Rape Culture: We're soaking in it

NB:  These points may already have been made, and made well, elsewhere. I've been largely keeping away from the Roast Busters stuff as I have other stuff going on currently that leaves me in a bad place to be dealing with that.  Hopefully this adds to the discussion, and the progress we MUST make, rather than just being a repetition.  Strong content warning for sexual violence.

Roast Busters is not new.  It is not some heinous development in human history.  Human history IS Rape Culture.  Rape Culture is a norm of centuries' duration we are trying to change, to overcome.  Well some of us are, anyway.

Rape Culture seems particularly bad right now because you are all seeing it.  It was there all along, so saturating us that it is the air we breathe.

Rape Culture is a society where the first things many people will consider when they hear of a rape include role of alcohol consumed by victim, role of clothes worn by victim, lack of parental supervision of victim,
instead of the reprehensible actions of the rapist.

Rape Culture is a society where victim blaming happens constantly.  Where female friends of the rapists speak out in the media to deny the accusations on their behalf.  Where those female friends may have been raped too, in the same circumstances as those they deny, and they can't face that they were raped too, because that is just too hard to deal with.*

Rape Culture is a society where a public health promotion agency deliberately uses fear of rape to scare women into drinking less alcohol, in the process promulgating a number of really really super unhelpful myths about rape and passing them off as truth.

Most women (and I suspect many men) have rape stories; their own, or those of others who have shared with them, things they have seen, things they themselves have done.  For me they are the stories of others, or near misses, but the chance that I will be raped at some point in my life is really very high - 1 in 4 women and girls in New Zealand have had that awful dehumanising experience.  I read once that 1 in 5 New Zealanders have asthma.  Amongst women being a victim of rape is more common than being asthmatic.

And we don't need more research actually.  There is a whole lot.  I'm not well placed to link, but Scube did, and I'm sure others have heaps of good links they can provide in comments.

What we need is more action.  More action by the State.  NGOs, individuals, groups formal and informal all do what they can, but they do not having the resources, the status or the longevity of central government.  We know enough to act; act effectively, efficiently and make a real difference.  Yet we don't.

We don't when we are the Government.  We don't when we are the Police.  We don't when we are people of high profile with significant media platforms.  Denial is a way of coping, I guess, because otherwise we have to accept that what we did to others could have been rape, what others did to us was rape, what we didn't stop happening to someone we love was rape.  What we allow and even encourage is Rape Culture.

We're soaking in Rape Culture, and it makes it hard to see.  When these moments come we must examine our complicity while we still can, so that once this case has faded we can still see the edges of our own enabling, and stop.



*  I have seen this happen first hand, and have no knowledge that this is at all the case in the Roast Busters situation.

Quick hit: Here we go again - no drinkeez for the ladeez

From the Herald website, women are attacked in Dunedin and apparently their alcohol intake is the culprit, not the people who assaulted them:

[Senior Sergeant] Aitken said woman needed to take care when out drinking in town.

"All we can do is warn people, and advise people, to look after their personal safety.

"To be aware of what they are drinking, or how much they are drinking, and be able to look after themselves...

"Be aware of where you are and what you are doing at all times," he said.

At least he said "people" not girlies I guess?

Not a big fan of the Herald's title for this article either:

Alcohol warnings after women attacked in Dunedin

Salt inserted in wounds

Here at the Hand Mirror there have been numerous words written about Alac's recent set of advertisements that blame drunk women for getting raped.

Apparently this advertisement won some sort of industry award.

Sigh.

Same shit, different channel

The Queensland Government has pinched another great Kiwi idea, blaming women for getting raped while under the influence of the demon booze. Hmm wonder where they got that idea?

Thursdays in Black re-launch

Today I went to a forum organised by AUSA to mark the re-launch of Thursdays in Black, a campaign that was a Big Deal when I was at university at the end of last century.

The catch-phrase of the campaign has long been "demanding a world without rape and violence" and it seems to me that it's as relevant today as it ever was then. Incremental change is happening, and in many ways it was heartening to see so many people say "It's Not OK" when the story about Tony Veitch broke. But if we want that improvement to keep happening we are going to have to keep up with the demands. Thursdays in Black is one way of keeping the issues visible; by wearing black on Thursdays you stand in solidarity with those who have been victims of violence, and with those who are working to end it.

My speech is after the fold, for those who are interested, although it's probably old stuff to those who have been following the Lisa ad saga (which is what I was asked to talk about). Anyone who is present will notice it isn't exactly what I said, but as it's the first time I've actually written a speech rather than just tried to stick to bullet points I'm relieved I didn't wander more! Thanks to Sophia Blair (Education Vice President) for inviting me, to Sophie Klinger (the Women's Rights Officer) for MCing, and to all those involved in organising the forum for their hospitality. They are intending to set up a Thursdays in Black campaign group at the University of Auckland, so I hope we can feature some of their events and activities here in the future.



Kia ora koutou, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. About a decade ago, when I was at university and involved in AUSA, I used to help out a little with Thursdays in Black and I’m really glad to see it is being re-launched.

Sophia, the Education VP, asked me to speak today about ALAC’s Lisa advert, which a number of us blogging at The Hand Mirror have been pretty concerned about.

For those who aren’t familiar with the ad it shows a young woman having a few drinks with workmates to relax, a few drinks turns into a lot, she dances in a rather uncoordinated fashion in a bar, and finally she almost falls out of the door of the bar, into the stereotypical dark alley, where she is bundled up and carted away by a man we’ve seen watching her earlier. We see her struggle and protest and then the ad fades to black, with the message “it’s not the drinking, it’s how we’re drinking.”

I have three major concerns about the Lisa ad:

1. First up, it perpetuates rape myths – it reinforces the erroneous, yet common, stereotypes that rape happens in dark alleys, and that you are most at risk from an opportunistic stranger. In fact we know that rapists usually know their victims, are often already in an intimate relationship with them, and that rape is most likely to happen in the home of the victim or the rapist. Rape myths are one of the key barriers that survivors of sexual violence face when it comes to reporting the assault to the police, and to seeking support from family and friends, particularly when the person they are accusing is within that circle of family and friends.

