Julie Bindel
Encyclopedia
Julie Bindel is an English
writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice For Women, which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint.
She is described as a "Marmite
writer", in that readers tend either to love or hate her work, and is a freelance journalist whose work regularly appears in The Guardian
. She writes non-fiction
including news articles
; interviews; as well as columns, reviews and editorial pieces
. Her primary areas of interest are lesbian rights, opposition to the sex industry
, modern anti-trafficking campaigns
and defending female victims of domestic violence
. Bindel, who has been involved in feminist law reform campaigns for victims of domestic violence, originally began writing as a way to get the message across to the wider public. Bindel is also openly
lesbian
and has shared her views and been quoted regarding sexual identity
and sexual orientation
issues and refers to herself as a political lesbian feminist.
As of 2009 she resides in Crouch End
and has written about the area. In August 2010 she entered the Independent's "Pink List" as ninety-eighth of the top 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK.
. "The Yorkshire Ripper case was my reason for becoming a campaigner against sexual violence". Sutcliffe was convicted for murdering thirteen women between 1975-1980. She states, "I was angry, like many others, that the police only really seemed to step up the investigation when the first 'non-prostitute' was killed." Bindel was angry about the police's advice for women to stay indoors although many had jobs which required them to be out after dark; she was also not happy about the police's assertions in 1979-1980 that sex workers were the killer's target even though, from May 1978 onwards, all the victims were not sex workers by trade. Bindel took part in feminist protests against the killings including flyering mock-up police notices for men to stay off the streets for the safety of women. She continued campaigning against sexual violence, and worked as an unpaid feminist activist working for women's rights. In the 1990s she attended London Metropolitan University
as an undergraduate.
In 1990, Bindel was a co-founder of Justice for Women (JFW), a group which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint. "Justice For Women is a feminist organisation that campaigns and supports women who have fought back against or killed violent male partners". They are concerned with issues of mariticide
arising from domestic abuse. JFW offer welfare advice, campaign on domestic violence, abused women who kill violent partners, immigration rights, and the dangers women face with the rise of religious fundamentalism. JFW "campaign for changes in the defences to murder so that they encompass and reflect women's experiences of domestic violence."
Bindel's writing on cyberstalking
, where a victim is humiliated or threatened with unwelcome email messages at work or to professional associates, has been cited by academics. In 2006 Bindel wrote of a personal pact regarding rape
and how rape victims are re-victimized by being "identified, vilified and even crimialised." She shared that if she were raped at the time she would likely not report it to the police because of these concerns.
Bindel's activism is reflected in her contribution to research and writing on feminist issues, violence against women, and prostitution; she was a researcher at both Leeds Metropolitan
and London Metropolitan
Universities, being the assistant director of the research unit on violence and abuse at Leeds Metropolitan. Her writing features in books and reports she has authored, edited, contributed to, or been quoted in, and these are detailed in the bibliography.
. She was first published by The Independent
newspaper in 1998 concerning prostitution in the UK. According to her writing, the life and death of her friend Emma Humphreys in 1998 led her into journalism. Bindel had campaigned for Emma to be acquitted and released from prison following Emma's conviction for the murder of a violent pimp.
In 2001 she began writing an occasional column for The Guardian, from the start covering gay and lesbian issues, child protection, prostitution and violence against women. From October 2003, her contributions in The Guardian became more frequent, and she wrote about the main themes that concerned her: rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, men who murder women, men who murder partners, child protection, sex offenders, prostitution, gay and lesbian issues, broader LGBT issues including transsexualism and reassignment surgery, human trafficking, sex tourism, women who murder violent men, and lesbian issues. Her style is often controversial. During her time at The Guardian, Bindel also broadened her range of topics to include vegetarianism, Barbie
, Sylvia Pankhurst
memorial, and wrote columns on Andrea Dworkin
, Sheila Jeffreys
and Louis Armstrong
.
