About Face: The #NoMakeUpSelfie and Digital Fundraising

Screen grab of #nomakeupselfie tagged photos online.

There’s a lot of low hanging feminist fruit that I’m going to bypass in order to talk about the #nomakeupselfie social fundraising campaign that has racked up MILLIONS OF POUNDS in donations for Cancer Research UK. But if you really want to read about that I’m sure there’s hundreds of blogs about pro/anti make up feminist agendas – you’re on your own.

The big question is how did a user-led act of solidarity with friends and relatives dealing with cancer turn from an armchair-activist awareness campaign [which I’m not against] into a funding drive that spawned copycat campaigns by men in make up, or in nothing but a sock, and spread beyond Cancer Research UK into other Big C focused orgs.

Photo-based solidarity action on social media is nothing new. Ribbon overlays and avatar swaps have been sought and given freely to show care for causes and campaigns. But unlike many organization-led campaigns to raise awareness and donations the whole #nomakeupselfie campaign feels led by hearts not organizational direction and it brought in millions of pounds in non-planned, supporter pledges and donations almost as an afterthought.

From the organizational stance what this seems to reflect is a broader understanding of the digital space in both understanding of users/supporters/untapped audience, and responsive marketing in the digital space.

The Back Story

This campaign outline was formed by Breast Cancer Care and Escentual, a cosmetics company, to catalyze support for Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. A quick look at the site for that campaign shows that supporters who joined the campaign in October had struggled to find the momentum that #nomakeupselfie would this year and many failed to reach the $1,000 target set online. So what happened this time? Possibly, some of the contributing factors were that the action was spurred by compassion of the cancer supporter / survivor movement; the language used ran closer to digital native lingo – most people who have a phone know how to selfie; Facebookers were just coming down from the nomination to action template of neknomination.

Digital marketing speaks about emotion catalyzing action all the time – Buzzfeed is all about emotional engagement and sharing – and I can think of no greater reflection of audience need/emotion than one driven by them. This is a huge reminder of why you should always be listening to your audience, whatever your niche.

Selfless Selfies

Good intentions and pure emotion cannot create change alone so to look a little deeper at how the campaign spread we can look at the tools users had to communicate their compassion: the selfie.

The camera is an important first step as it’s the art of the selfie. Anecdotally, if you’re a selfie-taker on any platform you’ll see there’s always a spike in action – determined here as comments and likes – from friends and followers. Georgia Tech & Yahoo Lab researchers back this up with their recently released research on increased engagement for Instagram pictures that feature faces. The idea that ‘Faces are powerful channels of non-verbal communication’ applies across platform so I think we’re safe to roll out an idea that face-centric selfie images also attract more interest and reaction on Facebook & Twitter. Atop of this people making taking part in this action were using platforms like Facebook, which for many will be a hot bed of action for close friends and family increasing the likelihood of shared experiences as cancer sufferers or supporters and survivors of cancer sufferers. This instance is more likely to see friends and family mimic the supportive action, especially when nominated neknomination style. And from there on the circle widens.

And well…

Donations Across the Nations

Of course we’re not talking about just viral shares and awareness which is all very good and a nice thing but doesn’t often help an organization achieve its mission or increase the impact of their work. And really, at the route of all enjoyable, wonderful, awe-inspiring campaigning we should be trying to do those core things.

So, why so many donations? (help, I’m about to drift into feminism) There’s is a certain shame attached to women for ‘showing off” or being ‘vain’ by daring to do whatever #flawless thing they want on camera. Negative comments, Jezebel called selfie culture a ‘cry for help,’ and associations to this visual self-love of oneself is considered so damaging to female mental health and personal appreciation that #365feministselfie is a thing. Luckily, cancer charities found a lovely way to alleviate all that guilt about selfie love and benefit the greater good through penance – this time  small donation to cancer research via sms.

I’m being slightly facetious. But also slightly realistic. Not all the selfies had donation information attached and due to rising consumer understanding of pinkwashing and call-out culture unsupportive inter-friends were quick to ask posters to put their money where their un-lipsticked mouth was. People gleefully paid their penance to take part. And women dominate on social networking platforms giving them an opportunity, whatever their audience size, to make ripples on the web.

