Mary Whitehouse - a reappraisal

Yes - I very much agree with your point about context, YetAnother.

At the time she missed much of the point about PIE. She complained it was funded by public money (which it wasn't) but didn't seem to grasp what it actually was.

Many detractors at the time said she often missed the wood for the trees.

I might actually get the book I linked to, it seems like a great read and a proper debate. Less politely hagiographic than the BBC piece.

So was sex outside of marriage - and particularly for women.

The issue I have - happy to be corrected if wrong - is that Whitehouse seemed to put homosexuality in the same bracket as pornography/paedophilia. That is, she wasn't separately condemning different things for what might be valid reasons, it was all categorised as ungodly, corrupting and so forth. It raises the question of how valid it might be to condemn the 'right' thing (e.g. paedophilia) for the 'wrong' reason.

Samphire - I'm pretty old and I am much enjoying the Amazon link! Thank you!

Gasp0de - I'm not sure that pointing out somebody else's simplistic responses is really relevant? They are pretty bad so I can be bad too? Or 'we are as bad as they are?'

Aren't you as ancient as I am @YetAnotherSpartacus

I had a look at Amazon, see what her book reviews were like! This has some of her letters viewable... The response from David Attenborough, then at the Beeb is worth a read and the dad's letter about Crackerjack and Gary Glitter is

www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-Whitehouse/e/B001KIHT8C%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

It certainly is simplistic. However, it's marginally less so than what we all see on social media, which is on the lines of 'OMG X said Y, X is a bigot' and henceforth any mention of X is met with 'I can't believe you support X, X is a hateful person who wants people like me dead, I've reported X for hate crimes' etc etc when in fact X has said nothing of the kind.

I think the problem with the 'agree the sky is blue' analogy is that it is too simplistic. perhaps we could extend it to say that conservatives might argue it is one shade (cornflower) whereas radicals might argue it is azure.

I'd be keen to re-read Whitehouse because although I think we probably agreed that elements of porn were bad that she saw it as about destroying women's reputations, or ungodliness or destroying the sanctity of marriage - whereas I am all up for destroying marriage :). The context is all important and we don't have the context.

I just put Mary Whitehouse quotes into Google. Remarkably thin on the ground.

There are various snippets in articles, from wikipedia to various newspapers, discussions about her suing Gay News etc. I had started reading through some of when @KimikosNightmare posted the BBC piece. I thought is remarkably pleasant, given they were the focus of her ire for so long!

I've looked to find copies of her work/things written in her own words on the interweb and I can't find any. I do recall reading something she wrote (and it was pretty awful). MW was certainly no feminist!

OK! I can see I have annoyed you. My apologies.

I have issue with you accusing people of doing things they haven’t done. A reappraisal is not revisionist. To acknowledge her good ideas were dismissed because everyone was too focused on her bad ideas is not a revision of history, it’s a reappraisal. You said people had called her a wonderful woman. No one did. You are saying the exact same things as everyone else, that she had good ideas and bad ideas, but you’re falsely accusing other people of blowing smoke up her arse. I have no issue with your opinion about Whitehouse because it’s no different to anyone else’s here. What is different is your tone of smug superiority claiming everyone who has said anything positive about what she campaigned for can’t possibly have considered how awful the rest of her was and need to be very careful about how they consider her in retrospect. Like no one had considered it until you came along to warn us about the real Whitehouse. It’s patronising.

That’s my opinion. If you don’t like it, tough.

Asking for a reappraisal is asking for some revisionism to occur. Some have expressed feeling shame at their 1980s opinion of her; others havs postulated how she would have been twitter shamed these days; many express opinions without reference to her 'problematical views' or downplay them. Not everyone lived through her era, has ever heard of her or knows what she dis, was like etc.

Isn't that why @KimikosNightmare started the thread? For opinions, discussion etc?

She was abused, did receive death threats at the time, was repsolute in ignoring them. She was involved in some landmark decisions and societal changes. She was both a bloody strong woman and a religious zealot.

If you don't like my opinion, tough. If you don't like my tone, tough. Take it up with the little gods that live in t'internet!

As I said, some of her campaigns were entirely sensible, but that doesn't make her some kind of wonderful woman in retrospect!

No one has said this. That’s my point. I am not taking it personally. I am responding to you (singular) on behalf of all the people who you (singular) seem to be implying are Whitehouse revisionists. Everyone agrees with you about all the things you (singular) said she was. People, including you (singular) also agree that she was right about some things, wish just some things she had campaigned for had come to fruition. No one has called her a wonderful woman.

Again you take it so personally @NotBadConsidering. We don't have a group pronoun in English, when you see "you" read "vous"

Do you, or do you not think she was right about pornography and its influence on society?

Again, I have already said what I think about that, in every post here.

And specifically in the 80s and 90s?

Well, after she had decreed Dr Who "teatime brutality for tots" she moved on to other kids TV showsfor being anti religion. Brookside also got her seal of disapproval because it was 'too real'. The very thing that won it plaudits, made it pretty educational for young teens, was what she hated about it - don't show young girls escpaing from or learning to cope with rape, no, don't you dare!

She even thought that "The Singing Detective" was autobographical and Potters' mother won a lot of money in damages after Whitehouse publicly decried her having slept with a very odd man, thus causing Potters psoriasis.

She was right about PIE and its aims, but wrong about everything else about it, attacking and vilifying the wrong organisations. But I suppose that was OK, as we got the Protection of Children Act in 1978

Staying in the late 70s, if you'll allow me, her constant prosecution of Gay News and anything with a gay or anto religious themes was risible. I had a look to see if I could find a direct quote because I remember her saying she was protecting God as he had protected her. and I found this "I simply had to protect Our Lord", she said, in court during the trial of Gay News for blasphemy.

