About time feminists started actually including sex workers in the discussion (hint hint, UKfeminista).
(*)The title of this blog post is taken from a (NSFW) tumblr.
I spent yesterday at Fem11, the feminist conference organised by UK Feminista. It was great to be in a room with a thousand other feminists, and you know your event is successful when the hashtag on Twitter attracts both trolls and spammers. Sessions at the conference covered a wide variety of subjects, from violence against women, through abortion and the plight of asylum seekers. As usual, I wished there were two of me so I could attend more of the sessions.
There were a few themes through the day, but the one that really struck me was around sexualisation, objectification and the sex industry. The opening session had Cllr Rania Khan speaking about her campaign against lapdancing clubs, Isabella Woolford Diaz telling us about tackling lads’ mags in Tesco, and Bjorn Suttka introducing the Anti-Porn Men Project. The absolutely packed workshop on ending violence against women covered a lot of ground, including exploring the role of sexualisation and objectification of women in creating an environment conducive to violence against women.
Sylist magazine’s 6-page spread on the new wave of feminism; featuring Finn Mackay (London Feminist Network), Anna Van Heeswijk (OBJECT), Cath Redfern (thefword.co.uk), and Sabrina Qureshi (MillionWomenRise).
Stylist ask ‘Are You A Secret Feminist?’, rebrand the much-hated moniker, and interview some important contemporary feminists.