But of course #nomakeupselfie wasn’t confined to women on the web and very quickly it became a space for everyone to take part in conversations on cancer and funnel donations to cancer focused organizations. There were very few ways to lose out for supporters or organizations. The campaign was not started by one organization so #nomakeupselfie was open to all cancer focused organizations to co-opt for their campaigning whether it was to get users to take a first step and become an online fan on social media or a first time donor – Cancer Research UK clearly came out on top likely due to quick reactions.

For me it speaks to my true belief that nonprofits benefit most when we work together and share resources and messaging around our health or social justice issues.

But outside the warm glow of success and happiness there are other questions to consider.

How is that big money being spent?
What is the impact of all this money? Everyone loves to play their part in curing cancer but what does that mean in real terms? Dr. Marianne wrote a nice post looking at the fact that ‘cancer is hundreds of diseases’ and education on cancer screening and treatment. Can Cancer Research UK and its peers who have received a funding boost this March capitalize on community growth to increase people’s understanding? As a nonprofit/social justice person I can see a great opportunity for Cancer UK et al to continue their engagement and outreach with the #nomakeupselfie ++ campaigners by providing updates on where those millions of dollars go including: how that money effects staffing, policy outreach, research and education. That’s not only the right way to follow up with donors but a great way to make sure that donors stay with the organization and, best case scenario, increase donations and commitment over time.

Who didn’t the campaign reach?
A cursory look at the selfies accessible online showed a lot of white faces and little else – that could be a sign of problematic outreach for these organizations. In the UK, women of color face poorer outcomes after a cancer diagnosis and Black and minority ethnic women reported feelings of ‘frustration and marginalisation’ due to perceived support and treatment in breast cancer care. You can find this information on specific inequality and minority sections within cancer research sites but a stronger campaign focus on work to tackle discrimination within the health services and improve health outcomes for men and women of color could create a great opportunity for fulfilling organizational mission and growing supporter bases.

Could the campaign success be replicated?
It’s always hard to follow something amazing and it’s impossible to tell if any of the organizations benefitting from the windfall of #nomakeupselfie will be able to engage their supporters into viral sharing and donating action in the future but there are definitely lessons to learn. Organizations need to be ready, when something big starts happening it pays to be waiting with easy ways to catalyze next steps whether that means taking part in an action or making a donation. Everyone needs to be listening to their audience and be open to support and nourish their campaigning efforts even when they’re outside usual working remit. My big one: nonprofit and social justice organizations need to be open to working together with other organizations. We can all take steps to break down the silos and the notion that there isn’t enough money to go around when we share common social justice goals.

This is also a great place to note that Cancer UK is advertising for a new Digital Specialist role in London: https://cancer-research-uk-jobs.tal.net/vx/lang-en-GB/appcentre-3/candidate/postings/1610

National Geographic : Set Video Alight WIth Adults

A National Geographic representative recently commented that the organization has failed to set the world on fire as a YouTube paid subscription partner. Obviously, these are still early days and after the unimpressive results of news organizations generating revenue to return on their deals with YouTube we shouldn’t be amazed but to me, a subscriber, it got me thinking.

The Nat Geo’s subscription offering currently focuses on kids with a $2.99 a month of $3.99 a year plan, Variety notes it’s had limited success. I know about National Geographic’s Kids magazine because every month I receive little paper inserts in my magazine that tell me I could subscribe today. Of course I have no kids but I imagine that if I should know of a kid who needs a gift in the future I should thoughtfully force the subscription on them [job done there NatGeo!] And while I can see the safety and sustainability in a kids channel – from the education market to cultivating future adult subscribers – I feel like they’re missing a trip to engage their avid adult subscribers.

I should come out of the closet as am old fashion print subscriber of three year who waits for the print version of the mag to arrive before delving into the brilliant digital offering side by side. National Gepgraphic’s digital magazine is breathtaking and exciting and the best features are trailed in the magazine. As a subscriber I also receive regular direct mailings and emails from the organization sending me what used to be called “National Geographic Picks” but have now, in best practices of email marketing, been reduced to “NG Picks.”

A Sampling of the email subject lines old to new:
National Geographic Picks of the Week: Active Adventures | Winter Sale | Out of Eden
NG Picks of the Week: Space Exploration | Photos from NASA | Space and Science Gear
NG Picks of the Week: Summer Top Tens | Traveler Photo Contest | Book Sale

The top subject line is from January, the other two from June and July.