She believed, in her biography, that being gay was caused by "...abnormal parental sex 'during pregnancy or just after'"and was completely curable "like acne".

All sorts of other television, film and theatre productions were ceaselessly pursued, from Life of Brian to The Romans in Britain. It cost her a fortune and she was so pious in response - it being the blasphemy and not the individuals concerned she wanted to punish.

Then she found Thatcher and video nasties.

As I said, some of her campaigns were entirely sensible, but that doesn't make her some kind of wonderful woman in retrospect!

Had she had her way we'd all be watching Dixon of Dock Green and Neighbours forever. Would be having The Gay cured out of us and God cured in!

But not a single person who has said they agree with her stance on pornography and exploitation has said they now absolve her of all other flaws. Not a single person has wished all of her other ideas had come true. Not a single person has said she wasn’t awful in other ways. So there is no need for you to warn anyone - me or anyone else - of revisiting history with caution because no one is seeking to dismiss her flaws. It doesn’t matter one bit that she was all the things you say she was because while being all those things she was right about other things.

Do you, or do you not think she was right about pornography and its influence on society?

You seem to think my post was aimed at you @NotBadConsidering

It's my opinion.

I stated quite clearly that she saw a lot of what was wrong then, that we deplore now. Some of what she got changed was a bloody good idea - which is why they were taken on board - the 9pm watershed for example. When she happened upon something that was sensible, needed to be changed, most people, even back then, agreed with the issue, whether they agreed with her or not.

But her self serving nastiness about people she did not like? Her insistence that the Church condemned anyone who disagreed with her? The idea that the Church needed to have more influence, more control over daily lives, morals etc? No thank you!

She was a small minded, hard-line social conservative, a bigoted evangelical Christian. That she also propounded ideas in areas that today's anti-pornography campaigns are currently working doesn't change her hard line Christian stance. Or the fact that her view of modern UK would be utterly anathama to most people today, just as it was back then.

So what? Explain how someone now agreeing what with Whitehouse said in the 1980s or 1990s would alter the timeline of our present reality.

Oh dear! And a Godwin to boot!

It’s not whitewashing anything. I don’t need to be very careful about revisiting history because I am perfectly capable of very carefully appreciating that much of what she stood for I don’t agree with. I am also very aware that even IF I did think all of Whitehouse’s beliefs were all fabulous - which I don’t - that believing that now would in no way make them come to fruition had they been instigated then on account of time travel not being possible.

If someone now thinks the Holocaust was a good idea it doesn’t make more Holocaust between 1945 and 2022 happen 🙄.

Sorry, clarification - "Owen Jones as an equivalent is absolutely right". God knows I'm never going to write that sentence again!

Excellent, Samphire, thank you. I can't believe so many women on this thread are prepared to whitewash Whitehouse (sorry, couldn't resist). Just because a racist homophobic bigot happens to (with the benefit of some extremely dubious hindsight) have held a single position on a single issue which now seems much more sensible and much less violently doctrinaire than it did at the time does not negate terrific amount of damage she inflicted back in the day - anyone remember the Gay News blasphemy trial? She brought the case in a private capacity in an explicit attempt to shut the paper down. There were a fair few things wrong with Gay News, but it was the only publication we had at the time, and James Kirkup's poem was just an excuse for her to try to silence us and force us back into the shadows where she thought we belonged. Extremely nasty, self-obsessed individual, less concerned with her moral crusade than the publicity and public platform it gave her. (Owen Jones is absolutely right, spouting pieties and incapable of considering any viewpoint other than their own).

She was about as likeable as as fascist in a commune.

About as personable as a rattlesnake.

Had the empathy, aparent sympathy for nobody who may have voiced any disagreement.

Her whole manner, chosen ways of expression seemed purposefully built to repel.

Her views on Godliness, hetersexuality and decency were brittle, abrasive and absolute.

She condemned the very youth she claimed to be protecting. She was right in what she perceived as the corrupting factors and eventual outcomes, but attacked everything about youth culture indiscriminately - didn;t really want the youth to be ecucted, just vilified and corrected.

The organisation she set up, National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, was supposed to be a grassroots representation of all your mums, nans and other concerned individuals. But was actually just a vehicle for her to hector more poele more often.

In short, what she perceived was indeed the very roots of what we deplore now. But her chosen way to presetnt hat to a wider public was never, ever designed to win 'hearts and minds'. She never did want to do that. She was a deeply unpleasant, determined, self obsessed woman who chose to alieanate, to 'other' a really eccentric set of widely different organisations and groups (like the British Humanist Society).

her aim was not really to protect the youth, to ensure their safety from exploitation. No. What she wanted was the absolute Patriarchy of Christian values to be cemented into the UK psyche. What she feared was not the loss of the youth to bordellos and slothfulness, but a lack of godliness, the rise of a non Christian Britain.

Be very careful how you revisit history. No matter how much good came out of her campaigns what she was aiming for would have been disastrous! We would live in a 1950s world - one where women had more freedoms and equality, that is true - but one where the Church and Christian Values ruled all.

I've never voted Tory in my life and can't see that ever changing, but honesty forces me to point out that in the UK we've had two women PMs and they've both been Tories. Meanwhile, the Labour Party has never elected a woman as Leader, although there have been several eligible candidates. There is a huge blind spot on the left about sexism. It's as if it's so massive that they can't actually see it.