On Saturday 11th June, thousands of women and men marched through central London to draw attention to the fact that rape is NOT acceptable, clothing is NOT consent and victims should NOT be blamed. The march and rally that followed in Trafalgar Square were positive, peaceful and presented a united force for feminist good. Sadly, despite making a lot of noise on the day, media coverage of the event has been rather minimal. Reports of numbers in attendance range from ‘hundreds’ in The Telegraph and the Metro (a headline clearly designed to make the protest seem small as the story itself mentions ‘thousands’), to ‘over 4,000’ in The Mirror and ‘over 5,000’ on Londonist. There are some great photos on Demotix that give you an idea of the dedication and strength of the views of many of those in attendance, so it’s a shame that more was not made of this. How can we spread the message if mainstream media get bored and decide they’d rather talk about Formula 1 instead?
UPDATE: It turns out that my protest inexperience was showing. Only violent gatherings make the front page, it would seem. How silly of me to forget.
<< How can we spread the message if mainstream media get bored and decide they'd rather talk about Formula 1 instead? >>
Ah, the eternal question asked by many generations of social, political and environmental campaigners over many generations!
Many groups and individuals turn to more extreme levels of either disruption or attention-grabbing – suffragettes, spidermen, black-bloc, rebel clowns and more…
Sadly, I don't think there's a definitive answer as to how to widen the scope of spreading essential messages, but if you ever find a magic formula, let me know…
love, seani
A very good point indeed! I think I was being a bit naive to assume that a little bit of lingerie would get as much coverage as wondow-smashing, eh?
See, rebel clowns is what Slutwalk needed. Along with, well, everything. 😉