Fourth Letter to Boris Johnson (responding to Eleanor Stanhope's reply)

I have discovered that writing to TFL directly or responding to particular customer services personnel at TFL does not seem to get a reply. They seem to just send one easy answer and that's the end of it if you are lucky.

It seems that when the letters are re-directed from the mayor's email, the response from TFL is swifter, as though they are under more pressure to respond, so its definately worth persisting, even though you do get an automatic response saying the mayor gets too much mail blah blah...

In the light of this I decided to re-jig my letter to Eleanor Stanhope and address it to the Mayor. I've got more hope of something happening.

Here it is:

Dear Boris Johnson,

I'm writing regarding Eleanor Stanhope's response to my further email to you:

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Customer Services (Buses) wrote:
Our Ref: 651598/4/es Date: 13 July 2008

Dear....

Thank you for your further email to Boris Johnson regarding material you find offensive in some daily newspapers. I am replying on behalf of the Mayor on this occasion. I can assure you that the response you received prior to this was not a standard reply as we do not receive many complaints at all similar to this. I can only reiterate that we have no plans to ban these newspapers as they are freely available. They are not deemed as offensive pornography although if you object to the content of these daily papers I would suggest contacting the paper directly to voice your opinion. I am sorry I cannot be of further help or provide the answer you may be hoping for. Please do contact me again if I can be of further help.
Yours sincerely

Eleanor Stanhope
Customer Services

It was of particular interest to me when she says

"I can assure you that the response you received prior to this was not a standard reply as we do not receive many complaints at all similar to this".

This was of particular interest to me, since an associate of mine wrote an email complaining of innappropriate material on London Transport and the response is reproduced below. You may notice that although this response is from David Broughton, rather than Angharad Mead, it is identical. I am interested to know the explanation for the identical nature of these responses, being written by two different people, if there is indeed no standard response.

Thank you for your email to Boris Johnson about bus passengers
reading inappropriate publications. I am replying on the Mayor's
behalf.

I am sorry to learn that you have encountered instances of men
reading magazines and newspapers which make you feel uncomfortable on
public transport. I appreciate that you may find the images
contained in these newspapers to be offensive. However, since these
publications are freely available, we are not in a position to ban
them on our services. On the whole, we get extremely few complaints
about this matter, and therefore conclude that the newspapers and
magazines you've mentioned are not offensive to the majority of
passengers.

Thank you once again for bringing your concerns to my attention. I'm
sorry that I can be of no further assistance at this time. Please
feel free to contact me again if you have any further query regarding
transport in London.

Yours sincerely

David Broughton
Customer Services

As to Eleanor Stanhope's following comment:

"I can only reiterate that we have no plans to ban these newspapers as they
are freely available. They are not deemed as offensive pornography although if
you object to the content of these daily papers I would suggest contacting the
paper directly to voice your opinion".

As I am sure you are well aware, these newspapers, unlike TFL (a public organisation) are not under a duty as outlined in the Equality Act to actively promote equality and eliminate sex-discrimination in their business as well as their employment practices. They certainly don't have any duty to me personally, since I do not buy them. However I do pay for public transport, both through paying tax and by purchasing my not-inexpensive travel - also I have no other alternative for transport in many cases. TFL, as a public organisation, do have a lawful duty to me and all its passengers, to actively promote equality in its business. I see no evidence of this kind of inequality being challenged by TFL.

According to sexual harassment law, it is actually down to the individual to define what is offensive to them, and these papers are banned from a number of work places because a lot of people do find them offensive and discriminatory in a working environment. So it is dismissive of Eleanor Stanhope to say this pornography is "not deemed offensive". And it also, obviously begs the question - deemed by who? I am certainly offended, other women are offended, therefore, according to sexual harassment law, they are offensive.

Eleanor Stanhope's recommendation to approach the publications themselves, also suggests that she hasn't considered the fact that how offensive something is, depends on its context. If someone chooses to look at page 3 of the Sun, or just about any page of The Sport, The Star, Nuts, Zoo, Loaded, FHM, Playboy, Hustler, etc at home or in an environment where it is appropriate (i.e.- no children, no women who might be offended by the images and behaviour), then it is arguably not offensive. When these images are used/presented in an environment with no consideration for the children exposed to them or for the women who might be offended by them - it IS offensive. Just because women have been quietly 'putting up' with an offensive enviroment on London Transport, is no reason to suppose that these images are not 'deemed' offensive or discriminatory by them.

I can suggest a good reason for the professed lack of complaint about these images on public transport:

Because the incorporation of porn into newspapers and lads mags occurred prior to the Equality Act, that without laws to protect them, many women have felt too ground-down by this encroaching sexism without bounds, to feel empowered enough to complain. The laws are slowly improving for women, but women's expectations have not yet caught up. So passengers are still not aware that they are entitled to expect the same commitment to equality from TFL as from their own employer. In other words, the feeling of impotence women experience when they are discriminated against, such as having to enter environments where this sexism is tolerated, is no evidence that they are not offended.

I can also sense a tone of sarcasm in Eleanor Stanhope's email when she suggests that I contact these publications directly to voice my opinion. I'm sure she is aware that complaining to these very papers and magazines about the sexual exploitation of womens bodies to stimulate male readers, which I don't even purchase, would meet with no positive response, instead only ridicule. The sexual exploitation of women's bodies is the bread and butter of these publications and they have few limits on what is a very lucrative business - including no duty under the Equality Act.

Overall am very disappointed with this response I received from Eleanor Stanhope. It is dismissive, ill-considered, contains a probable falsehood, and has sarcastic overtones. This is not the kind of response I would expect from an organisation which professes to be "committed to providing accessible transport for all, promoting equal opportunities, good relations between different groups and eliminating unlawful discrimination" and ensures that "those who provide services on our behalf (contractors and sub-contractors) have a similar commitment to equality and inclusion". I trust that you will hold TFL to account for this.

According to Eleanor Stanhope, TFL has 'no plans' to ban these freely available newspapers (no more freely available than alcohol of course). I am not necessarily asking for a ban on particular publications, instead a ban on using/exposing all pornographic images on public transport. By pornography I mean images with the sole purpose to sexually stimulate the viewer, and if in doubt, err on the side of caution. It is not too much to ask. People can always look at them when they get home.

Even if Eleanor Stanhope is expressing a phobia about the practicalities of executing such a ban, she has still not offered any explanation for why nothing is being done. Why are there not even any guidelines or suggestions to customers that it is anti-social to arouse themselves on public transport by looking at pornographic images, anti-social for them to expose other passengers to the pornographic content of these publications, that such anti-social behaviour is inappropriate on London Transport and it will not be tolerated? TFL has a duty to promote equality and I deserve a genuine explanation. To continue to ignore the issue like this, shows a bias towards the comfort of male passengers at the expense of female passengers - which means: sex-discrimination.

Obviously Eleanor Stanhope's response is completely insufficient. Please could you let me know what you intend to do to eliminate the use and exposure of sex-discriminatory images on London Transport, in order to fulfill the lawful duty under the Equality Act.


I look forward to a considered and satisfactory response

Yours sincerely,

..........

Please bastardise and plagiarise my letters as you like for the cause!

Together we can change things!