Aside from the title change – shifting the focus from the email name to the top picks – the content of the email has also changed and the newer offerings have at least two links to video produced by the organization. One takes prime position in the top right hand corner of the email, embedded into the main ‘pick’ and the other is part of direction to other sections of the site [Books, Art Store, Magazine, Channel.]

The links go through to the videos embedded in the National Geographic skin as opposed to the YouTube page. There was never an explicit sell for the video, there was never a flag waving ceremony to get everyone online interested in visiting the National Georgraphic YouTube page and becoming subscribers.

The organization has amassed 2,822,867 subscribers and 967,831,264 views on National Geographic’s main YouTube account, a further 242, 243 on their NatGeo Wild channel [no data for NatGeo Kids]. There is no telling how many of those subscribers or viewers come from the email offering but I don’t doubt that it could be improved. After all, everything can. So where am I going with this?

Alongside the round-up emails I receive, very regularly, I get two other kinds of emails, sales for NatGeo Traveller [which I’ve never been interested in] and updates on photography competitions [of which I’ve never entered.] And the photography offerings are where I’m going.

A Sampling of the Promotion Email Subject Lines:
Photo of the Month — July 2013
Great Ways to Improve Your Photography with National Geographic’s Best

National Geographic is a visual medium – this is reflected in the magazine, in the brilliant digital presence, in the sheer size of its archive – and they have made their photography a huge part of who they are. Photo competitions, photo of the month, photography classes – the breadth of coverage both to sustain income and to offer a service that their subscribers and supporters want is breathtaking. So why not do the same with video?

It is very likely that adult magazine subscriptions are the main lead for kid’s magazine subscriptions so why not try to mimic that engagement pathway through the video service? There’s also no need to lock everything down under a paid subscription but there are plenty of opportunities to create paid tiers of access learning and build engagement through competitions.

If the bursting letters to the editor section is anything to go by users are only too interested in sharing their opinions and experiences. I imagine there’s a sizeable grant supporting the new partnership programs and I don’t think that National Geographic should be abandoning the very smart, sustainable source of income from NatGeo Kids. However, investing in the excitement and knowledge of their audience should be the prerogative of the community, communications and marketing departments.

So please, National Geographic

#Be more explicit about video, yes it’s front and center in your emails but would teasing it in the subject line welcome more email opens? Or different actions once users click through?

#Play to your strengths, the visual culture the magazine created should be celebrated across all multimedia from how to’s to competition entries. Ask users to get involved!

Alien Concept

All too often people set about wetting their pants over new films and tv programmes and claiming they are creating or proporting to, feminist strong women girls things. Frankly, it’s dull. When something becomes all about proving strong lady credentials everything else goes out of the window. The gender message becomes a point of advertising, the plot seems irrelevent and everyone knows it puts stones in the pockets of the film/programme/whatever as it walks out into the lake unsatisfied with its work.

FACT. All the cool kids want to watch scary films that people pretend are watched by a 90% male audience. Lucky for you my strong point, and it has always been so, is an unhealthy consumption of the sci-fi and horror sectors. And, when I can stop myself mindlessly clapping like a seal infront of them, I like analyzing covert gender messaging. Because sometimes that’s where it matters. When it’s being massaged into our brains without us even noticing.

Case in point, Ridley Scott’s Alien. First let us note – Ridley Scott also brought the world Thelma and Louise and that is a conversation for another post; Ridley Scott is of an advertising background; they made me watch lots of Ridley Scott films at college.

While everyone was barking about the Hunger Games and the supposed portrait of kick ass female leads I found myself getting quietly passive agressive about the analysis lacking Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Why wasn’t she coming up more often? Apart from the massive maternal undertones of the ENTIRE Alien film she was practically androgynous and allowed to exist as the lead without having to play the gender card.

Though, let’s not forget the character was originally written for a man. And it’s worth questioning if that’s why she doesn’t have to undergo any massive gender based violence episode to prove herself, like say in the sequels where her gender and so her weakness has been established. Do you need clarification on the massive maternal undertones? The ship that turns against them is called ‘mother’ and Ripley risks her life letting the Alien into her escape pod to rescue the ships cat, read tiny baby (the librarians and feminists out there know what I’m saying!)

Where am I going with this? Absolutely nowhere, this is my personal blog not a newspaper. I just want to invite you all to consider watching the prequal to Alien, Prometheus, with me and then having a long discussion about the gender journey through the series.

I’ll kick us off by watching Alien and doing a breakdown for you, hopefully with some chum/s. And then I’ll watch Aliens. Etc. Etc.

