Anna Van Heeswijk - Levenson Recommendation

I thought it would be good to read Anna V's submission to the Levenson Enquiry. Most of it was what you would expect, apart from one recommendation, that I think is absolutely brilliant. Read it for yourself.....

We like the idea that 'groups' could be included as the basis for a complaint, that way groups of people could complain somewhere if they feel they are being victimised or being subject to 'persistent stereotyping' on the basis of their group identity.

We would like to suggest an amendment though, we would like to broaden the scope to include internet websites that are UK hosted, not just print based media. If Anna V's recommendation was adopted the scope could include stuff that appears on websites that persistently stereotype identified groups of people. If this were the case then maybe the dancers and club owners in Hackney would not have to put up again with what appears below, which appeared on a UK hosted website....

....where someone published a feature that made persistently stereotypical comments about the striptease scene, or maybe this....

 ......where someone accused the clubs of facilitating sexual abuse, without contextualising the comment....or what about this........

 .....where someone accused innocent dancers of being trafficked, drug abusers that performed sex acts and someone else made an accusation of assault against club customers that to my knowledge was never reported to the police....

Actually if Anna V's recommendation was adopted, the comments like the one below are unlikely to appeared again....

 Furthermore, dancers would not be blamed for the stalled careers of losers in the City, like this.......

 Finally, dancers wouldn't be objectified as abuse victims.....

But whose website did this come from?

Objects website of course, when Anna V was Campaign Manager.

Its incredible, Anna Van Heeswijk accuses The Sun of content which objectifies women, yet she herself is responsible for content that was arguably far worse....