In March 2006 The Guardian started the 'Comment is Free' section of its website which encourages the response of readers. Bindel's articles have occasionally received comments in the hundreds, and the focus of her 'hates' that started with vegetarians also encompassed the Arsenal football team, was soon followed by men who rape and abuse women. In 2006 her output increased. Some of her writing has voluminous comments, such as on prostitution (311), rape (352), drug rape (403), women murdered by violent partners (348), transsexualism (203), and LGBT inclusion (374). In January 2009, her espousal of radical lesbian feminism
attracted the most comments (560) for her writing at that time.
and continues to do so.
In 2008 her activism and writing coincided when the issue she had campaigned on for over a decade became the focus of government legislation. Since the death of Emma Humphreys, who she helped to get released from prison, Bindel had sought to get a law changed that had historically protected men and penalised women. If men murdered a partner in the heat of the moment, an appeal to 'provocation' had been admissible in mitigation. Such an appeal was not practical for women trapped in violent relationships, because murders carried out in the context of ongoing subjection to violence tended not to occur in the heat of the moment, but would be often be calculated as a solution which provided an escape from violence. Bindel's campaign against violence against women on the one hand sought to resist the mitigation men could appeal to when partners were murdered, and allow the sustained violence women could be subjected to act as a mitigating factor if they murdered their partner. Harriet Harmen, Minister for Women and Equality, was of a similar mind on this issue, and legislation was proposed that would change the law to this effect. Bindel explained her support for this legislation in her column. Erin Pizzey
, one of the early founders of women's refuges, was critical of the new law, and other newspapers leveled their criticisms at both Harman and Bindel.
Using titles like "Why I hate men" and "Why men hate me", Bindel has discussed her views on men, violence, and the way men relate to women, and what is revealed in their comments about her writing.
In 2008 Bindel co-authored a report commissioned by the POPPY Project on British brothels, named Big Brothel (a play on the title of the Channel 4
reality TV program Big Brother
). The report found that unprotected anal sex was available from £10, and penetrative sex from £15, in over 900 brothels operating as legitimate business across every borough in London; many of the premises involved offered "very young girls", but denied any were under age, and many of the women were from Eastern Europe and South East Asia. Bindel wrote about the findings in her Guardian column, describing experiences such as those of a young woman having sex with twenty men a day, and discussed Harriet Harman
's (UK Minister for Women and Equality) plans to make paying for sex illegal.
The report was criticised by 27 leading academics involved in sex work research, claiming that the report was carried out without formal academic ethical approval, without acknowledgement of existing sources, and co-authored by a journalist with anti-prostitution views. The POPPY project responded that the report was one they produced independently, that the POPPY project was not an academic institution, and because significant media attention was usually lacking in this area of research it was important to provide a counterbalance to the positive media focus on the sex industry.
and transgender issues
have upset people in transsexual and transgender
communities, particularly the 2004 piece that cast transsexual people as ungenuinely transitioning
while ridiculing their experiences.
Bindel's first published article on transsexualism was a December 2003 Sunday Telegraph Magazine report; it was the first example of coverage of a narrative of 'transsexual regret' in the UK media. Bindel interviewed 'Claudia', a post-operative transsexual, who regretted her decision to have surgery and felt that the psychiatrist involved did not take sufficient care in reaching a diagnosis. Bindel questioned the medical approach in the article.
A month later a piece, "Gender Benders, beware" was printed in The Guardian concerning her anger about a rape crisis centre's dispute with a transsexual rape counselor; the article also expressed her views about transsexuals and transsexualism. Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transsexual people, doctors, therapists, academics and others. Transgender activist group Press for Change cite this article as an example of 'discriminatory writing' about transsexual people in the press. Complaints focussed on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece, and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease" and "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s [jeans] does not make you a man."
Four responses were published, including one from Julie Hesmondhalgh
, an actress who played transsexual character 'Hayley' in the ITV soap Coronation Street
: "Men in dresses with birds'-nest hair chopping off their meat and two veg in order to enjoy the privileges of using the women's bog or snogging their same sex partner without fear of ridicule?! Can someone please inform the intelligent and compassionate Julie Bindel, whose amazing work for Justice for Women I have long admired, that Les Battersby is using her name to masquerade as a Sun
[tabloid] reporter? And that the Guardian is accidentally printing his column?"