2. Secondly the ad also continues the incredibly harmful idea that victims of rape bear some responsibility – the slippery slope that has at root the concept “she was asking for it.” The latest way to say this without explicitly stating it seems to be to use the term “sexual vulnerability” or “putting yourself at risk of harm”.

Here’s an example that my co-blogger Anjum Rahman found in the Waikato Times yesterday, in regard to a rape in Hamilton recently:

Mr Hermann said any sexual assault was horrifying, but the pure callousness of the man's actions had stumped police. "It's not as though she has put herself in a vulnerable position by say, walking home late at night after a few drinks, where you could consider your chances (of being attacked) are higher. You would think a staff member working early on a Sunday morning would be okay ... we're just appalled."

Mr Hermann is a CIB detective sergeant. And what I find appalling is that a member of the police would publicly say this, and send the message that some rape victims are more worthy than others.

3. The third area of concern in relation to the Lisa ad is something that’s only become apparent through the correspondence with ALAC. After initially getting a fob off standard response from Gerard Vaughan the CEO, I sent in a list of questions to him, which the readers of The Hand Mirror helped to draft, and after some time I received a lengthy response, which didn’t answer all the questions, but did shed some significant light on ALAC’s thinking around the conception of the ad.

Here is Mr Vaughan’s response to queries about the brief given to the advertising agency by ALAC:

“The objective of the commercial is behaviour change. Research asked women to identify their single biggest fear about binge drinking. The biggest fear to emerge was sexual vulnerability. We could not ignore this finding given that this consequence was the most likely to engage our female audience and had the potential to reduce the incidence of binge drinking among our female target audience. “

Now I tend to think that if you surveyed any group of women about their fears, rape would be pretty high on the list, regardless of their drinking behaviour. Mr Vaughan also stated that “the end goal is that women like Lisa will drink moderately in the future.”

At first I thought my reading of all this was incorrect. I thought I was being a bit paranoid in interpreting this as basically saying “We found that women fear rape, we want to stop a target group of women from binge drinking, therefore let’s use the fear of rape to scare them into complying.” But that’s how many of the readers of The Hand Mirror took it too.

Putting aside the issue of whether ALAC is being a bit wowser-ish, it does seem a bit like they don’t really care about any collateral damage that their advert might cause. That it might be triggering for women who have been sexually assaulted; that the focus groups they ran where they asked people to talk about the ad in groups of three might have been unsafe environments for women who had been raped and felt at fault because they were drunk; that the ad itself could perpetuate harmful myths about rape and sexual violence, and make life harder for victims. The aim of getting the target group to drink moderately in the future seems to trump any of these concerns.

I could go on and on about this, there are a whole lot of other bits and pieces that worry me about ALAC’s response to criticism of the Lisa ad. And I’m going to shamelessly promote our blog for a moment here – we have a whole category on this, titled The Lisa Advert Chronicles, if you are interested in following the whole saga to date. There’s also an online petition that’s been set up, and a Facebook group, and you can find those at thehandmirror.blogspot.com.

I’m glad we’ve raised our concerns with ALAC, and I’m particularly glad that the CEO has stated that they will involve organizations like Rape Crisis at an earlier stage of the process next time (this time they only showed them the completed ad a few days before it went to air, when it was too late to change it). I’m considering what we might do next, and whether to try to get the issue up in the media. It’s been a slow process so far, partly because all of us at The Hand Mirror have day jobs which consume much of our time.

But it’s really important that when we see something like this, something that doesn’t help eliminate rape and violence, but actually harms people, that we speak out. Often we are going to run up against the kind of bureaucratic walls that I’ve struck, and it gets frustrating, and it gets depressing. And that’s where we need to work together and support each other.

Because each time we say to an organization like ALAC, this is not OK, you need to think harder about the way you portray sexual violence, hopefully it does start to wash away that mindset that blames victims for the violence they suffer.

Thanks.

look at that, it's catching...

well, while are still not getting over the alac ads (for good reason), there is this little gem from the police today, in relation to a vicious sexual assault that happened at a hamilton service station:


Mr Hermann said any sexual assault was horrifying, but the pure callousness of the man's actions had stumped police.
"It's not as though she has put herself in a vulnerable position by say, walking home late at night after a few drinks, where you could consider your chances (of being attacked) are higher. You would think a staff member working early on a Sunday morning would be okay ... we're just appalled."

so, "put herself in a vulnerable position" is the new way of saying she "asked for it". note that the mr hermann in question is a hamilton CIB detective sergeant. i don't want to pick on him in particular, as i suspect this may be a common way of thinking where he works. But there is so much wrong with this statement, and the source it's coming from is pretty scary.

presumably the police know that a significan number of sexual attacks happen to women in their own homes, and are committed by persons known to them. you would think? and a lot of them happen in hotel rooms and and other places that can't be classified as "walking home at night". that information would be available to them, right?? wouldn't it???

but the way he has framed his words makes it sound like walking home late at night is now a crime. putting yourself in a vulnerable position, and thereby wasting valuable police time by pretty much asking to be attacked. naughty women. i wonder if mr hermann has seen the alac ads. i wonder if they have influenced his thinking. because it seriously does sound like it.

so, um, do we make some kind of formal complaint to the police? would it be worth the effort? or maybe it would be better to call mr hermann and have a quiet chat about things. i'd really appreciate some guidance here.

Official Responses - Part II

It's taken me ages to write about the ASA decision on ALAC's Lisa ad. I guess because I find it depressing, to be honest. And when I did make a start today I looked up to see if the decision was online yet, and it isn't, and I'm not supposed to blog it until it is.

So at this point I'm just going to say that the ASA found that there was no case to proceed, and I'll write more when they release the decision to the media (at which point it will also be online).

In the meantime I need to decide whether or not to make an appeal. I've got a couple of days to do that, and ultimately whether or not I do write to them for a fourth time will depend mostly on how much time I have to pen something before the deadline. Who knew having a baby would interfere so much with blogging?!