Good. Then I’ll begin.

Hunger Games Review

Let it first be said that I don’t give a damn about the book. I haven’t read it. I won’t be reading it. I’m not the young adult audience. Good for you if you are.

There were two things I’d heard about the Hunger Games before I’d seen it.

1. This film is rewriting female lead roles for a new feminist generation (I had already dismissed this as bullshit and taken to writing ‘Alien’ and ‘Ripley’ in red food paint on clean windows)

2. It’s not true to the books, fans are disappointed. (considering my lack of interest in the book this is of little relevance)

So I enter with a sense that I may be disappointed. Well, I was not disappointed. In that I was disappointed.

Are you still with me?

I’m disregarding the feminist conversation here just because I can and so my main complaint lays with the fact that the film delivers so many soft blows. Yes, I know it’s for the YA audience but lets just admit they’re all squeeing over much more violent and savvy video games so they can handle a little bit of bad.

This could be a scathing satire on reality TV, but the film passes swiftly over this. The sense of the rich, blood thirsty bourgeois watching on the edge of their seat, dissecting every second Big Brother style would have added much to the drawn out plot. But lets face it Charlie Brooker did this already. Did it in brief but effective time. Did it better. His review of gender politics and the true worth of women in the eyes of the mainstream is better as well.

Here there are no consequences for playing the game. For playing at love to keep the audience interested. For accepting the waxing and the brushing and the tweaking and twirling for the gauche audience. It’s an accepted step to success. Play along. It will all be fine.

The film created multiple outs to keep the stars of the show pure. They didn’t have to kill the good kids, or really anyone. Non-direct violence through wasp dropping. You or me life saving kills. The good kids killed by dogs thrown in last minute or by the bad kiddies. Catnip didn’t have to cross any real lines, find any real strength from within. Her safety was handed to her on a plate time and time again. Her safety secured by men watching over. Saving her life this time only. Or following her around with bleeding hearts.

And it was poorly acted. And shallow. And too slow.

If I’ve ruined this film for you I’ve done you a favour.

A Room Full Of Women’s Work

Last night I went to the CHERYL pop rally party time fun town to welcome the Cindy Sherman retrospective to the MOMA. This post will stray into the ‘that’.

Obviously, the first thing is waves of joy and fun for drinking and dancing and having a man paint your face and rush for a mirror like everything is about to change forever. The second thing, which will be obvious if you’ve been to the retrospective is the waves of women’s work on the wall.

And it’s not just that it’s a huge curated area of the talent of one woman artist, but it’s what the work is saying.

Cindy Sherman’s work is cloak and dagger feminism. From the movie stills that I remember best from art books at University to the most recent aging beauties, Sherman’s work explores what it is at heart to be a woman. To be defined through observation, consumed through media machine images and judged through a slim light of six or seven stereotypes. But it’s fun. It’s so fun that everyone wants to come and bask and enjoy and experience.

While at a critical level the f-crew can take much from the work it’s an entry point to identity politics for everyone, because who doesn’t like dressing up?

I was taken with Cindy Sherman at University, as I’m sure swathes of women are, and the final photo piece I produced led to me being dubbed ‘this year’s Cindy Sherman’. Pretty reductive, but I was never really offended by it. And if you’re leaving University with the knowledge of identity creation and a reaffirmed sense of self, well, it can’t be that bad.

By the way, somebody stole the entire picture set before I could get it back. So. Thanks, Lincoln.

But back to the point.

For me, Cindy Sherman provides a map and compass to navigate the increasingly cruel nature of multimedia, paparazzi clusterfucking of women who are in turn too thin, too fat, too irregular, too old, with the wrong hair, the wrong shoes, the wrong clothes. In isolation the images can be quite disturbing, graphic now in their caked make up and wet eyes but en masse, as they can be found at the MOMA, a narrative breaks out. A reflection of the everyday — from the National Portrait Gallery to trashy magazine spreads — heightening sense and perception of manipulation or the lack of manipulation.

It’s reassuring and relieving. The humour numbs and removes the pain of the clumsy reduction of women in the everyday – whether  by the press or self inflicted through posing and fawning for Facebook or wherever it is people collect their pictures in these modern times.

Anyway. I enjoyed it.

Slack Activism Doesn’t Lead to Social Inertia

Ah, twitter, fire in the belly of many issues.

