Webchat with Reg Bailey, author of the government report on sexualisation of children, Friday 10th June, 11am to 12pm

[KatieMumsnet]

Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers' Union and author of the government?s Let Children be Children, is joining us for a webchat this Friday, 10 June, 11am to 12pm.

Following our Let Girls be Girls campaign , launched early in 2010, we?ve been asking retailers to commit not to sell products which play upon, emphasise or exploit their sexuality.

The government has now responded to our campaign and Reg Bailey?s report, which included these recommendations:

? Retailers to ensure magazines with sexualised images have modesty sleeves.

? Music videos to be sold with age ratings.

? Procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult and age restricted material on internet.

? Code of practice to be issued on child retailing.

? Create a single website for parents to complain to regulators.

? Change rules on nine o'clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents.

Please join us live to ask Reg about the report, or if you can't make it, please post your question here.

Thanks everyone for your questions and comments, hope I've done my best to respond.

I don't think it stops here, the government have made a commitment that they want to meet regularly with businesses and regulators to see what progress is being made, and I'll be involved with that.
I will speak to Justine regularly too, so that I pick up any further concerns and am happy to try and respond as much as I can.

Watch this space for a new parents' complaints website, which I hope will be one of the first practical outcomes of the review. That's how you can really make your voice heard. Have a great weekend everybody!

Totaly missing the point there Reg.

Since men are not routinely harassed on the street/sexually assulted/raped/blamed for their own sexual assults because of a culture that, via the media, implies that womens' bodies are objects to be bought and sold and are community property, a little anxiey about an unobtainable body shape is not really the same thing is it?

It's funny how you can't censor the whole press when it comes to women being objectified, but when it comes to rich men wanting the rest of the world not to know who they're shagging, they can in fact censor the whole press with their super-injunctions.

But that's irrlevant so I'll shut up.

How did you select the parents who participated Reg?

Am impressed that the leader of the Mothers' Union managed to slip in the "What about the Menz" argument into a discussion about the sexualisation of women.

Oh Reg is a champion of Wotaboutthemenz, Slug -I read somewhere that one of his major interests is the role of fathers in family life, which begs the question as to why he isn't the CE of the Father's Union.

I don't care who does it and for what reasons, advertisers have got to stop exploiting our kids and giving them access to sexualised images.

Back to the school education thing, isn't it a bloody hypocrisy to have schools showing kids aged 10-11 a DVD that includes the term "wanking" yet that word would not be allowed before the watershed? If it was just imagine how many parents would be up in arms about it, yet most are happy enough to trust the school when it comes to sex education. Most of them haven't even watched the DVDs and have no idea how graphic they are.

Okay, its seems I get one comeback response, so here goes.

First, 134 comments on a write-in survey from a self-selecting group of people is not evidence of 'serious and widespread concern' - your words in the report - if its evidence of anything at its that 134 people could be bothered to write and moan at you about it.

Second, the second of the TNS survey questions relates specifically to body image issues and if you take the time to pop over to your nearest WH Smiths and take a look at the magazine racks you'll find no shortage of titles aimed at women in which the cover photographs are no less revealing than those on the Lads Mags - even if the quality of the photography tends to be someone more upmarket - plus the usual array of magazines peddling diet and beauty products with celebrity endorsement not to mention, from time to time, cover pictorials on celebrity specific titles which basic sneer at particular celrbrity women for having the termerity to put on a bit of weight or go out in public without spending 3 hours in make-up before they leave the house.

You're ducking the issue here, Reg.

You're targeting the Lad's Mags because they're the low-hanging fruit in the marketplace, an easy target that doesn't have the economic power or market share to fight back.

There is an ongoing and wide-ranging debate on media standards going on at the moment, not least due to the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, the existence of which you could easily have acknowledged with a simple recommendation that thes issue raised in the TNS survey by parents should be incorporated into that wider debate as another legitmate area of concern.