---

In regard to the most recent response from Gerard Vaughan (CEO of ALAC) which I blogged about last week, my initial response was very similar to commenter tussock, who wrote:

So, their logic is as follows.

1: Some women binge drink, particularly single women from 25-40. They're being paid to reduce the incidence of that.

2: Women fear being raped.

3: If they make the entirely false connection that binge drinking women are natural targets for rapists, women will fear binge drinking.

4: It worked, so they fulfilled the terms of their contract.

To whit; ALAC are using women's fear of rape, which it's pretty safe to assume is not a fear only found in the target demographic, in a cynical and calculated manner, regardless of how it might impact on women who have been raped who are viewing the ad, or indeed societal attitudes towards women who are raped when they have been drinking. Either that or ALAC just don't get the simple research principles about correlation and causation.

I found this thought so repugnant and so wrong that I thought I must surely be reading Vaughan's response incorrectly, in some paranoid hyper-feminist manner. I turned my mind away from it because it is a bit too hard to think that an agency charged with educating people about safer drinking behaviour could be so oblivious to the harm they might do in other areas with their social advertising. So to have tussock pick up on it too, well I'm starting to wonder if maybe I was overly paranoid about being paranoid.

What do you think, dear readers?

---

Finally, a post from Lita on this whole fandango, which I'm pretty sure I hadn't linked earlier (sorry Lita).

Official Responses - Part I

It's been a bit quiet on the Lisa advert front in recent weeks. I'd been waiting, waiting, waiting, for replies from both ALAC (to this) and the ASA (to this), and was starting to think I'd have to send some polite reminders. Certainly the focus here has been elsewhere in the last month, with first the abortion stuff, then the Veitch stuff, and of course all the other bits and pieces that are of interest to us all on an ongoing basis.

Then on Monday this week I received an email from Gerard Vaughan. Gerard Vaughan I thought to myself, who is that, name rings a vague bell... I was about to consign it to the spam folder (and curse Xtra yet again for failing to eficiently weed out those annoyances) but luckily I didn't, and thus I can bring you the CEO of ALAC's response to the email I sent back in June with a whole host of questions for the organisation who brought us the Lisa advert:

Dear Julie,*
I apologise for the delay in answering your questions. I have been out of the office for much of June. I hope the following answers your questions.

1. Conception
The advertising agency ALAC used was Clemenger BBDO in Wellington.

The brief they were given was to:

• Get adult New Zealanders (in this case women aged 25 - 40 no kids)
• Who binge drink and think it's harmless fun
• To realise what it could cost them
• By understanding that drinking past the point of no return, could take me somewhere ugly
• Like this: not judgemental but direct, honest, gritty.

The objective of the commercial is behaviour change. Research asked women to identify their single biggest fear about binge drinking. The biggest fear to emerge was sexual vulnerability. We could not ignore this finding given that this consequence was most likely to engage our female audience and had the potential to reduce the incidence of binge drinking among our female target audience.

2. Content
The target audience for this particular commercial was women without children 25 - 40 years. They are a group which fetures heavily in binge drinking statistics (both in NZ and globally). To get the message across to this audience requires relevance, therefore the story needed to be told from a woman's perspective. At no stage was it considered to tell the "man's story" with regard to his drinking.

ALAC based the Lisa ad on research. Discussions took place within 60 mini focus groups (three participants plus facilitator) in a sample of locations - Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Gisborne. Participants were 25 - 60 years old, gender balanced, and a mixture of socio-economic groupings, with/without children, single or living in a permanent relationship. The mini focus groups seperately comprised NZ Europeans, Maori, Pacific Peoples and Asians. Filtering at recruitment identified Binge Drinkers and Moderate Drinkers.

The take-out message of the ad is not around the man's drinking behaviour. This commerical needs to get women who binge drink and think its harmless fun, to realise that drinking past the point of no return can make someone vulnerable to serious harms.

For a commerical to be effective it needs to be single-minded in nature. The commercial is intended to make women like Lisa think "I recognise that type of drinking - oh my God, that could happen to me." The end goal is that women like Lisa will drink moderately in future.

After development of the ad a further round of focus groups was to ensure the take out of the ad was to do with the drinking behaviour and that alcohol is responsible for her change in demeanour - it is not victim-blaming. It is crucial to the commercial's success that women can identify strongly with Lisa's drinking behaviour. Our research testing of the ad has shown this to be the case.

3. Focus Groups
During the development process we went back to groups of women at two different stages to test both the concepts and to ensure that the out take of the advertisement was that it was about the drinking behaviour and not blaming the person.

Focus groups conducted with the completed ad clearly demonstrated that:

• It has a very high personal relevance and the scenario is recognisable and believable. "I could see myself in that ad. Been there, done that, so many times before!" "This reminds me of me and my mates. Horrible. Makes me think I want all my friends to watch this." "Made me concerned, because I get like her."
• Drinking with workmates and gulping a few backto feel comfortable and a part of the group, is a scenario women like Lisa totally can relate to. "Drinks after work... trying to fit in... I can relate to that."
• "Hooking up with guys" when drinking was talked about as commonplace, and seeing it in this context was a reminder of the inherent dangers of this behaviour. "Hooking up with strangers. I do that a lot after [drinking.] You don't know what they are capable of..."

4. Consultation
ALAC communicated with various social agencies in relation to the new ad campaign in the two weeks before ads went to air. Agencies included ACC, Land Transport NZ, Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Families Commission, Police, Jigsaw Family Services, Rape Crisis, the Family Planning Association and the Children's Commissioner. The ads were also played prior to screenings on television at stakeholder meetings held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch the week prior to the launch. ALAC also attended a Ministry of Women's Affairs staff meeting where there was debate over whether the Lisa ad blamed women.

In the future ALAC will consult with agencies working with rape and sexual assault at an earlier stage of developing any campaign that raises issues of sexual vulnerability for women.

5. Complaints
In the first two weeks after the ads played ALAC received three complaints about the Lisa ad. Two of the complaints concerned blaming women for rape. The other was concerned at the male was portrayed. Since then there have been three further complaints about the Lisa ad and whether it is blaming women. Some complaints have also been made to the Advertising Standards Authority.