Today I accidentally stumbled into an article-launched conversation on clicktivism (also known as slacktivism). I hadn’t read the article in question so I was very much just shooting wild with opinions which was fine but lost much of the broader argument.

The conversation stemmed from an article on AdBusters – the future of clicktavism – an article broadly looking at the negative impact of heavily targeted clicktavist sites like 38 Degrees and change.org, sites that ask for minimum participation in national and international outrage.

I’m not unfamiliar with these sites – as a feminist and a socially aware and active person – and I’m certainly critical of sites that appear to have little interest in picking their battles in favour of drawing momentary outrage into a spreadsheet of information.

As a woman obsessed with return on investment I am flummoxed by the lack of data from these type of sites making runaway successes seem like flukes and the notion of long term engagement an overlooked important piece of information – in the fact that I’ve seen no public data on the subject, not that I’ve been directly looking but my eyes and mind cast a rather wide net.

And so we come to the article, a question of the positive and negative impact of the growing rage of clicktavism. The article in discussion slams the ever more targeted contact in massaging people into action – a/b testing (that is to trial two versions of one message to determine the most effective route for interaction) seemingly championing the broad strokes of emotive generic heartstring language of yore direct marketing campaigns.

I find trouble with this assertion that somehow the broad sweep of compelling language was unproblematic – that somehow the efficient form of trial and error now in play is somehow an abhorrent gaming of emotions rather than the same data management over a shorter period of time laughable. This is how many nonprofits, development and marketing departments operate to effectively engage users — whether in donations, letter writing campaigns, votes or physical attendance to events.

This activity does not neutralize dissent, but perhaps it is not the anarchic coming to the table kind of activism that AdBusters ed. thinks could exist.

In what appears to be little more than an advert for one activist event — #occupywallst, a movement following the Bloomsbergville, a thrown together political camp of about 50 people max off Broadway in New York, an occupation you can sign up to via their facebook event page — this article denounces a system that has likely drawn many people into taking their first action to raise their voice for something they believe in.

I would say it’s a hard charge to ask many people to step into full on activism and occupation of a tourist spot in a big city when they may have never even considered door stepping for their political candidate. I really do believe that the conversion from signatuer to engaged citizen must be higher than those large requests on the innactive citizen.

I also believe that any positive progression from click/slacktivist behaviour to engaged activist is cushioned and cultivated in well kept databases and direct marketing based on what the email sender/action requester knows about the user — a personalised approach to action. It may have much in common with marketing and advertising done so well by capitalist organizations but this is also the lifeblood for many nonprofits and charity groups fighting to keep their head above the water and to match their supporters with the niche causes and concerns of their lives.

Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

So, I’m reading this. I’m reading it because when my mother visited me in New York we passed by a tree of heaven and my mother mentioned a Tree Grows in Brooklyn and how it had been my grandad’s favourite film. And I don’t remember an awful lot about my grandad because he died when I was very young so it was nice too know something else about him.

By chance, after my mother left for home, I was striking around a jumble sale in greenpoint and I noticed this book. I paid twice what that the lady asked for it – I mean she only asked for 50c but i’m telling you to add colour. I thought it was brilliant luck.

I planned to send it to my mother but I couldn’t bear to send it without knowing what it was that made this story so special to someone from my family.

So I picked it up and started to read it. It’s so old that the pages crumble in the breeze of air that precedes a train on the subway or when my fingers fumble over pages desperate to read the next page. I’ll be sending it to my mother with the cover torn off and the first page taped on.

It’s a briliant book. It’s set in Williamsburg near where i’m living now. It’s about immigration, class, family, poverty. It’s told through the eyes of a young girl as she moves through childhood into the adult world. There’s the hungry love of christmas that I inherited from my own father. There’s the books put in my hands when they weren’t big enough to hold them. Ok it was paddington bear not shakespeare but whatever.

I haven’t finished it yet. I’m worried that it will crumble into dust before I finish it. Or perhaps even after my mother has finished it. Someone with more of a dreamers heart might connect that to some sort of ethereal connection between memories death and reality i’m putting it down to the nature of paper and time. Something google + may know nothing about.

Review: East River Ferry

Day 1. Took my boat to work. It is great.

Day 2. Who are these other people on my boat? Stop taking pictures of every bridge, sit down shut up.

Day 3. Reality arrives. Children. This is when they bring the children, when they know it’s safe after two days of journeys. Despite people’s belief this is safe the Greenpoint landing is still being finished by workmen every day and we’re all treated to a light show in the way of welding a special chain to gate.