Instead you ducked the issue, largely I suspect because both you and the DoE know perfectly well that even the merest hint that you might give Parliament any cause to go and plant a tank on the Daily Mail's lawn would have resulted in the publication of your report getting a three-line mention on page 28 underneath the advert for the Big Slipper, rather than blanket front-page coverage.

You were charged with looking at the issue of commercialisation and yet you dodged some of the biggest commercial interests in the game.

HerBex sadly some wanker has revived the Sunday Sport.

Reg thinks his Recommendation 1 will sort out the up skirt Sunday Sport issue which is about 1.2m off the ground:

^Ensuring that magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on their covers are not in easy sight of children. Retail associations in the news industry should do more to encourage observance of the voluntary code of practice on the display of magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on their covers. Publishers and distributors should provide such magazines in modesty sleeves, or make modesty boards available, to all outlets they supply and strongly encourage the appropriate display of their publications.
Retailers should be open and transparent to show that they welcome and will act on customer feedback regarding magazine displays. ACTION: Publishers, distributors, retailers and retail associations in the news industry, including the National Federation of Retail Newsagents and the Association of News Retailing.^

Let's see shall we.

Back to the school education thing, isn't it a bloody hypocrisy to have schools showing kids aged 10-11 a DVD that includes the term "wanking" yet that word would not be allowed before the watershed?

No, its called education.

First and foremost, context matters. These DVDs - and I assume you're complaining about the Channel 4 'Living and Growing' series - are designed to be used in a supported learning environment under the supervision of a qualified teacher, which is a very different matter to either unsupervised kids tuning in to adult material in the family home or, as still too often happens, encoutering adult material in the company of parents who are simply too embarassed by their own hang-ups to talk honestly and openly about sex with the children.

If anything, there's as much if not more an argument for providing sex and relationships education to parents than there is children.

Second, if you genuinely think that the average 10-11 year old doesn't have a command of invective on a par with a platoon of Royal Marines then you really are naive and need to get out into the real world a little more and smell the coffee.

I've worked in schools on an education project which explored the language that 8 and 9 year old use when talking about race, gender, sex, etc. based squarely on the language they use when talking amongst themselves, and believe me, not only do those sessions scare the hell out of teachers but had 'wanking' have ever been the worst that any of the kids we'd worked with had come out with, it would have been by far the easiest day's work we'd have had on the project.

There's a very difference between protecting a child's innocence until they're ready to tackle some of the difficult adult subjects that inevitiably crop up in life, and forcing children to exist in a state of ignorance to assuage our own hang-ups and anxieties and I worry, from some of your comments, that you're veering towards the wrong side of that line.

There's no particular shortage of good quality, well-researched, material on children's sexual development out there if only you take the time to look for it. Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust, for example, have produced some excellent guidance for schools on sexual development in primary aged children which is well worth reading and can be freely accessed here:

www.devon.gov.uk/sexual_deg_for_websitebook.pdf

Agree with Unity, the sex ed DVD is v. different from the watershed - for a start, it is age appropriate, designed to be used to a specific cohort of children in a safe environment with professional supervision; whereas with TV, you can have a child of 4, one of 6 and one 8 watching all at the same time so it's appropriate to have a blanket rule. One of the most offensive things I find about the X Factor, is that it clearly targets family viewing and yet much of its content is just porny crap. (I note that Reg didn't bother to address my question about that btw. But maybe he'd put me on the "bad mumsnetter" list. )

I wonder where these children get their language and knowledge of such adult issues from? Soap operas perhaps? Late night TV certainly.

And considering the reputation of Channel 4 in constantly pushing the boundaries I'm surprised they came up with an educational DVD for young children.

