So we are now over run with amazing people power, grass routes activism against media sexism.
We have No More Page 3, Everyday sexism's #fbrape campaign, Child Eyes and now Object and UK Feminista's Drop the lad mags project threatening retailers for the first time with legal action.

I believe this latest Lad mags campaign on top of all else will be the final straw and things will change but I believe it will take a focus from all of us, in small different ways to make it happen and to clearly say to our own local retailers that we are not happy with the status quo and never have been. These campaigns give us momentum and a voice and I think we should act now.

I am used to being affected locally (In stapleford) by pornography in mainstream papers here's a small sample

 

To be honest I'm sick to death of being greeted by this every time I shop or nip in for electric with or without children and it is placed right next to or opposite children's mags. It is placed (usually) face down initially but is turned over by men in the shop after thumbing through it (vomit).

 

Anyway,on Saturday I took my daughter into town to celebrate finishing her Sats, she is 11. We went to Nando's near market square and then popped into the newsagents next door to buy treats to take home and have with a movie we had bought. We stood in the shop choosing (it takes a while as she has food allergies so we have to read everything) and she suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and looked horrified over at the magazine shelf taking up most of the wall to our left. I turned to see a sea of pornography like I can't remember seeing for some time, all quite openly displayed on middle shelves, in her face quite literally in this little shop. Lads mags but also Mayfair etc all middle shelf with no attempt to layer up,top shelf, cover or hide it. I felt so awful both for me and her. If it's intimating to me at 39 what is it like at 11?!

 

I'm livid and I think on the back of this current wave of activism we could do some really positive, directed and hopefully quite effective local action. It might start with just putting together a small flyer or set of flyer's, dropping into these little newsagents and the big ones and having our say. Obviously we may meet some abuse but we may, if we're really annoyingly reasonable and fair, get some positive responses too. If that doesn't work we then now which shops we could target if we wanted to, with a slightly noisier gathering outside where we can raise public awareness about these shops not being welcoming to women or children?

 

What do you think? We may be able to get some leaflets etc ready made from Object and we have some No More Page 3 stuff I can source. I also now know who the nice and on side journos are at the Nottingham post as I'm sure some of you do too, so we could get some local coverage??

 

If you fancy it let me know and I can set up a small group on facebook linked to NFAM where we can chat and plan etc.I don't envisage it being a big time commitment ( I have very, very little time) but we could put a half day aside at a weekend initially to case local shops perhaps just in the town centre initially and then take it from there? We can meet up before hand and take an area each, take leaflets, note responses etc?

 

Any other ideas very welcome or you can tell me to shut up and I will go away.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Lisa (Nottingham Lass mostly hanging out at NMP3HQ)