which suggests GIRLS be taught abstinence, is due to get a second reading in parliament.

The bill is sexist as it positions girls as being solely responsible for decisions about sexual activity and boys as having no responsibility for ensuring that sex is mutually wanted, fully consenting and safe. Dorries even said that teaching children to ‘say no’ could reduce child abuse. This victim blaming is dangerous, incorrect, and offensive to survivors of abuse.

Abstinence education on its own is ineffective in reducing teenage pregnancies and STI rates. Good quality comprehensive Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) should already explicitly address the option of abstinence as part of decision-making about sex, and safer sex.

SRE should be informative and fact based. Some of the most important bits of SRE, which really helps young people to take responsibility for themselves and make healthy decisions (namely the relationships and communication aspects), are optional for schools and this bill will not change that. If this bill passes, some schools could end up only teaching the biology of reproduction and STIs (within the science curriculum) plus abstinence.

If Dorries really wanted to help young women to stay safe and healthy she would be advocating for statutory, comprehensive sex and relationships education for all young people, of all genders, and in all schools whether they are faith schools, academies, free schools or community schools. Her party in Government has already stated that they have no intention of making SRE statutory.

More information on the campaign can be found at http://facebook.com/stopdorries and the demonstration at http://on.fb.me/stopdorriesdemo.

Further reading:

• Debate in parliament at first reading: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-05-04b.680.0
• Guardian article, ‘Nadine Dorries and sex education for girls’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/may/04/nadine-dorries-sex-education-lessons
• Guardian article, ‘Stop this anti-sex drive’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/16/anti-sex-drive-nadine-dorries
• YouTube video: Critique and interview of Rick Perry, governor of Texas, who introduced abstinence only education into 94% of state schools, with the result of Texas becoming the highest teen pregnancy state. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lb8X0WweOU
• Check how your MP voted in the first reading: http://bit.ly/sexedbill185
• What is currently taught in UK schools: http://www.bbc.co.uk/barefacts/sex_education.shtml

With all the ‘occupy’ stuff I’ve been wondering if in fact I am in the top 1% for income in the world. I’m on £34,500 right now and that puts me in the top 1.22% so I’m almost there. This is how I figured it out. Thanks to my Dad and Clive Andrews for some of these links.

1. Adjust your income for inflation to see what your income was worth in the year 2000. Use this ‘lump sum’ inflation calculator tool for that. This put me down to  £25,368.
2. Use this Global Rich List tool (which is based on year 2000 world bank data, which is adjusted to account for differences in cost of living around the world, and is based on household surveys) to see what top % you’re in. I got 1.22%.
3. Not only does it tell you what % you’re in, but it tells you how many people in the world are richer than you are. I got 73,781,538 people.

I’m sure there’s holes in these tools and methods but I also don’t think they’re massively far off. I also don’t think the solution is to give lots of money to charities dealing with the symptoms of a broken society. I think we need to support charities or organisations that are focused on changing the structure of society to make it fairer, otherwise nothing will change in the long term. That is, revolutionary organisations, and those working to raise awareness of the issues.

There’s also a really neat data visualisation tool where you can customise the dataset here. Here you can see how wealth distribution has widened over time, and how different countries differ.

This is also interesting, by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to see where you fit as a household, in the UK. I got top 19%. You can use this salary calculator to calculate your income after tax.