Grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation has released its annual ‘Crossed Off’ list.

First launched 15 years ago, the blacklist is a curated line-up of company offenders who have objectified women and sexualised girls to sell products and services through the year.
 
This list serves as a guide for consumers who wish to spend their Christmas shopping dollar ethically. 

Guest post by Professor Cordelia Fine

Originally published on LinkedIn.

What are your views on women? Apparently, according to some, they should be:

bound, gagged, naked, treated as animals, degraded, humiliated and subordinate. Women exist to be used then thrown out with the rubbish.

That's a neat summary, from a petition by Collective Shout, of the images on t-shirts being sold by TeePublic, owned by Melbourne based parent company Articore.

"Men can dress up as the men who beat, rape, abuse and murder vulnerable women and girls in the sex trade as though it is just a bit of fun or a laugh – enabled by you."

Back in July, we exposed craft and fabrics store Spotlight selling pimp costumes that trivialise male violence against women and girls in the sex trade.

The retailer has failed to respond – even after we contacted Head Office by phone and email multiple times, and even after we published the account of a sex trafficking survivor who outlined how these products normalise the sexual exploitation of women.

It appears Spotlight has made a conscious decision to continue to sell misogynistic pimp costumes in their stores.

We’ve called on our thousands of supporters around the country to boycott Spotlight until they stop selling these products.

Collective Shout supporter Alice alerted us to crafts and fabric store Spotlight selling Pimp costumes.

Pimps control women and girls in commercial sexual exploitation, often through physical violence and abuse. They sell vulnerable women and girls to other men for paid sexual abuse and take a cut (or all) of their earnings.

Violence against women takes on the form of a bonding ritual amongst groups of men who put what they have viewed in pornography into practice.

Guest post by Dr Em

Originally published at Uncommon Ground Media

A court has heard how Footballer Mike Emery raped a sleeping woman twice in one night and sent naked photos of her to his teammates asking them: “Anyone want a go?” Emery sent these photos of his alleged rape victim with a laughing emoji ‘to two WhatsApp group chats, comprising 70’ men. They did not go to the police, or call for help, instead, one man responded 'Show us her gash', to which ‘Emery allegedly sent a photograph showing the woman's vaginal area’. Emery’s victim only found out about the intimate photos of her he had shared with all of these men after Warrington Rylands club chairman Mark Pye informed her. A jury found Emery not guilty, because, one presumes, this is seemingly normal behaviour. Indeed, it is happening frequently. A different footballer and a different rape made the headlines again in 2024 as the former Man City and Real Madrid player Robinho was ordered to be jailed in his home country after he was found guilty of taking part in the gang rape of an Albanian woman celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Milan nightclub. A court in Milan had stated that Robinho had acted with "special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated”.

We are grateful for the opportunity to provide input into the Special Rapporteur’s report on violence against women and prostitution.

Emergency national cabinet meeting tomorrow must address porn as a driver of violence 

In response to a rising tide of violence against women – including a spate of recent homicides - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said we need to “change culture” if we are to prevent this violence. He has called an emergency meeting of State Premiers and Chief Ministers tomorrow to respond to the crisis.

It’s no secret that mainstream porn is dominated by male violence and aggression against women. A report by the French equality watchdog last year found that as much as 90% of porn features verbal, physical and sexual violence towards women, and a significant amount constituted torture. 

As porn has become more mainstream, its messages – that violence against women is sexy, and women desire and enjoy violence and abuse – have seeped into mainstream popular culture. Strangulation or ‘sexual choking’*, an act of violence that has been popularised in porn, has become so normalised it is referenced and promoted in advertising, TV, social media, popular songs and on clothing – even for babies.

Last month we launched our campaign against online apparel company, Teepublic, who is selling harmful and degrading clothing, including onesies for infants, with slogans glorifying violence against women and exploitation of children. 

I'm fairly certain there's minimal moderation happening on Aus owned @TeePublic. Slogans encouraging sexual assault of infants? @BraveheartsInc @AusChildhood @Child_Wise @AnneHollonds @mike_salter @TeamCarlyCRF @DanielMorcombe @ActforKids @icmecauofficial @TheCybercop1 @MCG58 pic.twitter.com/ohyTyrRIR5

— Coralie Alison (@CoralieAlison) February 26, 2024

The following day TeePublic responded claiming they had removed the identified items from their platform however we found hundreds more still up. We continued to call them out on social media requesting they do a full investigation and remove all harmful products depicting violence against women and child abuse. 

Five days later, I decided to purchase one of the onesies to test whether TeePublic would in fact produce the products and ship it. Well guess what just arrived in the mail.