Diane Abbott, MP, Shadow Health Minister: live webchat about British culture becoming 'increasingly pornified', Thursday 21st March, 1pm

[MylinhMumsnet]

Hello

We'll be welcoming Diane Abbott, Shadow Minister for Public Health and MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, for a webchat this Thursday 21 March, at 1pm.

Diane made history in 1987 by becoming the first black woman ever elected to the British Parliament. In May 2010 Diane was re-elected in her constituency and doubled her majority on an increased turnout, and in June 2010 she made the ballot for the next Labour leadership contest. She is a leading Labour politician and also has a distinguished career as a broadcaster and commentator.

Earlier this year, we read with interest Diane's comments about British culture being 'increasingly pornified' and damaging to young people. Diane has since told us that some of what Mumsnetters have said on the issue, especially in relation to our Let Girls Be Girls campaign, has been a big influence on her thinking.

Diane is interested in hearing your questions on this - and more - in relation to her role as both an MP and a Shadow Health Minister. Please join us on Thursday from 1pm and, as ever, feel free to post advance questions below.


Thanks
MNHQ

[jmcintosh]

Diane, how would you justify your failure to oppose the workfare bill to Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson?

[DianeAbbottMP]

Hello everyone. Diane here. I'm pleased to be back at Mumsnet ? which I now consider to be my spiritual internet home. I?m going to be answering as many questions as I can. But before I do, I just want to say thank you to Mumsnet for the work you did on the Let Girls Be Girls campaign. It?s become an important part of my thinking and I hope that came across in the speech I made on the 'pornification' of British culture.

[DianeAbbottMP]

@NayFindus

I love you Diane! I so miss you on This Week, you're one of the few people brave enough to say what they actually think anymore. I hadn't really noticed before taking my young daughter down the local high street that there are posters of half naked women everywhere selling clothes, perfume etc and the gratuity of them genuinely shocks me. I don't want to have to stay at home because there's pictures of anorexic girls with no clothes on everywhere, but in a world where politicians are now in thrall to big business and simply ignore the voters, how can you or anybody else do anything about this?

Yes, I think it has reached a point where we need to detox our high-streets, and make Britain a family-friendly country again. I think what we?ve seen is the market dictating to people the standards that everyone lives by, and defining our civic space. I think we need to clear our public spaces of worst elements of unrestrained markets ? including addressing music videos that blare out at us, and our children; the online bullying including problems around ?sexting? and ?slut-shaming?; the huge billboards that have very sexualised images of women that loom over our public spaces, and the sexualised figures of women in films that are now commonplace. For me the key, is putting parents back in control, and also putting open-minded family values back in our public spaces

[Xenia]

It is very important to let girls be girls and that includes bringing them up in a gender neutral way, showing them examples of women women with successful full time careers and happy family lives and show them that at home men do as much as women in terms of childcare and cleaning.

I as a child and my daughters as children (older ones are now grown up) read feminist and gender neutral books. We played in fields. My girls rode horses. They went to leading private girls' day secondary schools. They saw their mother climbing trees, enjoying many gender neutral activities.

I am a right wing free market libertarian so pretty much against banning most things but I do think we need to ensure women re-embrace feminism, that parents (it is men as much as women who buy children's clothes in feminist homes) buy gender neutral clothes. If there were no one buying unsuitable clothes they would not be made.

Above all we need personal responsibility, rather than the blame culture and nanny state on these issues.

I am not sure I have a question after all that....

[DianeAbbottMP]

@ATouchOfStuffing

Thank you Diane for actually tackling this issue. Us women are meant to have and do it all, as well as compete with porn stars and glamour models. Something has to give. I am sure you have seen this in the news recently, but I was wondering if a good starting place to make real women more of a feature in our towns would be to enforce a nationwide switch to these mannequins?
It is a small start but I think we need to highlight that women in porn/mags are not average and what women should 'aspire' to, and somehow become a failure if they don't comply. www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=500833883286263&set=a.360833590619627.72897.316489315054055&type=1&theater
No, I am not the page owner/creator, but A Mighty Girl is a very enlightening group on Facebook which might be worth taking a look at as well :)

I was interested to see the coverage of ?normal ?sized? mannequins. We are so used to excessively thin models and mannequins it was fascinating to see the sensation they caused.

[coppertop]

My question is about magazine covers being on display at child height, despite having pictures on the front that aren't at all appropriate for children.

Our post office, like many others, is situated inside a newsagents shop. The queue for it is alongside the magazines section. During the school holidays I have to take my children with me.

At their eye-level were the usual 'lads' magazines, with covers that wouldn't have been out of place on the front cover of a porn magazine. These weren't the only culprits, so it seems that this type of cover is becoming increasingly 'mainstream'.