UnityMot. At our primary school the DVDs are played to the class, with a teacher present who will then answer questions. Is it the same with yours? Now do you agree that the DVD did NOT talk about safety or self respect? As a school you'd have to decide to include that talk yourselves and many don't. As a result my kids won't see the DVD not because I don't want them to know about sex, they know already as I've tried to present it and their body parts as something that is not rude in the slightest, but because I want my kids to be taught about using their instincts; about getting out of situations were they feel uncomfortable; about the fact that it is illegal to have sex until you are 16; about respecting other people and never ever taking advantage of them; about respecting their own bodies and not having sex just because everyone else is.

If more parents took their kids out then the government may have to look at their sex education policy for schools again. Because teenage pregnancies are still rising, sexual diseases are still rising and sexual assaults against women are rising.

I hope you start rethinking your campaign. We should have the freedom of choice to dress our kids how we/they want. If you don't like the clothes, then don't buy them. Dress codes are for schools, not everyday life.
What I also find alarming is that you have yet to provide us with proof that these things are damaging our society and it's children.
I myself grew up on R rated movies, skimpy clothes and such, yet I grew up to be a good individual.
I think there are many areas you haven't thought through yet.

I think what came out of this webchat is a very clear indication, that the terms of reference for the MU report are so narrow, in order not to offend anyone powerful and important, that the recommendations, while being all well and good, are simply pissing in the wind. The government deliberately narrowed the focus in order to avoid dealing with the real issue, which is systematic sexism in society. While that is still acceptable (and it is) all the banning of padded bras for 8 year olds and modesty covers for Nuts etc., is a drop in the ocean. They aren't going to tackle this issue because it is part of a wider issue that they don't want to tackle. Also with the commercialisation of childhood - they are in favour of the commercialisation of every sector of life, why on earth would they want to treat it as a problem? They think it is a Good Thing. That's why they got Reg in instead of Linda, they knew he'd give them something that didn't threaten comercial interests.

Catmilk - so what if Reg is a Christian - that doesn't make his report invalid!! I'm sure he's still capable of common sense!!

I'm glad Christians are finally getting a voice at last - their voices often seem to get marginalised in favour of other agendas.

This report can only be a good thing surely - even if it is only a starting point!

Yes some of the stuff some Local Authories are showing young children at school is shocking. I would def take my child out of these lessons if they get introduced in our area.

"Finally getting a voice at last"

Eh?

Bishops in the house of Lords and Thought for the Day is a slightly louder voice than any other interest group gets...

Slug, "Am impressed that the leader of the Mothers' Union managed to slip in the "What about the Menz" argument into a discussion about the sexualisation of women."

I didn't think that the report entitled 'Let Children Be Children' was about the sexualisation of women.

HerBex - What is the problem with him being interested in Fathers' position within families? Would families and society be better without men, or should we go the whole hog and get rid of men altogether?

There was a question about whether he was a Feminist. He answered that he works with many groups that help women, that he wanted to improve women's position in societies around the world and stilll he was criticised. I also assume that my definition of feminism (equality between the sexes) is different from the definition being used on this web-chat.

And how many times did he have to explain that his report was building on other reports and that he was keeping to the remit provided? I am not sure why so many people, presumably pretended, to not understand that.

I wish I'd been able to join in at the time.

Catmilk - I think he was humouring you about being unqualified. He explained the context of his wording and I can only assume you didn't understand his explanation.

"What is the problem with him being interested in Fathers' position within families"

There is no problem with anyone being interested in that, there is a massive problem that a man who has stated that one of his major interests is the position of fathers in families, is the head of the mother's union. Why isn't he head of the Father's Union then?

"Would families and society be better without men, or should we go the whole hog and get rid of men altogether?""

Are you suggesting gendercide? That's a very extremist position and not considered quite nice on Mumsnet. It might be acceptable at Mother's Union meetings, but really MN is far more liberal than that.

"Catmilk - I think he was humouring you about being unqualified"

Haha, yes it is hilarious that someone with such an important task should have no qualifications or experience in that field. I DO see the funny side, which is why I tweeted about it, and it got retweeted all the way to the New Statesmen... so we can all have a good laugh!

