Dear Mr Murray,
My husband and I moved to Bunbury almost a year ago. My husband is David, former Manager at the local branch of BankWest. You may remember meeting him briefly. We received a letter from you in May, as our representative in State Parliament, where you said if we wished to express our views on any matter, you would be pleased to hear from us. I would like to take you up on this offer.
As a young mother of three pre-school age children, I have made and will continue to make many efforts to teach them to treat all people with compassion and respect. I want them to be able to reach their potential-for them to become educated, develop their talents and to be moral people. However, I find that by merely taking them out of our house they are exposed to the onslaught of pornographic images and media that I keep from them in my own home. I cannot take them with me into the supermarket, petrol station, newsagency or video store without them being around “soft porn”.
The damaging effects of so-called soft porn are well documented. How can I teach my son to respect women, and my daughters that they are worthy of respect, when the idea that a woman’s purpose for existing is to satisfy mens sexual appetites is normalized and even endorsed by being displayed in supermarkets, easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it (and also to those who do not).
Perhaps you are familiar with this letter below.
"To the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General Censorship Ministers".
I am writing to ask you if you support the suggestions made in this letter, and how you plan to respond. I hope you will give this issue some serious consideration. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss this letter any further.
Kind regards,
Caitlin
8th July 2010
So that is my letter. I will email where an email address is provided, but I have printed out three similar copies to send to different leaders of parliament. Upon putting them in envelopes I realized the only stamps I have are promotional Valentine's Day themed ones, so my angry letters about evil porn will have pretty swirly love hearts and flowers. But I'm okay with that.
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ReplyDeletesorry, spelling mistake!! made no sense so I fixed it :)
ReplyDeleteThe gym that I have been going to has recently changed hands and there have been some unpleasant changes. The gym is in Mirrabooka and I already find that there are a LOT of men in this gym. It is a little intimidating. Now the tv screens have been changed to some music channel that is basically girls in skimpy lingerie gyrating endlessly! (say that 3 times fast). If I felt uncomfortable before, I can tell you that I now feel worse. I feel like a piece of meat, I feel ugly, I feel plain and boring... I also feel a little scared for my safety when I visit the gym at night. So, I need to follow your lead and let the owners/managers of the gym know how I feel.
I know Maureen, watching that stuff doesn't do much for the self esteem does it! The thing that concerns me is that I am 25 and able to understand the unrealistic way women are portrayed in the media and advertising etc, but I still have that teenage girl inside me who wants to look effortlessly perfect just like all the girls in the magazines. Can you imagine being a high school girl right now? Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI am all for using your voice. I bet there are a lot of women who feel the same, and hopefully even some men who are not comfortable about this portrayal of women being normalized and on display. I think you are well within your rights to share your concerns with management. Good luck! xx
I should mention that I sent out three letters, and I received one response, which I was very pleased to get. The response was from my local member of parliament and basically said they would forward my letter on to the Attorney General (who I had already sent a letter to) and get back to me. I am happy to say that they did in fact do this, and within about 8 weeks.It is very refreshing when people keep their word.
ReplyDeleteThe response from the Attorney General was disappointing, but I expected that. To paraphrase, he said he understood there were people who were offended by the display of certain publications, but, since there are very few people who have made similar complaints in the last ten years, they assume that the community in general do not find these magazines offensive.
I am still satisfied in my decision to write letters, for a few reasons. One is that as I and other people write letters, these issues will be continue to be monitored, and change may happen. Another reason is that even if I lose many of these fights, which I no doubt will, I can live with myself knowing I did what was in my power to change things.
And sometimes we do have wins!