6. Promotion
There have been approximately 300 spots from the launch of the campaign until the end of last week. They have run on TV1, TV2, TV3, Prime and Sky channels. The ad is likely to run for the foreseeable future. The campaign appears on television only and is aired after 8.30pm.

7. Finally
ALAC funds an 0800 number which is staffed by trained counsellors who qualified to deal with any issues that arise from viewing the ads. We would encourage anyone who wants to talk about any issues that result from viewing this ad or the other two in the series to ring the 0800 number displayed on all three ads.

Yours etc,

---

My initial thoughts are these:

• Vaughan has made a significant effort here, but hasn't answered all of my questions, particularly in regard to part 7, where I asked if ALAC would be prepared to meet with women who had been victims of sexual assaults to talk with them about the impact that the ads had on them personally. This has not even been addressed. As Vaughan has also failed to mention my question about whether they considered the impact this ad might have on those who had been victims of sexual assault I guess that means an answer in the negative to that one. Similarly with the lack of response to the query about the wisdom of asking people to consider and discuss an ad featuring a sexual assault in a group setting.
  
• The focus group work is clearly extensive, but seems to have missed any research on possible unintended consequences from the ad, i.e that the "take out" isn't just about binge drinking, but also about policing women's behaviour more generally and may serve to reinforce the "she was asking for it" trope.
• I find it interesting mental origami that Vaughan states that the message they wanted to get across, and which he claims was absorbed, was that it was the alcohol was responsible for the change in Lisa's demeanour, yet this is somehow in line with the campaign tag "it's not the drinking, it's how we're drinking"? Again this misses the fundamental point - the ad makes the link between Lisa's demeanour and the negative outcome for her, ie rape.
• The "hooking up with guys" point I just find quite disturbing and objectionable. Yet again, a crucial disconnect with our concerns. This is not Dennis from accounts, this is a sexual assault.
• In regard to the consultation stuff my reading of this is that they stuffed up a little and they know it. It really is very good indeed that they are going to involve groups like Rape Crisis (presumably) in developing any future ads that feature issues of sexual assault. Now if we could just get ALAC to stop thinking of it as "sexual vulnerability"...
  

Coincidentally I also received a response this week, in Friday's snail mail, from the ASA. More on that in a second post as time allows. I don't think you are going to like it much.

In the meantime here's Eleanor Bishop's column in Salient on this issue earlier this month, and also if you want to peruse all the posts on this issue so far I've tagged them with their own category, "The Lisa Advert Chronicles". And there's the online petition (over 340 sigs as I write) and the Facebook group (nearly 200 members) on the matter too.



* I've squished up the paragraphs a little to make this not quite such a massive post, and I had to type the letter in over the course of a few hours broken up by a baby who seems to have forgotten how to sleep so there may be some typos. Hopefully I'll get a chance to proof and correct tomorrow (Monday). So in the first instance please assume any errors with Mr Vaughan's letter are mine until I've had a chance to do that.

Sign the petition to get ALAC's Lisa ad off the air!

We now have a petition calling on ALAC to take the 'Lisa' ad off the air, to recognise that rape is not the fault of women who are attacked. Circulate the link: http://www.petitiononline.com/ALAClisa/petition.html

In which the author receives another letter from the ASA

Well with all that kerfuffle about the High Court decision on abortion, I almost forgot to mention that I received a letter from the ASA in Saturday's post. Before you get excited that this may mean an outcome, it's just a form letter acknowledging receipt of my complaint and telling me they are putting it into their process. Although it doesn't explicitly say so, I assume this letter, dated 12th June, is in response to the email I sent them on 30th May.* I was going to type their latest letter out but that really does sum it up.

What's encouraging is:
- I've been given a different complaint number (08/287) from the decision they had previously sent to me (08/183) and also to Joanna (and no doubt others) - I think this means they are treating my complaint as what is known as a "subsequent complaint", ie different in substance from a previous complaint made about the same ad. Which is good, because that is certainly the case.
- the Chairman will now determine if there is "a) suitable for the Board's consideration; and b) comes within the Board's jurisdiction." Clearly b) is met, so it's really just a matter of getting through a), to avoid last time's "no cause to proceed" result.
- they've identified a list of the parts of the Advertising Codes of Practice that they think are relevant to my complaint and it's quite long, which I would think might make it less likely they can claim it isn't suitable for consideration.
- the last sentence of the letter, which is from the same person who sent the previous PFO ones, starts "Please do not hesitate to contact me..." (Joanna I thought you would get a chuckle out of that!)

So if the Chairman decides the complaint should proceed several things will happen:
1. I will have to sign a waiver, signing away the right to "take or continue proceedings against the advertiser, publisher or broadcaster concerned." I'm assuming they mean legal proceedings, so that's not a problem. I'll let you know more once I've seen the wording of the waiver, assuming we get to that point.
2. The advertiser, in this case ALAC, will have an opportunity to put their case about why the ad doesn't breech the Codes.

Okie dokie, that's it for now, except to say I haven't heard back from ALAC yet, from my last email to them (the one with all the questions) and also that you should go read the comment thread on that post, especially Zanavashi's comment, which I think may be quite enlightening about the culture within addiction recovery circles and why this ad, and others like it, get made in the first place. C.C and Joanna have also been musing in that thread about a ten-year old ALAC ad from the "where's that drink taking you?" campaign, which, as C.C. covers in more length at her own blog, shows that ALAC has done this victim-blaming thing before...


* Actually I didn't even get a response to that email, so I sent a gentle reminder (honest!) on the 11th June, asking if they had received my previous email and forwarding it again.

The Lisa ad - next steps

Well I am ever so slightly more energised about this than I was yesterday, so I've managed to email the Advertising Standards Authority requesting a reply to my last email and send in our list of questions to Gerard Vaughan, CEO of ALAC, as part of the following emailed missive:

Kia ora Gerard,
Thank you for your response to my emailed complaint. My apologies for not writing sooner, as I have a young baby spare time is often difficult to find.