The porn magazines on sale were hidden by covers, so why are magazines with similar covers still allowed on display in places where they can be easily seen by young children?

[AnnabelKarma]

Hi Dianne, I am not on the same political side as you but I am 100% in support of your campaign and agree entirely with your viewpoints. I have daughters ( and sons) and am becoming increasingly worried by the sexualisation of young teens and the way in which the sexes are more segregated in some ways than they were twenty years ago. As a teen I wore DM's , jeans, big sweaters and it seems to me that young women are dressing in an extremely revealing and overtly sexual way now. Not to mention body hair issues which stem directly from the porn industry.

[Jemifer]

Hi Dianne, Have you seen the new Weetabix sibling rivalry advertisement? If so, do you think we need to be doing more to stop gender stereotyping in our media/advertising?

[Bridgetbidet]

What's the point in calling for the 'depornification' of mass culture when these days real porn is available at the click of a button?

What is your own personal and the Labour parties position on creating an 'opt in' system for porn in the UK in order to prevent pornography being easily available to children?

[Bridgetbidet]

Internet porn, I mean.

[cm22v077]

Hi Dianne, thanks for coming on to Mumsnet. As a successful woman yourself, who are your female role models?

[DianeAbbottMP]

@JugglingFromHereToThere

I busted a gut to get my two DC's into the best school I could (a faith secondary in our city) - and have recently heard we were fortunate enough to get the place for DS to follow his sister.
I know you've faced criticism from some for sending your DS to the school you felt was best for him (private IIRC)
Do you have any comments on the school selection system and competition for places at the best schools ? I think you'll find many MNers will have some sympathy with your approach of doing your best for your son. How have things worked out for him ? Do you feel you made the right decision for you both ?

Like most people I found secondary transfer a very difficult and traumatic time. I got masses of criticism for the decision I took for my DC. I had to choose between my career and my son. I chose my son. But it worked out. He did five years at the brilliant City of London school, two years studying for his International Baccalaureate in Ghana and is now in his final year studying law at a Russell Group university.

[UnsureOfOutcome]

Hey Diane, can I ask what your priorities are as shadow health minister? What would you do differently in terms of the NHS? I live in Lewisham and was on the march recently to save our A&E so it's a matter very close to my heart.

Can you explain a bit about how Labour would handle NHS funding and the problems around the burden the service is under? Where do you see the NHS in 20 years' time - what state will it be in? I'm terrified we'll end up going down an american-style healthcare route ...

[DianeAbbottMP]

@JeanBillie

Thank you for drawing attention to this important subject. There's so much pressure on girls (and women) to behave a certain way, and even though my daughter is under 2, I worry about what lies ahead unless we do something about it.

On a less serious note, have you recovered from your Come Dine With Me Experience?

I have recovered from doing Come Dine With Me. I am not a dinner party cook. (Never have the time for dinner parties) But it is one of my favourite shows and I thought it would be fun. And it was!

[EmpressOfTheSevenOceans]

As the white mother of a black 12-year-old girl, I was both furious and devastated when she experienced her first racist incident recently (a comment on her "fat black face"). She's beautiful but she's already learning that beauty = white & size 6.

Could you give me any advice on helping her to feel confident about her own body and to deal with racism in general since I doubt this will be the last time it happens?

Thank you.

[Jules26]

Hi Dianne,

I know you think that PSHE and SRE are really important aspects of protecting young people and have called for it to be made compulsory. The minister Liz Truss has just given a statement announcing the results of the PSHE review saying that it won't be which feels like a really pathetic decision. What can we do to get government and ALL schools to commit to decent sex and relationships education?

[DianeAbbottMP]

@worldgonecrazy

I think the main issue is raising awareness amongst parents of what is actually out there. I guess most adults hear the word "porn" and think of the magazines that boys used to hide under the bed when they were teenagers,or hidden behind a credit-card only wall on the internet.

But nowadays porn is pretty intense stuff - really hardcore videos (rape, anal, group sex, teen sex, BDSM) are available at the click of a button with no credit card required and many children knowledgeable enough on how to delete computer history. If parents were aware of this they might do more to lock down computers. We also need to ensure that parents are savvy enough to know how to lock computers down. We can't stop children hacking into stuff, but we can put up as many barriers as possible.

However, the bottom line is "Does the Government care?" and "What is the Government going to do to help stop this situation?"

Government = all parties and* Whitehall.

Your first point is really important. Most adults think that porn is just girls
with naked breasts. But actually the stuff children can access nowadays is, as you say, hardcore. And the average age of boys accessing pornography has dropped from eleven to eight. I do not think sex is sordid and shameful. And I do not believe that is the view of the British public. But I think it?s a very specific form of sexuality that?s being imposed, on children and adults: a porn version. It?s particularly damaging to young girls, in my view. And this has been made worse by fast-developing technology.

