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.

FHM have deleted the original page with this article on and it’s not even in Google’s cache, but here’s the screenshot (via mediaite). FHM have now apologised in a non-transparent way which doesn’t reference what the original article did wrong. What it did wrong, was call Andrej a ‘thing’, challenge his sexual identity, and refer to him as ‘troubling’, amongst other things. Generally being transphobic, sexist and homophobic all at once. In addition, by simply deleting the original offending article and producing a very vague and non-committal apology, this only provokes the blogosphere to seek out the original article and to shout louder about what FHM did wrong. A proper response which addresses people’s specific concerns about WHY the article is offensive, should have been forthcoming. If I was advising FHM on its PR policy, I’d get that written up pretty quick.

Continuing to share my delicious links, here’s my top activism links so far. To reiterate, I don’t usually save the really obvious stuff to delicious, or the really easy to find stuff.

38 Degrees | people. power. change. – Democratically crowdsourcing campaign ideas.

Act Responsible -  responsible communication on sustainability, equitable development and social responsibility.

Armchair Revolutionary – social game, supports worldchanging science and technology projects.

Charity Navigator – America’s independent charity evaluator, evaluating the financial health of charities.

Citizen Tube – YouTube’s News and Politics Blog.

CrimethInc – Ex-Workers’ Collective (CWC) – a decentralized anarchist collective. Publishing and distributing literature and free propaganda. Check out their posters!

Cyber-Marx: cycles and circuits of struggle in high-technology capitalism – Book by Nick Dyer-Witheford (read here via Google Books)

Cybersociology Magazine – Issue 5: Grassroots Political Activism Online (01 April 1999)

DigiActive – digital activism tools, campaigns, and tactics.

Digital Activism Decoded – The New Mechanics of Change – Book edited by Mary Joyce (read here via Scribd).

Digital Activists Expose Abuse – BBC news article.

Digital Economy Bill is Passed! – blog post summarising what the DEBill means for politics.

Feminism London – annual feminist conference.

Forum for Change – online community – a free network for campaigners and policy workers to share information and discuss the latest issues.

G20: Protesters use Twitter, Facebook and social media tools to organise demonstrations – Telegraph article

Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI) – generates money by serving Google text advertisments on a network of hidden Websites. With this money they automatically buy Google shares. Buying Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself – but in the end “we” own it!

Guerilla Sticker Campaign via Boris Bikes – Treehugger article

HarassMap - a system in Egypt for reporting incidences of sexual harassment via SMS messaging. Similar to Hollaback!

Hollaback! – a movement dedicated to ending street harassment using mobile technology.

Hope140 – good causes on Twitter, case studies etc. ‘Better Now’

How to turn slactivists into activists with social media – Mashable article

Internet & Democracy Project: An introduction to digital activism (video) - The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School announces the Internet and Democracy Project, an initiative that will examine how the Internet influences democratic norms and modes, including its impact on civil society, citizen media, government transparency, and the rule of law, with a focus on the Middle East.

internet.artizans – Tracking the Internet, Human Rights & Social Change.

Is digital activism an effective medium for change? – Guardian article.

Is this what you mean? – Subverting adverts.

Media / anthropology – Research blog of John Postill covering digital activism & more.

Meta-Activism Project – The mission is to build human and informational infrastructure for the study of digital activism.

Nestle Kerfuffle (presentation) – A timeline showing the first four days of the online PR battle between Nestle and Greenpeace. It shows the numbers of people online who helped drive the PR disaster for Nestle over the company’s use of unsustainable palm oil.

Networked Culture: #iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners – article, but see rest of site too.

New Tactics in Human Rights – Information Activism

OpenNet Initiative - ONI’s mission is to identify and document Internet filtering and surveillance, and to promote and inform wider public dialogues about such practices.

Peace Chicken – Blog about veganism, animal rights, politics, activism and more.

Student Protest (video) – Flickr video of the student occupation of Millbank in 2010.

Tactical Technology Collective – Our mission is to advance the skills, tools and techniques of rights advocates, empowering them to utilise information and communications as a critical asset in helping marginalised communities understand and effect progressive social, environmental and political change.

TechSoup Global – TechSoup Global, founded in 1987 as CompuMentor, provides technology resources and knowledge to NGOs around the world.

The New Feminists: Still Fighting – Guardian article. Why the battle is not yet won.

Tor: Anonymity Online – Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

RSS Feed of Beth Granter’s Delicious Activism Links

Worst case of restrictive Title options I’ve seen so far. Shall I be male or married today?! Seen on www.groupon.co.uk

And THEN, trying to sign up to eHarmony and am confronted with the choice – do I want a relationship with a Man or a Woman? Because you can’t choose ‘either’! What am I supposed to do, sign up twice?! Massive fail eHarmony. Seriously – non-homosexual queer people don’t want a relationship?

It might be harder work on your algorithms, but if you’re gonna make a dating/relationship site or any site with a personal profile, you seriously need someone with a basic understanding of identity politics to give it the once over. Until they sort this out, I’m boycotting eHarmony on principle.