In response to the complaints, the Guardian editor wrote that the newspaper received about 200 letters, and noted that international lobbying did not account for all of these, and that most condemned the views expressed in the column, the Guardian for publishing it, and the illustration accompanying it. Twelve of the letters were complaints. He said, "Dismay at the piece was registered not only by transsexual people but by doctors, therapists, academics and others involved in the field." Referring to her as "a lesbian activist for the rights of women and children [ ... ] a rare kind of writer who puts her money where her mouth is," he explained that Bindel understood that there were problems with the way the article was written. He echoed the sentiments of one therapist in concluding, "This column, which obscured any argument in discriminatory language, [...] abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."
Bindel expressed her views about transsexualism and reassignment surgery three years later in the context of psychiatrist Russell Reid's censure by the GMC due to his care of some transsexual patients. Reid was the private psychiatrist who had treated Claudia, and her second Guardian article on this topic followed a series of more than 20 reports in the Guardian focusing on transsexulism, Russell Reid and approaches to treatment from the time of Bindel's first article in 2004, when Reid began to be investigated, and his censure and hearing in 2007. The second article appeared after the results of the hearing were announced, and contained interview material with Claudia, and Bindel's views on reassignment surgery.
In the summer of 2007, Bindel was invited to present her views on transsexual reassignment surgery on BBC Radio 4
's "Hecklers", a series in which someone argues a provocative thesis, and a panel of speakers challenges them. She proposed that "sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation". the panelists who opposed this were Professor Stephen Whittle (Law professor and trans activist), Peter Tatchell (gay activist), Dr. Kevan Wylie (psychiatrist) and Michelle Bridgman (therapist and trans activist). She wrote about her appearance on the show in her column the same day, and summarised her position on transsexualism. On his website, Tatchell endorsed Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," recognising these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he criticises her for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex." A year later, in 2008, Bindel's apology for the 2004 piece was noted by Christine Burns of Press for Change when she interviewed her in 2008, and Bindel repeated her apology for the tone of the original piece.
In autumn 2008 Bindel was nominated for the UK LGB rights organisation Stonewall's
2008 "Journalist of the year" award
. Stonewall's nomination was protested by independent trans and queer
groups. Bindel put out a release via the London Feminist Network, There was a picket of the awards ceremony on 6 November 2008 with mixed support from attendees of the event. Bindel attended, although she did not receive an award. Bindel responded to the protest in a piece in the Guardian which covered the way the LGBT movement had developed since her early days as a radical lesbian feminist. She suggested that the protest was as much about "Stonewall for refusing to add the T (for transsexual) on to the LGB (for lesbian, gay and bisexual).". She detailed her frustration with the bullying tactics of those involved, how she was expected to be part of the LGBTQQI movement, yet was criticised for expressing opinions on trans issues while at the same time being told to be inclusive to trans people and issues, concluding that she wanted nothing to do with it. The protest did not receive mainstream press attention, but was covered in the UK gay press. A spokesperson for the protest confirmed that the protest was about Stonewall rather than Bindel herself: "'We're quite happy to leave her alone,' said Zoe O'Connell from the London TransFeminist Group. 'The protest was very much against Stonewall and not Bindel.'"
Bindel is reported as still maintaining that "people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, 'at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia
work hand-in-hand.'" She argues that "Iran
carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world" that "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact" and that "the idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'." Following the Stonewall protest Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, a trans academic and activist from the USA, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on 12 December 2008. The debate was broadcast live on the internet, but has not been made available as a podcast at the time of writing.
In her November 2008 piece written after the Stonewall protest, Bindel talked about her frustration with being in a movement that insisted she accept trans people, yet resulted in her being criticised whenever she spoke on trans issues. She said that as a longtime active member of the lesbian community she felt uncomfortable with the increasing inclusion of sexuality and gender-variant communities into the expanding LGBT 'rainbow alliance': "the mantra now at 'gay' meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI." "It is all a bit of an unholy alliance. We have been put in a room together and told to play nicely." "I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by 'odd' sexual habits or characteristics." "I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don't tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy." In January 2009 she wrote about the radical lesbian feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, and her desire to return to those values. She concluded with an invitation to heterosexual women to adopt lesbianism, saying "Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it."