I think this culture tells girls in particular that they are only valued as a sex object. It tells girls that the most important quality they need is 'sexiness'. But I also believe there are things we can do to change this. We need a complete transformation of sex education in this country. We need to parents to talk to their children about these issues. And there are also simple things that could empower parents, like making sure internet users have to make an active choice over whether they allow adult content or not. And yet, the government has blocked this plan.

[DianeAbbottMP]

@Bridgetbidet

What's the point in calling for the 'depornification' of mass culture when these days real porn is available at the click of a button?

What is your own personal and the Labour parties position on creating an 'opt in' system for porn in the UK in order to prevent pornography being easily available to children?

I definitely support an opt-in system. But the Coalition government appears to be backing away from this. Pressure from Google etc.

[strangerwithmyface]

Hi Diane, I love watching you discuss the day's issues on This Week. I have two questions.

Do you think we ask too much of schools when it comes to sex education? We expect them to introduce children to sexual health, their sexual rights, and now, to counter-balance a misogynistic, hyper-sexualised society. Surely some of these responsibilities should fall within the remit of parents, the media, politicians, etc... And their solution shouldn't be - we'll add it to the curriculum.

Secondly - what are you reading at the moment?

[NayFindus]

Yes, I think it has reached a point where we need to detox our high-streets, and make Britain a family-friendly country again. I think what we?ve seen is the market dictating to people the standards that everyone lives by, and defining our civic space. I think we need to clear our public spaces of worst elements of unrestrained markets ? including addressing music videos that blare out at us, and our children; the online bullying including problems around ?sexting? and ?slut-shaming?; the huge billboards

Yes! The billboards are awful - and there's no escaping them. We no longer have a TV so we don't have adverts on in front of little one, but the billboards are designed to shock to get a reaction. How do we stop that then? When I was pregnant (and a hormonal mess obviously) there was a horrible advert for The Exorcist on a phone box I passed regularly showing a hounded female figure clinging to the corner of the ceiling. It made me physically sick. But what can we do? By the time complaints are heard the damage has been done and the advert has got what it wanted, a big fuss. How can we change it so these things don't appear in the first place?

[MorphsMum]

Hello Diane,
I may be too late with my question but here goes:
I met you once at a Stonewall Event! One thing I think is positive is that there is much more tolerance of people being gay these days which must help children who grow up feeling they are/might be gay.
I'd love to see a situation where a gay adult, obviously someone trustworthy and sound, goes into every school to talk to the kids about what is like growing up gay - if they faced discrimination, how it was dealt with etc.
Would this be something you would feel able to support?
Thanks...

[DianeAbbottMP]

@Jules26

Hi Dianne,

I know you think that PSHE and SRE are really important aspects of protecting young people and have called for it to be made compulsory. The minister Liz Truss has just given a statement announcing the results of the PSHE review saying that it won't be which feels like a really pathetic decision. What can we do to get government and ALL schools to commit to decent sex and relationships education?

I think that government's position on this is really disappointing. Good sex and relationships education is at the heart of protecting young people. Mumsnetters have to keep up the pressure!

[DianeAbbottMP]

@Bramshott

I really worry about this - particularly that my DDs (now aged 6 & 10) will have very different early experiences with relationships and sex because porn is so 'normalised' now (see threads ad infinitem about removing pubic hair for example).

Yes, I think there are many people out there who share your concerns. I think parents and teachers have a duty to ensure that children develop a healthy view of sexuality. I?m worried that sexuality is becoming commodified, in many ways. Clearly, there?s something wrong with a society when many young girls of all classes are pressurised into exposing themselves online, and are then humiliated. And I think it?s very strange if we?re normalising children sexting each other.

[DianeAbbottMP]

@MorphsMum

Hello Diane,
I may be too late with my question but here goes:
I met you once at a Stonewall Event! One thing I think is positive is that there is much more tolerance of people being gay these days which must help children who grow up feeling they are/might be gay.
I'd love to see a situation where a gay adult, obviously someone trustworthy and sound, goes into every school to talk to the kids about what is like growing up gay - if they faced discrimination, how it was dealt with etc.

Would this be something you would feel able to support?
Thanks...

i find the casual homophobia that you find amongst school-age children really distressing. It causes real anxiety to young people trying to find themselves sexually and often accompanies vicious bullying. I would support a programme in schools like the one you are suggesting. And i believe that Stonewall has begun just such a program.

[AnnabelKarma]

Agreed Diane. What do you think of the prevailing culture of gender specific toys/clothes/activities? I find that many parents seem to support the whole pink thing without even realising what they are doing could have a negative impact on their girls.