International Women's Day

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate and thank the noble Baroness for securing it, as it celebrates the victories and challenges that women have faced and are facing across the globe. I congratulate all noble Baronesses on their excellent maiden speeches, which highlight the great contribution that women have made to society.

Over 100 years ago, here in Britain, women fought and died to get the vote, to get their voices heard. In 1955, my dear friend and mentor Lady Lothian, who was fondly known as Tony, co-created the Women of the Year Lunch, to celebrate women's professional achievements. I was proud to be chair of the lunch for five years, and I am pleased to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, now presides over the lunch.

In the 1960s, the feminist, bra-burning, women's lib movement set the scene and signalled the beginning of real change towards equality. Huge advances were made; hard-working women such as my mother and many others made sacrifices for their daughters in order for them to succeed. We are all aware that it has taken longer for some individuals and organisations to embrace change. Nevertheless, real change has been made, and many women have crossed that invisible barrier. They are educated, influential and powerful in many areas of society. But we all know that there are still many women yet to make that quantum leap. Some are facing numerous challenges—of abuse of every kind, trying to keep their families together, watching their sons dying from gun and knife crime and wars. But many have not given up hope; they are fighting back; they are survivors and nurturers. Some have set up projects to change young people's attitudes, and are succeeding.

Despite all this progress, here we are in the 21st century, on the eve of the centenary of International Women's Day, witnessing an avalanche of imagery and media promotion of highly sexualised behaviour by women. Children and young people are being influenced so strongly to believe that fame, riches and happiness can be achieved by using sex as a commodity. We all know that the sexual exploitation of women is ageless but, in recent times, the globalisation of the media—and that includes the internet—has led to an explosion of the sexual objectification of women. Women are being encouraged, paid and enticed to portray themselves in more and more explicit sexual ways, and the media are all too happy to give them the platform to do so. There are even websites where young girls advertise for sugar daddies. I am sad to say women have been commercialised and used both to objectify women and to make money.

Of course, many of the organisations which employ women in this way are owned and run by men. The odd thing is that many of the women involved will argue that they are liberated and free to choose what they do. But I believe there is a strong element of powerful persuasion at work which makes many women consider that this path is the only way in which to become successful, especially nowadays in the pop music industry, where some of the performances and videos are so sexually explicit. Recent studies have shown that many young girls are so heavily influenced by the success of glamour models, footballers’ wives, pop singers and talent show singers that they aspire to join their ranks rather than follow a career in teaching, law, medicine, science or technology. They just want to be rich and famous. Of course, the reality is that glamour, fame and fortune, social gratification and success are rarely the reward.

My main worry is that, while all this is happening, children and young people are soaking up the imagery and accepting the messages and culture they portray as the norm. In the era in which we now live, children and young people are losing their innocence far too early as they are exposed relentlessly to this sex-object culture. I am sure that the valiant women who over the decades fought and sacrificed to win equality and recognition for women's place in society would be appalled by the way in which many women in the 21st century allow themselves to be exploited, degraded and manipulated.

I believe we have opened a Pandora’s box. Things have been taken to the extreme and, sadly, I have no answer as to how we can reverse the trend in the sexual objectification of women, and how to protect our children against its influence. But I do know that the global and domestic challenge is for women to join together and lead the fight against it, and to put frameworks in place to address the problem—to go all-out to promote positive role models, and for women to stop allowing themselves to be exploited by the culture of sexualisation for the sake of their daughters and their granddaughters. If they do not, where will it end?