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice For Women, which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint.
She is described as a "Marmite
Marmite
Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads: the original British version, first produced in the United Kingdom and later South Africa, and a version produced in New Zealand...
writer", in that readers tend either to love or hate her work, and is a freelance journalist whose work regularly appears in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. She writes non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
including news articles
Article (publishing)
An article is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.-News articles:...
; interviews; as well as columns, reviews and editorial pieces
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
. Her primary areas of interest are lesbian rights, opposition to the sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
, modern anti-trafficking campaigns
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
and defending female victims of domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
. Bindel, who has been involved in feminist law reform campaigns for victims of domestic violence, originally began writing as a way to get the message across to the wider public. Bindel is also openly
Closeted
Closeted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...
lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and has shared her views and been quoted regarding sexual identity
Sexual identity
Sexual identity is a term that, like sex, has two distinctively different meanings. One describes an identity roughly based on sexual orientation, the other an identity based on sexual characteristics, which is not socially based but based on biology, a concept related to, but different from,...
and sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
issues and refers to herself as a political lesbian feminist.
As of 2009 she resides in Crouch End
Crouch End
Crouch End is an area of north London, in the London Borough of Haringey.- Location :Crouch End is in a valley between Harringay to the east, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north, Finsbury Park and Archway to the south and Highgate to the west...
and has written about the area. In August 2010 she entered the Independent's "Pink List" as ninety-eighth of the top 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK.
Early career, activism and research
Julie Bindel was a teenager in Leeds when she became involved in feminism in 1979, through meeting feminists who were then campaigning about sexual violence and the complacency of the police at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter SutcliffePeter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
. "The Yorkshire Ripper case was my reason for becoming a campaigner against sexual violence". Sutcliffe was convicted for murdering thirteen women between 1975-1980. She states, "I was angry, like many others, that the police only really seemed to step up the investigation when the first 'non-prostitute' was killed." Bindel was angry about the police's advice for women to stay indoors although many had jobs which required them to be out after dark; she was also not happy about the police's assertions in 1979-1980 that sex workers were the killer's target even though, from May 1978 onwards, all the victims were not sex workers by trade. Bindel took part in feminist protests against the killings including flyering mock-up police notices for men to stay off the streets for the safety of women. She continued campaigning against sexual violence, and worked as an unpaid feminist activist working for women's rights. In the 1990s she attended London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University , located in London, England, was formed on 1 August 2002 by the amalgamation of the University of North London and the London Guildhall University . The University has campuses in the City of London and in the London Borough of Islington.The University operates its...
as an undergraduate.
In 1990, Bindel was a co-founder of Justice for Women (JFW), a group which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint. "Justice For Women is a feminist organisation that campaigns and supports women who have fought back against or killed violent male partners". They are concerned with issues of mariticide
Mariticide
Mariticide literally means the murder of one's married partner, but has become most associated with the murder of a husband by his wife, as the reverse is given the name uxoricide.In England the punishment until 1790 was to be strangled and burnt at the stake.-Historical:* Laodice I allegedly...
arising from domestic abuse. JFW offer welfare advice, campaign on domestic violence, abused women who kill violent partners, immigration rights, and the dangers women face with the rise of religious fundamentalism. JFW "campaign for changes in the defences to murder so that they encompass and reflect women's experiences of domestic violence."
Bindel's writing on cyberstalking
Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization. It may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or...
, where a victim is humiliated or threatened with unwelcome email messages at work or to professional associates, has been cited by academics. In 2006 Bindel wrote of a personal pact regarding rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and how rape victims are re-victimized by being "identified, vilified and even crimialised." She shared that if she were raped at the time she would likely not report it to the police because of these concerns.
Bindel's activism is reflected in her contribution to research and writing on feminist issues, violence against women, and prostitution; she was a researcher at both Leeds Metropolitan
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds Metropolitan University is a British University with three campuses. Two are situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England while the third is situated in Bhopal, India...
and London Metropolitan
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University , located in London, England, was formed on 1 August 2002 by the amalgamation of the University of North London and the London Guildhall University . The University has campuses in the City of London and in the London Borough of Islington.The University operates its...