I have a number of questions in response to your reply, and the interview that you did on bfm's The Wire. I am encouraged that you have been open to discussion about the issues, and hope that we can continue our correspondence. As you are aware, a number of writers on the blog The Hand Mirror have been writing about this issue and our readers are keenly interested in further discussion also.

My questions are:
[roughly as they were in my post seeking your feedback, with the following additions/changes]
1. Conception
...1.3 At any stage of the ad's development was it suggested that the ad focus on the rapist rather than the victim? If yes, why was this direction not taken?
1.4 I understand that ALAC develops its advertising campaign as a result of research on drinking behaviour, and would like to know what research the Lisa ad is based on?

2. Content
...2.2 Did ALAC consider the impact that the Lisa ad might have on victims of rape and sexual assault who might view it?

3. Focus Groups
...3.3 Was there consideration given to the wisdom of asking people to discuss a sexual assault in a group setting, when they might have been a victim or perpetrator of such an attack?
3.4 Was there any examination of the issue of victim-blaming, or were participants simply asked whether the advert was likely to influence their drinking behaviour? In particular, was there any analysis of whether those outside the target group of young women were likely to take away the message that Lisa was at fault?

4. Consultation
In your response you stated that ALAC had consulted with various social agencies in relation to the new ad campaign. I understand that this consultation took place after the ad had already been filmed and only shortly before the first screening.
...4.3 In future would ALAC consider involving agencies working with the issues of rape and sexual assault at an earlier stage of developing a campaign?

7. Finally
7.1 Would ALAC be prepared to meet with women who have suffered sexual assault, to discuss with them the impact of the advertisement on them?

I should reiterate that in general I am supportive of the shock tactics of the campaign, and I do believe we have problems with our drinking culture which ALAC is working hard to address. If the Lisa ad had been done differently I suspect that I, and others who are concerned, would be very pleased indeed that ALAC was highlighting these issues.

I look forward to your response.

Yours truly, etc.

Thanks again to Anna McM for significant off blog help with this. I hope that the slightly nice tone encourages Vaughan to respond, as actually it would be really good if rather than ALAC getting overly defensive they actually take on board some of our points and don't do this again. For all my ranting, I tend to be an advocate of the honey-catches-more-flies-than-vinegar approach.

Now, in terms of doing something collective, what are people up for? I've been talking to a few people about an online petition, but given that many people have written about the issue under pseudonyms would that make it hard to sign? It might be nice to have something to show the depth and strength of concern, so that we aren't isolated and written off as individual cranks and prudes. What say you all?

bfm podcasts from today's The Wire, and other Lisa ad-related stuff

As I mentioned on Friday, The Wire played a series of interviews about the Lisa ad today. They played mine first, then spoke briefly with Hilary Souter from the Advertising Standards Authority (who wouldn't talk about the Lisa ad complaints, so it is just about the process), and finished up with Gerard Vaughan from ALAC. I've linked to the overview pages for each interview so that you can click through to the mp3s at a time that suits you, rather than have them possibly start blurting out.

Vaughan focused a lot on the "research" ALAC has done on the harm caused by alcohol, as well as the extensive focus group process used. The bfm interviewer, Hayden East, pushed him a bit about consultation with social agencies working in the area of rape and sexual assault, and the first time he dodged the question. The second time he made it sound like ALAC's marvellous "research" had resolved any concerns those groups might have had. I am keen to find out if this is really the case, as I suspect it is not the full truth. On the whole though I thought Vaughan was candid and prepared to discuss the issues, which is good. Hopefully it bodes well for continuing my correspondence with them, which I might get time to do on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I received a response from Sue Bradford today, which is supportive and indicates that she is going to pass my message on to the relevant Greens spokesperson (Sue Kedgeley).

I still haven't had any reply at all from the ASA to my emailed request that they actually consider my complaint (and those which raised similar issues). I was going to send it again today through a different channel, but I think I've run out of time, and to be honest I'm running out of energy about this a little. Fingers crossed I feel more invigorated tomorrow.

bfm interview on the Lisa ad on Monday

For those following the saga about the ALAC advert known as "Lisa", bfm (95 FM in Auckland) is doing a story on the issue on Monday's The Wire, between 12noon and 2pm. I've just done an interview for it and they are also talking to the ALAC CEO and someone from the ASA. There will be a podcast available after the show on Monday, so hopefully I'll be able to put a link up to it on Monday afternoon. I'm a bit nervous about it, I just hope I made sense.

I haven't heard back from the ASA and as the clock is ticking on making an appeal I'm going to follow that up on Monday. Hopefully I'll also finalise the questions to email to ALAC then too, so please do add any feedback you have over the weekend.

Questions for ALAC

Below are a series of questions I am considering sending to ALAC, to continue our correspondence about the Lisa advert. I'd really appreciate your feedback on them, and suggestions of other questions you might have. Thanks to Anna McM for helping me out with the list already. I'm still awaiting a response (any response) from the ASA in reply to my last missive to them.

Conception
Which advertising agency did ALAC use for this campaign?
What was the brief they were given by ALAC for what became the Lisa ad?
At any stage of the ad's development was it suggested that the ad focus on the rapist rather than the victim? (Lyn has a fantastic post on this issue by the way)

Content
Is the viewer intended to perceive any message as regards to the drinking behaviour of the rapist? If so, is his drinking supposed to be understood to be a factor in his behaviour?
Did ALAC consider the impact that the Lisa ad might have on victims of rape and sexual assault who might view it?

Focus Groups
You mentioned that ALAC had run the advertisement past a number of focus groups, including "young women," prior to screening.
Who were the participants in these focus groups? (In terms of what were the demographics of the group[s], not names and serial numbers!)
What messages exactly did they take away from the Lisa ad?
Was there any examination of the issue of victim-blaming, or were participants simply asked whether the advert was likely to influence their drinking behaviour?

Consultation
In your response you stated that ALAC had consulted with various social agencies in relation to the new ad campaign.
What was the process and timeline of consultation?
Who were these agencies and what feedback did they give in regard to the Lisa ad?