Day 4. Earlier ferry than normal for work reasons. Different crowd. A kind of cool air of desperation drifts over from the northbound ferry as we pass it — are we going to a place they long forgot or are they going somewhere they’ll never return from.

Day 5. Early again. The only real threat of rain today but I brave it out by not only sitting on a slightly damp bench on the deck but not minding when the rain starts spitting at me.

I take the ferry home for the first time and have to queue in the most real queue I’ve seen all week. Bad weather means I can still get a place on the deck but bad weather also means I have to go sit inside after we hit Brooklyn Bridge, we can’t see through the fog up ahead on the river and the sun is burning behind us like armageddon — it is a sign that I shouldn’t bother with the ferry this weekend because it will be like the end of the world.

End of Week One Review

Riding the ferry to work is 100 times better than taking the subway, particularly because to get to where I work I have to change once or twice and stare into the dead eyes of my fellow travellers. My journey on the ferry not only includes the breeze in my face and the soft rolling of being on a boat but it boasts an incredibly short journey to my office. Will I take it again next week? OF COURSE I WILL IT’S FREE! But the week after? I doubt it — $140 a month is a bit rich for me particularly when the landings are so few and I will have to frequent the subway still.

If I have one problem it’s that there is little order at the Greenpoint Pier, no queue, it’s like the start of a race and I don’t need that kind of competitive pressure before 10am.

Google News Scanning

Now that’s over. What does that mean!! !What does it mean!!!!

Wait, libraries collect newspapers.

Panic over.

Rape Culture in Britain. A rant.

The media has been full of all kinds of head-hitting-wall style ignorance around rape and rape culture recently and I’ve finally hit the moment when most people would turn into the Hulk, but naturally I turn to blog.

There are lots of myths that surround the idea of rape which lead to under reporting, under prosecution and lack of support for those who find themselves reporting rape.

Nadine Dorries has been creating a shitstorm primarily by speaking her dangerous ideas about abstinence led sex education and “just say no” mantra to young women only — placing the protection of the pudenda firmly in the hands of young virginal maidens. It’s easy to feel dismissive of her frankly outdated and dangerous ideas [please see: America’s youth ruined by abstinence only sex ed] but when she came out with the shiny shiny gem that if more girls just said knew to say no that “we’d probably have less sex abuse” then it’s time to get serious. And people have been — here  and here.

You see the idea that it is women’s lack of resistance to abuse and rape is the problem is the problem. If any woman had just drank less/not put themselves in such and such position/dressed more appropriately/been better educated then rape and abuse wouldn’t happen. Right? Because men wouldn’t just go around raping people? Because family members wouldn’t abuse, ex boyfriends wouldn’t threaten and rape………

Sticking to parliament Ken Clarke really surpassed himself on the radio making the case for different kinds of rape [he’s now being called to resign in what looks more like a political play than an actual interest in addressing the dire fact of rape in the system]. A quick run through the facts — statutory rape isn’t rape because youth who cannot give informed consent due to their age and lack of experience probably wanted it anyway, and that date rape isn’t that bad (I assume he’s thinking along the lines of girls who accept the dessert after the meal); that real rape is done by a stranger where the bruises and cuts signify your innocence, the only thing that could in what still appears to be a blameless crime.

A crime that is committed by men — not all of you obviously but it is in the majority a male crime — is a blameless crime. Women are the victims but also the cause in the eyes of many, perpetrators are apparently just as innocent as a knife or a gun just the tool with which the act was committed.

And then the SlutWalk’s. A rally for people who want to confront the system that says women defend yourself, women prove your innocence: a system that sees women who report rape as accusers and in the case of Canada [and not only Canada I can assure you]“sluts”. A crime that sex workers never get to report, or if they do are never good enough victims to get passed rolled eyes of police staff [I have witnessed this]. A rally that has to some been reduced to a discussion about language, missing the point entirely that however they’re doing this young women decided to protest the lack of support in the system to end violence against women and that other young women thought — hey I could protest that too. The kind of good virus you want to catch that we should be using to foster productive conversation about changing rape culture and moving women of all colours, religions, backgrounds off the bottom rung of the ladder.

We know this is fucked up right? You know right? If you don’t know this what are you doing reading this? I can’t teach you anything I wrote this is 20 minutes before work.