Universities, being the assistant director of the research unit on violence and abuse at Leeds Metropolitan. Her writing features in books and reports she has authored, edited, contributed to, or been quoted in, and these are detailed in the bibliography.
Journalism
Bindel's journalistic writing began while she was Assistant Director of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan UniversityLeeds Metropolitan University
Leeds Metropolitan University is a British University with three campuses. Two are situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England while the third is situated in Bhopal, India...
. She was first published by The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper in 1998 concerning prostitution in the UK. According to her writing, the life and death of her friend Emma Humphreys in 1998 led her into journalism. Bindel had campaigned for Emma to be acquitted and released from prison following Emma's conviction for the murder of a violent pimp.
In 2001 she began writing an occasional column for The Guardian, from the start covering gay and lesbian issues, child protection, prostitution and violence against women. From October 2003, her contributions in The Guardian became more frequent, and she wrote about the main themes that concerned her: rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, men who murder women, men who murder partners, child protection, sex offenders, prostitution, gay and lesbian issues, broader LGBT issues including transsexualism and reassignment surgery, human trafficking, sex tourism, women who murder violent men, and lesbian issues. Her style is often controversial. During her time at The Guardian, Bindel also broadened her range of topics to include vegetarianism, Barbie
Barbie
Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration....
, Sylvia Pankhurst
Sylvia Pankhurst
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffragist movement in the United Kingdom. She was for a time a prominent left communist who then devoted herself to the cause of anti-fascism.-Early life:...
memorial, and wrote columns on Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women....
, Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys is a lesbian feminist scholar and political activist, known for her analysis of the history and politics of sexuality in Britain. She is a professor in Political Science at the University of Melbourne in Australia...
and Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
.
In March 2006 The Guardian started the 'Comment is Free' section of its website which encourages the response of readers. Bindel's articles have occasionally received comments in the hundreds, and the focus of her 'hates' that started with vegetarians also encompassed the Arsenal football team, was soon followed by men who rape and abuse women. In 2006 her output increased. Some of her writing has voluminous comments, such as on prostitution (311), rape (352), drug rape (403), women murdered by violent partners (348), transsexualism (203), and LGBT inclusion (374). In January 2009, her espousal of radical lesbian feminism
Political lesbianism
Political lesbianism is a phenomenon within feminism, primarily Second-wave feminism; it includes, but is not limited to, lesbian separatism. Political lesbianism embraces the theory that sexual orientation is a choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for...
attracted the most comments (560) for her writing at that time.
Domestic violence and murder
Bindel's writing on the issue of violence against women in domestic and personal relationships with men has featured in her journalism from the start,and continues to do so.
In 2008 her activism and writing coincided when the issue she had campaigned on for over a decade became the focus of government legislation. Since the death of Emma Humphreys, who she helped to get released from prison, Bindel had sought to get a law changed that had historically protected men and penalised women. If men murdered a partner in the heat of the moment, an appeal to 'provocation' had been admissible in mitigation. Such an appeal was not practical for women trapped in violent relationships, because murders carried out in the context of ongoing subjection to violence tended not to occur in the heat of the moment, but would be often be calculated as a solution which provided an escape from violence. Bindel's campaign against violence against women on the one hand sought to resist the mitigation men could appeal to when partners were murdered, and allow the sustained violence women could be subjected to act as a mitigating factor if they murdered their partner. Harriet Harmen, Minister for Women and Equality, was of a similar mind on this issue, and legislation was proposed that would change the law to this effect. Bindel explained her support for this legislation in her column. Erin Pizzey
Erin Pizzey
Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey is a British family care activist and a best-selling novelist. She became internationally famous for having started one of the first Women's refuges in the modern world, Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971, the organisation known today as Refuge...
, one of the early founders of women's refuges, was critical of the new law, and other newspapers leveled their criticisms at both Harman and Bindel.
Using titles like "Why I hate men" and "Why men hate me", Bindel has discussed her views on men, violence, and the way men relate to women, and what is revealed in their comments about her writing.