Complaints
How many complaints has ALAC received regarding the Lisa ad?
What were the concerns raised by the complainants?
Why has ALAC sent a standard "cut and paste" response to at least three complainants that I am aware of which a) does not address the concerns they have raised in their complaint and b) incorrectly claims only two complaints have been made about the Lisa ad (and that the other complaint is not about the victim-blaming issue)?

Promotion
How many spots has ALAC booked for the Lisa ad and how long is it likely to continue to be aired?
Is the campaign restricted to television advertising, or will parts of the Lisa ad, or references to the Lisa ad, be used in other media eg radio, newspaper or magazine advertising, bus stop signs, etc?

Finally
Has ALAC learnt anything from the complaints it has received in regard to the Lisa ad and will this change the way that ALAC approach this issue in the future? If yes, how? If no, why not?

---
What say you, dear readers?

PS There is now a Facebook group you can join to express your opposition to the Lisa ad. Hopefully it might be the start of some collective action on this issue. Writing blog posts and complaint letters is kind of solitary; worthy, but not as strong as a group effort.

PPS Somehow I missed this previously. It's coverage of the ASA decisions, including the decision to screen all three ads in the campaign after the watershed (8.30pm).

Pain in the ASA

Further to yesterday's quick update on the saga of ALAC's Lisa ad, this is what I've emailed to asa@asa.co.nz today, in response to the decision they sent me a copy of. The letter and decision I have received are identical to those Joanna has typed up at Hubris, and you can even view a word document of the decision here (curtsy to Art and My Life for the link). And yes my letter also states "Do not contact me should you have any further queries." (my emphasis, note the absence of the usual please at the beginning!) For this reason I have sent the below to the email listed on their letterhead. Hopefully it will get to the right person/s.

To Whom It May Concern

Re: My complaint to the ASA in regard to ALAC's "Lisa" advert, submitted via the ASA website on 2nd May 2008

1. Concerns in relation to process:
1.1 The decision that my complaint was not to proceed appears to have been taken before I had made the complaint.
My complaint appears to have been addressed along with a number of others regarding the advert in question, in particular the complaint of C Smith, labelled Complaint 08/183. The summary of the decision made by the Chairman is dated 15 April 2008. I did not send my complaint in until 2 May 2008. Therefore it appears that the Chairman, or the Complaints Board, have not in fact even read my complaint prior to dismissing it.

1.2 The decision is based on a complaint quite different in nature from mine.
The basis of my complaint was that it perpetuated a number of rape myths, which I wrote about at some length, including quoting research that debunked the common perceptions that the Lisa advert is reinforcing (namely women are most at risk of stranger rape, that rape happens in dark alleys, etc). In particular I was very concerned that the Lisa ad is blaming the victim for the actions of a rapist. However Complaint 08/183, from C Smith, is quoted in the decision as being:

"...sexual assault (even if it is only inferred) has no place in an advertisement where there is no warning as to content."

This is completely different in nature to my complaint. The decision goes on to state that "Duplicate Complainants raised similar issues." I do not see how my complaint, on the grounds of perpetuating dangerous rape myths, is similar to or duplicates being concerned that a sexual assault is depicted without a warning. I did not mention any complaint of that nature in my submission to the ASA. I am therefore not satisified that the ASA has considered the points raised in my complaint, as the decision used to dismiss my complaint deals with another complaint about a different matter entirely.

1.3. Not all provisions complained under were considered
The decision in relation to Complaint 08/183 mentions that the relevant provisions were Basic Principle 4 and Rules 5, 7 and 11, of the Code of Ethics. My complaint was also made on the grounds of Basic Principle 3, which I consider highly relevant. Basic Principle 3 states:

3. No advertisement should be misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive the consumer.

While I do consider Basic Principle 4 to be the most important here, as it requires advertisements to "be prepared with a due sense of social responsibility to consumers and society," again the decision does give the impression that the Chairman has not in fact looked at my complaint at all, as it does not mention both principles under which I complained.


2. Concerns in relation to substance:
I will not reiterate my original complaint here, although I have attached a copy of it for your consideration at the next available opportunity. However I do have an additional point to raise which I hope the ASA will also consider, along with my original complaint.

2.1 Impact of the Lisa advert on victims of rape and sexual assault
Since writing to the ASA, and ALAC, with my concerns about the Lisa ad I have been contacted by a number of women who have experienced rape and/or sexual assault. They have mentioned the guilt that they have felt for the violation they suffered, in particular because they had been drinking when it occurred. In some cases their inebriation caused them not to go to the police to report the crime, and as a result the rapist did not face accountability for their actions. These women have told me how difficult it is for them to watch the Lisa ad, and that it merely reinforces the guilt that they have often taken some years to rightfully absolve themselves of. Many of these women have also had to deal with others blaming them for the actions of a rapist, because they were drunk when the assault occurred, and the Lisa advert is only encouraging this unfair blaming to continue in our community. Here are a number of quotes from one of the woman who has contacted me, and who has given me permission to share her story (here I have included some of Anna McM's excellent and courageous post).

I hope this gives you some idea of the impact that the Lisa ad is having on actual real women who have been in this situation.

3. Desired outcome:

I would like the ASA to actually consider my complaint, and the additional point I have raised above in 2.1. Currently the impression I have formed from the letter I received from the Deputy Secretary, and the attached decision in relation to Complaint 08/183, is that ASA has not considered any complaint in relation to the Lisa advert, except that of C Smith which does not raise the same concerns as mine. Until such time as I receive correspondence that indicates otherwise I will be assuming, based on the evidence to date, that the ASA complaints procedure has yet to deal with my complaint of 2 May 2008. I would appreciate it if my complaint could be tabled at the next meeting which deals with these matters.

3. In Summary
At this stage it appears to me that the ASA have found that my complaint has "no grounds to proceed" without actually considering it (see points 1.1 - 1.3 above).