I wonder where these children get their language and knowledge of such adult issues from?

Rarely from TV or the media - more often than not it comes from parents, older siblings and from what kids hear and talk about in the playground or out in the street. It's rather like nits - you only need one kid to bring it into the school and pretty soon it'll be going around the place like wildfire.

As far as the DVDs go, these resources are ultimate only as good as the amount of time and effort that teachers put into using them and while sex and relationships education remains an optional extra on the curriculum, it will be difficult to get any real consistancy across schools.

This is where parents can make a positive difference. Most schools run a preview session before they use the two programmes on the DVD that deal specifically with sex and reproduction and that's really the time for parents to ask questions about how the DVD will be used in practice and push them if they feel that maybe they aren't giving enough attention to issues of safety and self-respect - although, to be fair to C4, self-respect is an ongoing theme throughout the whole DVD even if its not always addressed directly.

All schools that do provide SRE are required to publish their curriculum in full - some make it available via the school website - and I'd certain advise all parents to contact their school and ask for a copy of the curriculum if they've even the slightest concerns about the possible content or tone of the lessons.

Actually, conception rates for under 16s stabilised at the beginning of the 1990s at around 8 conception per 1000 young women and have broadly speaking been only a downward trend since 2000 - this years figure are 20% down on 2000. Birth rates have fallen slightly faster, largely because a higher percentage of teenagers opt to have an abortion these days, and the better educated a teenager is, the more likely they are to choose to have an abortion in order to stay on at school/college and complete their education. Where conceotion rates have risen in the last 20 years (1996/7 & 2006) it has always followed a sizeable health scare in the press over the safety of oral contraceptives - overall conception rates are pretty sensitive to the kind of health information that's being put into the public domain by the media.

STD rates for under 16s are, by and large, measured in single figure rates per 10,000 and 100,000 teenagers, depending on which one you're talking about. For syphilis, your looking at rates of between 1 and 8 cases per million teenagers every year. The only STD to show any significant increase in recorded incidence rates over the last decade is chlamydia and that largely because of the introduction of a new and much more effective test for the disease in the late 90's and the introduction of a screening programme in 2003. Disease rates always go up when you start actively screening for them, whether its an STD or breast cancer you're looking for.

As for sexual assaults, the British Crime Survey indicates that the current trend is downwards and the Police Recorded Crime figures show that more women are coming forward to report offences than used to be the case, but its still difficult to get fully reliable figures on this and the figures that are available can be difficult to interpret and work with, particularly when it comes to repeat victimisation in the family home.

I crunched a few numbers late last year and somewhat shocking discovered that anything up to a third of rape victims every year are likely to have been raped more than once, almost always within the context of domestic violence. That's around 20,000 women a year, which really doesn't bear thinking about.

I've personally blogged a lot of this material over the last 2-3 years and as I know that there's at least one staffer at Mumsnet who knows who I am from the blogs I write for, if anyone wants to get in touch with me directly using the email address on my profile, I'd be more than happy to put together a compendium of statistical information for Mumsnet showing what the real trends are for teenage conceptions, births, STIs and sexual offence rates.

There's so much hysterical misinformation and misleading stats out there, that is very helpful UnityMot. Just last night I saw someone (not here) trot out 'pregnancy rates for teens are at an all-time high. Fact!' so I googled it and (quickly and easily) found out they are actually at a 30 year LOW. x

AN EASY BUT EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN WE CAN ALL DO TO PROTECT YOUNG KIDS FROM INAPPROPRIATE IMAGES IN EVERY DAY LIFE.

I couldn't believe the explicit nature of the front page of the Daily Sport Newspaper which appears on the bottom shelf in full view of smaller children in our local village shop. I asked the newsagent if she minded turning it round so that the sports section was visible instead - which she happily did and still does. Just a small step to stop this needless sexualisation of our children!! Please join my campaign!!!