Sex work, trafficking and sex tourism
Bindel has written and worked on issues concerning prostitution and sex work since 1998, and this is reflected in her Guardian writing.In 2008 Bindel co-authored a report commissioned by the POPPY Project on British brothels, named Big Brothel (a play on the title of the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
reality TV program Big Brother
Big Brother (UK)
Big Brother UK is the British version of the Dutch Big Brother television format, which takes its name from the character in George Orwell's 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four...
). The report found that unprotected anal sex was available from £10, and penetrative sex from £15, in over 900 brothels operating as legitimate business across every borough in London; many of the premises involved offered "very young girls", but denied any were under age, and many of the women were from Eastern Europe and South East Asia. Bindel wrote about the findings in her Guardian column, describing experiences such as those of a young woman having sex with twenty men a day, and discussed Harriet Harman
Harriet Harman
Harriet Ruth Harman QC is a British Labour Party politician, who is the Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham, and was MP for the predecessorPeckham constituency from 1982 to 1997...
's (UK Minister for Women and Equality) plans to make paying for sex illegal.
The report was criticised by 27 leading academics involved in sex work research, claiming that the report was carried out without formal academic ethical approval, without acknowledgement of existing sources, and co-authored by a journalist with anti-prostitution views. The POPPY project responded that the report was one they produced independently, that the POPPY project was not an academic institution, and because significant media attention was usually lacking in this area of research it was important to provide a counterbalance to the positive media focus on the sex industry.
Transsexualism and transgenderism
Bindel's writings on gender reassignment surgery, transsexualismTranssexualism
Transsexualism is an individual's identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their biological sex. Simply put, it defines a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with their psychological gender...
and transgender issues
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
have upset people in transsexual and transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
communities, particularly the 2004 piece that cast transsexual people as ungenuinely transitioning
Transitioning (transgender)
Transitioning is the process of changing one's gender presentation to accord with one's internal sense of one's gender - the idea of what it means to be a man or woman...
while ridiculing their experiences.
Bindel's first published article on transsexualism was a December 2003 Sunday Telegraph Magazine report; it was the first example of coverage of a narrative of 'transsexual regret' in the UK media. Bindel interviewed 'Claudia', a post-operative transsexual, who regretted her decision to have surgery and felt that the psychiatrist involved did not take sufficient care in reaching a diagnosis. Bindel questioned the medical approach in the article.
A month later a piece, "Gender Benders, beware" was printed in The Guardian concerning her anger about a rape crisis centre's dispute with a transsexual rape counselor; the article also expressed her views about transsexuals and transsexualism. Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transsexual people, doctors, therapists, academics and others. Transgender activist group Press for Change cite this article as an example of 'discriminatory writing' about transsexual people in the press. Complaints focussed on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece, and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease" and "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s [jeans] does not make you a man."
Four responses were published, including one from Julie Hesmondhalgh
Julie Hesmondhalgh
Julie Hesmondhalgh is an English actress.Hesmondhalgh was born in Accrington, Lancashire. As a teenager, she was moderately interested in acting, but wished to become a social worker. She applied to drama school to be with her friends, and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art...
, an actress who played transsexual character 'Hayley' in the ITV soap Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
: "Men in dresses with birds'-nest hair chopping off their meat and two veg in order to enjoy the privileges of using the women's bog or snogging their same sex partner without fear of ridicule?! Can someone please inform the intelligent and compassionate Julie Bindel, whose amazing work for Justice for Women I have long admired, that Les Battersby is using her name to masquerade as a Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
[tabloid] reporter? And that the Guardian is accidentally printing his column?"
In response to the complaints, the Guardian editor wrote that the newspaper received about 200 letters, and noted that international lobbying did not account for all of these, and that most condemned the views expressed in the column, the Guardian for publishing it, and the illustration accompanying it. Twelve of the letters were complaints. He said, "Dismay at the piece was registered not only by transsexual people but by doctors, therapists, academics and others involved in the field." Referring to her as "a lesbian activist for the rights of women and children [ ... ] a rare kind of writer who puts her money where her mouth is," he explained that Bindel understood that there were problems with the way the article was written. He echoed the sentiments of one therapist in concluding, "This column, which obscured any argument in discriminatory language, [...] abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."