I am aware that the appeal process of the ASA requires that a complainant make such an appeal within 14 days of receiving a decision in regard to their complaint. As I have not yet received a decision in regard to my complaint this letter is not a request for the Appeals Board to consider the matter. I am emailing today to insist that the ASA actually consider my complaint, and those of any other complainants who have been similarly treated.

As the only body which regulates advertising in NZ the ASA has an important public role in aiding citizens to have their say over advertisements that concern them. To date the ASA has not fulfilled its civic duty in regard to my complaint, and a number of others that I am aware of that are on similar grounds (and not the grounds of C Smith's complaint). I hope that this oversight can be addressed quickly and fairly.

I look forward to your response and thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours etc,

---

Ok, I'm thinking about other ways to raise these concerns, and I'm hoping to write about that in the next few days. I've emailed Rape Crisis (now called Rape Prevention Education) and Auckland Sexual Abuse Help for their thoughts on the whole shemozzle, and I'm going to write to Green MP Sue Bradford and see what she thinks too.

Any ideas please add them in comments. At this point I'm kind of reticient about going to the media directly as it is old news to them and I'm not sure I'm a good person to front this sort of issue, given that I've not suffered a sexual assault and I'm also a teetotaller.

Also, here's a post from Charlotte on the victim-blaming in the ad, which I only just managed to get to reading today. Apologies for not linking to it sooner.

---

If this post confuses you, or you are looking for the back story, you can find all our posts about the Lisa advert so far, and no doubt whatever we write in the future, in our Rape Is Not Ok section.

Quick Update on the "Lisa" ad, ALAC and the ASA decision

I received my response from the ASA in regard to my complaint about the "Lisa" advert ALAC is running, it was in the post on Saturday (I just forgot to clear the letterbox). The ASA response I've had is the same as what Joanna received, and is actually worse than the reply from ALAC. I' using the word "response" here, but in fact it doesn't respond to the points I raised. For one thing, the decision "not to proceed" with my complaint was taken before I actually made it...

I'm going to write more about this soon. I'm going to write back to ALAC, and I'm going to at least write back to the ASA and possibly to the Complaints Appeal Board as I have issues with their process as well as the actual decision made. I want to do it all when I have time to do it properly, preferably in one go. Wriggly hasn't been cooperating with my need for typing time lately (really, he is acting like a total baby) but we are getting back to our vague routine again now. There is something intrinsically wrong with a world where I have to wash sleepy suits before I can blog ;-)

While I've been off blog a number of others have written about this whole situation, and I firmly recommend that you have a gander, if you haven't already.

• Motivated by fury not despair - Joanna at Hubris
• Just fuck you ALAC. Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on - QoT at Ideologically Impure
• Nobody likes a smart ALAC - our own Anna McM
• Asking for it - Jill from Jilling Off (sorry I missed this in earlier round-ups)
  What's wrong with this picture, ALAC? - Anna McM uses ALAC's logic on Asians instead of women

And I've just found this approval of the Lisa ad from Family Planning, who seem to ignore the fact that it isn't about drunken sex it's about rape. Presumably this is one of the social agencies that ALAC reckoned they had discussed the ad with before screening. I'd be really angry if I wasn't so sad.

Particularly powerful are the personal stories of women who have been assaulted whilst drunk, and the guilt they felt; guilt ALAC's advertisement is reinforcing and fuelling. It's an angle, an important one, that I hadn't considered until Anna brought it to my attention, and I think it strikes at the heart of the problem with the "Lisa" ad - it encourages women to feel responsible for rape, and it discourages them from going to the police.

Ok, hopefully more tomorrow or the next day. If anyone else is considering going to the Complaints Appeal Board of the ASA then you have to do so within a fortnight of receiving the decision. That's all I know about the process at this stage, but I'll find out more.

What's wrong with this picture, ALAC?

Asian people should not go out at night in Christchurch. Christchurch has a high level of racial violence. If Asian people could be kept from going out at night, racial violence would be reduced; therefore, Asian people ought to stay at home to prevent violence. That's just common sense. The Asian person who goes out at night, knowing that racial violence is a possibility, is at best irresponsible. You'd almost have to wonder if such a person actually wants to be assaulted.

If this sounds like crap, that's because it's crap.

ALAC claims that its 'Lisa' ad has had an impact on its target audience, and I've no doubt this is true. The ad's message is that the world is a dangerous, misogynistic place. Individual women must arrange our lives around this fact, hoping that if we stay sober, lock our doors and dress modestly, the inevitable lurking rapist will pass us by - presumably on his way to target some other, less cautious, female. Viewed this way, sexual violence looks like a problem facing unlucky or drunk individual women, not as a societal issue to which everyone has a responsibility to respond.

There are many good reasons to avoid drinking to excess. Trying to curb the criminal actions of others is not one of them.

Nobody likes a smart ALAC

Watching Julie's correspondence with ALAC over the 'Lisa' ad, I've veered between bemusement, anger and deep sadness. In her post, 'The risk of harm', Julie mentions her experience within an organisation she belonged to, during which a male in the organisation was unmasked as a sexual predator. The occasion of the unmasking was a sexual attack on another woman within the organisation, and that woman was me. It could have been you, and maybe on another occasion it was.

The incident occurred a few years ago. I was away from home attending a conference in Wellington, and at the end of the day a bunch of us from the conference went into town. I no longer drink, but in those days I certainly did, and that night I got really drunk. I could tell you why – alcohol seemed in those days to medicate a lifetime of chronic depression, I was a young mum away from her child for the first time, drinking is fun – but it has no bearing at all on what was to happen. I was drunk and I was acting the goat, loud and happy. The predator was at the pub, and during the night I gave him an exuberant, meaningless, drunken kiss.

At the end of the night, a bunch of us returned to the friend's house we were crashing at. The predator followed us back. Like everyone else, I went to bed. I have a memory which won't be erased of the predator, appearing silhouetted in the door of my room, while I looked at him in confusion. I was drunk and disorientated. I still don't understand why anyone would want to have sex with a person who is crying.

I couldn't report the incident to the Police. I never even gave it serious consideration, although I still agonise over the fact that, by failing to report it, I left the predator free to do the same thing to other women.

