My Letter To Boris Johnson

After writing to the London Assembly to ask them to pressure Boris Johnson to choose advisors who represent the diversity of London, only one London Assembly member wrote back. It was the Conservative Andrew Boff. Although he was dismissive of my belief that women are the best people to advise on womens issues, he did say "I know the Mayor takes the issue of violence against women very seriously and I would be happy to forward on any suggestions you may have to make London a safer place for women to live". I was inspired to write the following email to the Mayor as well as a similar email to Transport for London:

mayor@london.gov.uk

Publicly viewing pornographic material on London Transport.

Dear Boris Johnson

Yesterday on the 106 Bus in Hackney on the way to work, I sat next to someone who was looking at the Star newspaper. On the front it had a very large picture of a sexually provocative woman in stocking and suspenders. I asked him to cover it as I did not want to see his pornography. He was unable to hide it because every effort to fold it or hold it a different way exposed me to another pornographic image of a woman. I found this very distressing as I do not want to see such material that should only be viewed in private. It is intimidating sitting on the same carriage/bus as a man when you are aware he is deliberately arousing himself by viewing this pornography even if it falls into the misleadingly benign category of 'soft-porn' - this includes page 3 of The Sun. It feels very disrepectful to the other passengers, especially women. Also, it is considered a form of child sexual abuse to expose children to pornography, yet someone viewing such material in public gives no thought to this. This situation is entirely commonplace, and it is only recently I have developed the courage to start confronting people about it.

We have the crime of 'indecent exposure' to stop people exposing their primary and secondary sexual organs to the public. This protects us from intimidation and distress, however there is no law to stop us being exposed to indecent images on the printed page. I feel that you should make an effort to ban the viewing of porn on public transport, or at least provide guidelines of acceptability, such as for men to cover it in brown paper for example, making sure that no other passengers are exposed to it.

There are public transport campaigns to 'give up your seat', to 'not eat smelly food', etc, yet I notice a glaring lack of advice to transport users to prevent this anti-social behaviour, which makes me and I'm sure many other women feel very uncomfortable.

You recently banned alcohol from being consumed on the tube, which did not really affect me (I feel more intimidated when groups of loud, already drunken men enter, than I do when there is a solitary alcoholic sipping away on a can), so it is obvious that you do prioritise the comfort and safety of passengers on buses and trains in the capital. Please could you bring this insidious but corrosive 'normality' to a halt. As The Sun, The Sunday Sport, The Star, Nuts, Zoo etc, are becoming increasingly explicit, whilst trying to market themselves as newspapers/magazines no different from any other, public exposure to pornography is now a pretty much daily experience for public transport users. Please do not leave this anti-social behaviour unchallenged. Public transport is for women too.

Yours Sincerely....


If you feel similarly outraged that behaviour that is no longer acceptable in the workplace (ogling over porn or displaying it the the form of calenders, etc) yet women are expected to put up with this on public transport, please join me in writing to the Mayor, TFL, the London Assembly and/or your local MP to complain.

Together we can change things!!!