Bindel expressed her views about transsexualism and reassignment surgery three years later in the context of psychiatrist Russell Reid's censure by the GMC due to his care of some transsexual patients. Reid was the private psychiatrist who had treated Claudia, and her second Guardian article on this topic followed a series of more than 20 reports in the Guardian focusing on transsexulism, Russell Reid and approaches to treatment from the time of Bindel's first article in 2004, when Reid began to be investigated, and his censure and hearing in 2007. The second article appeared after the results of the hearing were announced, and contained interview material with Claudia, and Bindel's views on reassignment surgery.
In the summer of 2007, Bindel was invited to present her views on transsexual reassignment surgery on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's "Hecklers", a series in which someone argues a provocative thesis, and a panel of speakers challenges them. She proposed that "sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation". the panelists who opposed this were Professor Stephen Whittle (Law professor and trans activist), Peter Tatchell (gay activist), Dr. Kevan Wylie (psychiatrist) and Michelle Bridgman (therapist and trans activist). She wrote about her appearance on the show in her column the same day, and summarised her position on transsexualism. On his website, Tatchell endorsed Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," recognising these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he criticises her for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex." A year later, in 2008, Bindel's apology for the 2004 piece was noted by Christine Burns of Press for Change when she interviewed her in 2008, and Bindel repeated her apology for the tone of the original piece.
In autumn 2008 Bindel was nominated for the UK LGB rights organisation Stonewall's
Stonewall (UK)
Stonewall is a lesbian, gay and bisexual rights charity in the United Kingdom named after the Stonewall Inn of Stonewall riots fame. Now the largest gay equality organization not only in the UK but in Europe, it was formed in 1989 by political activists and others lobbying against section 28 of the...
2008 "Journalist of the year" award
Stonewall Awards
The Stonewall Awards is an annual event to celebrate people who have had a positive impact on the lives of British LGBT people. The event was first held in 2006 at the Royal Academy of Arts and from 2007 were held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.-2006:...
. Stonewall's nomination was protested by independent trans and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
groups. Bindel put out a release via the London Feminist Network, There was a picket of the awards ceremony on 6 November 2008 with mixed support from attendees of the event. Bindel attended, although she did not receive an award. Bindel responded to the protest in a piece in the Guardian which covered the way the LGBT movement had developed since her early days as a radical lesbian feminist. She suggested that the protest was as much about "Stonewall for refusing to add the T (for transsexual) on to the LGB (for lesbian, gay and bisexual).". She detailed her frustration with the bullying tactics of those involved, how she was expected to be part of the LGBTQQI movement, yet was criticised for expressing opinions on trans issues while at the same time being told to be inclusive to trans people and issues, concluding that she wanted nothing to do with it. The protest did not receive mainstream press attention, but was covered in the UK gay press. A spokesperson for the protest confirmed that the protest was about Stonewall rather than Bindel herself: "'We're quite happy to leave her alone,' said Zoe O'Connell from the London TransFeminist Group. 'The protest was very much against Stonewall and not Bindel.'"
Bindel is reported as still maintaining that "people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, 'at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
work hand-in-hand.'" She argues that "Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world" that "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact" and that "the idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'." Following the Stonewall protest Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, a trans academic and activist from the USA, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on 12 December 2008. The debate was broadcast live on the internet, but has not been made available as a podcast at the time of writing.
Lesbian feminism, gay and lesbian
Bindel began writing about lesbian issues as a radical lesbian feminist before her entry into journalism; her time with the Guardian saw her interest on lesbian and feminist issues come to include gay issues, scientific theories about sexuality, the way gender roles are taught to children, the cosmetics industry, cosmetic surgery for women, the media portrayal of lesbian chic, and lesbian child-bearing.In her November 2008 piece written after the Stonewall protest, Bindel talked about her frustration with being in a movement that insisted she accept trans people, yet resulted in her being criticised whenever she spoke on trans issues. She said that as a longtime active member of the lesbian community she felt uncomfortable with the increasing inclusion of sexuality and gender-variant communities into the expanding LGBT 'rainbow alliance': "the mantra now at 'gay' meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI." "It is all a bit of an unholy alliance. We have been put in a room together and told to play nicely." "I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by 'odd' sexual habits or characteristics." "I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don't tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy." In January 2009 she wrote about the radical lesbian feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, and her desire to return to those values. She concluded with an invitation to heterosexual women to adopt lesbianism, saying "Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it."
Rape
During her time at the Guardian Bindel has begun to write more on issues about rape, such as drug rape and date rape. She is critical of how difficult life is made for women who report rape, how the investigative and legal process ends up with women being dealt with more like the offender than the victim in an environment where some appear to think it is more important to safeguard the rights of men who might be accused maliciously than women who are victims. Bindel responded to the difficulties of reporting and prosecuting rape by saying she would not report it herself, "we may as well forget about the criminal justice system and train groups of vigilantes to exact revenge and, hopefully, deter attacks. Because if I were raped, I would rather take my chances as a defendant in court, than as a complainant in a system that seems bent on proving that rape is a figment of malicious women's imagination." Her writing on rape has appeared in newspapers in the Middle East and India, and her views have been reported by the BBC.Child protection and sex offenders
Bindel has written about child protection issues, the way sex offenders are dealt with and biological theories about what drives sex offenders.Other topics
Bindel has written articles that depart from themes central to her lesbian feminist background, such as vegetarianism, Arsenal, and questioned the point of gender-neutral toilets at the Royal festival Hall, at the expense of one of the women's toilet facilities there.Lesbian feminism
- Bindel J, 'Neither an Ism nor a Chasm', in All the Rage: Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism, Women's Press, London 1996
Domestic violence
- Bindel, J. The Map of my Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys. Astraia Press, 2003 (ISBN 0954-6341-0-1)
- Bindel, J. "Women Overcoming Violence and Abuse: Information Pack on Topics Covered at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship" (Research Paper No. 15, Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan UniversityLeeds Metropolitan UniversityLeeds Metropolitan University is a British University with three campuses. Two are situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England while the third is situated in Bhopal, India...
, UKUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) 1996 - Bindel, J & Fleming, J. Women Overcoming Violence and Abuse: Information Pack on Topics Covered at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship. University of Bradford, Violence, Abuse & Gender Relations Research Unit, 1996
- Bindel, J. "Violence, Abuse & Women's Citizenship: An International Conference, Brighton, UK, 10–15 November 1996" Press Pack, Leeds Metropolitan University Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan University; Published by Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, 1996
- Kelly, L; Bindel, J; Burton, S; Butterworth, D; Cook, K; Regan, L. Domestic Violence Matters: An Evaluation of a Development Project, Home Office Information and Publications Group, 1996
Sex work
- Bindel, J. Profitable Exploits: Lap Dancing in the UK, London, Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit of London Metropolitan University, 2004
- Bindel, J & Kelly, L. A Critical Examination of Responses to Prostitution in Four Countries: Victoria, Australia; Ireland; the Netherlands; and Sweden, Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit of London Metropolitan University, 2003
- Bindel, J. 'Flushing the Johns' Trouble and Strife, No. 38, 1998, pp. 35–36
- Bindel, J. 'Press for Change'; A guide for journalists reporting on the prostitution and trafficking of women, CATW, 2006
- Bindel, J; Atkins, H. Big Brothel - a survey of the off-street sex industry in London, POPPY Project, 2008
Other works
- Griffin, G. Feminist activism in the 1990s pgs 65-78, Taylor & Francis, 1995; ISBN 074840290X
- Plante, R. Sexualities in context: a social perspective; Basic Books, 2006; ISBN 0813342937
- Kinnell, H. Violence and Sex Work in Britain , Willan Publishing, 2008; ISBN 1843923505
- Gupta, R. From homebreakers to jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters; Zed Books, 2003; ISBN 1842774417
- Marsh, I & Melville, G. Crime, Justice and the Media; Taylor & Francis, 2009, ISBN 041544490X
- Anderson, I & Doherty, K. Accounting for Rape Psychology, Feminism and Discourse Analysis in the Study of Sexual Violence; Routledge, 2006; ISBN 0203087542
- Jeffries, S. The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade, Taylor & Francis, 2008; ISBN 0415412331
External links
- Justice for Women (Official site)
- Column archive at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...