ACC paid for me to see a counsellor. The counsellor asked me to describe what had happened to me, and I duly did. 'That is very upsetting', she said, then honed in immediately on the drinking. Did I drink regularly? How much? All I'd really wanted from a counsellor – from anyone, really – was to sit with me, without judging, while I cried. That was the moment at which I decided to hide the incident away inside myself, and let it corrode me with guilt and unhappiness.

Five years on, this is the first time I've 'confessed'. I use this word because, in the face of my all my feminist logic, I cannot quell the feeling that I am to blame for my own attack by a guy who was a known danger to women. I'd like to say that it's cathartic to be open about it, but it's really just painful and humiliating. My culpability has been drummed into me by the counsellor, by anyone who equates women's drunkenness with their sexual availability, and now by ALAC. No matter how drunk a woman she is, her chance of rape is zero unless there is a rapist in her vicinity. Rape is not a form of drunken harm (and I do not wish to minimise the impacts of such harm). It is an act carried out by a criminal. The onus of stopping rape lies upon rapists, not victims. And yet the view that women increase their own chances of rape by drinking has damaged me, my integrity and my personhood, in a very profound way which I wouldn't wish on anybody.

And that's why the 'Lisa' ad disturbs me. Lisa will reflect on her attack the next day. She will know full well that she's a silly bitch in the eyes of others. She'd been so drunk she was staggering. She'd been dancing, by herself – provocatively, some might argue. She practically delivered herself into the hands of her rapist. When she considers whether to report the attack, she may wonder whether she has the courage to go to the Police, and from thence perhaps to court, where her drinking behaviour will be scrutinised; and although the words 'silly bitch' won't be uttered, they will be strongly implied. Lisa may choose simply to live, silently and alone, with the pain and the harm done her by her attacker. And if, like me, she lacks the strength to stand up and be judged as a silly drunken bitch, she leaves her attacker free to do it all again to other 'silly bitches'.

The Risk of Harm

No one, man or woman, is ever asking for rape, no matter what they do. In my humble opinion if someone is too drunk to consent then that shouldn’t count as consent. I realize this isn’t the stance our justice system takes, due to issues around evidence, but I just can’t understand why anyone would want to have sex with someone who wasn’t into it, or was too out of it to know what was going on. Why not get yourself a sex doll and avoid the possibility of hideously violating someone? If the sexual stimulation is the very fact that the other person is comatose, powerless, unable to communicate, then actually what is turning you on is rape. And that’s not ok.

In my teens I used to know a guy who would quite often use drinking games at parties to get one young woman drunk. He was a tall solid fella, so it took rather a lot for him to lose his faulties to any significant degree, but not so for some of the women around the table. He would further queer the pitch by changing the rules on people, once they were starting to get too drunk to remember how the game was played. Often he would disappear into a bedroom with his target later in the evening. If she was too out of it to consent, or not into it, would his responsibility for raping her somehow be diminished because she had willingly sat down at that table to play?

Let’s put this another way (and I freely admit that this way is heavily inspired and influenced by an excellent Pat Booth column that was in my local paper a while back [sadly offline].) Is there any other crime someone could commit against me where my sobriety (or lack thereof) would diminish their responsibility, and I would share some of the blame? If I have too many wine coolers and someone mugs me on the way to the toilet at the pub is that partly my fault? If I get all tiddly on shandies, ask a friend to help me get from the taxi to my bedroom, and said friend beats me up and leaves me for dead on the hall floor, was I being reckless with my own safety?

Booth’s column put it far more eloquently than I have, writing the cross-examination of a victim of a mugging as if they were a rape victim, and pointing out the way in which we so often blame the person violated, by virtue of making excuses for the rapist based on the actions (or inactions, or “wrong” actions) of the victim. To my mind using “she was drunk” as an argument that a woman has put herself at risk of harm is on this same slippery slope.*

Why the different standard for rape? Why do we consider women who walk alone at night, or are drunk around men, or get separated from their friends while clubbing, or wear short skirts and FM boots, or who go home with a man but don’t want to have sex, or who get in a taxi with a man who they’ve already let feel their boobs, or who change their mind, somehow responsible for a violation they would never choose, drunk or sober?

In my darker moments, when I despair a bit about human nature, I wonder if the victim blaming is an unholy marriage between sexism and denial. If our society was honest about what constitutes rape then many people might have to also deal with the fact that they have raped, or been raped themselves. I have seen this culture of denial first hand when a sexual predator was unmasked in an organization I was involved in – a woman who I suspect had been one of his victims defended the rapist to the hilt and I believe that was because she could only think of what had happened between them as consensual, otherwise her brain would have to deal with the reality of rape. It’s an understandable response, when faced with the enormity of violation, to seek comfort in denial.

I’m a hypocrite of course. I don’t get drunk, I avoid walking alone at night, I get my keys out in the carpark to ward off an imaginary attacker, I offer to walk with my friends to the bus stop after a late night movie. I fear violence in all the stereotypical situations, and from all the stereotypical sources, despite knowing that I am most likely to be attacked in my own home, and by someone I know. My head has yet to overrule my gut in this matter.

If I wasn’t a “good girl” I wouldn’t be asking for rape. I wouldn’t be responsible, in any way, for the sexual response of anyone else. And I’m yet to be convinced that how much alcohol I have consumed makes me culpable, even just a tiny bit, for someone else choosing to attack me, just because that violence is a sexual violation.

*Hence my extreme disappointment not only with the “Lisa” advert ALAC have run recently, but also with their response. I’ve written enough about that specific campaign already recently, all I can really do now is despair and conclude that they just don’t get it, then take a deep breath and write back to them in hope.

ALAC Responds to Complaint About "Lisa" Ad

I’ve been away from the keys most of the last week* and just before I waved a fond farewell to my hapless PC on Friday I received an email from ALAC. I scanned it, noted its amazing similarity to their online response to comments Joanna and I made at the ALAC blog, and then put it on my to do list for when I was back in Blogland.

Background to this can be found here (Maia's post about the victim blaming), here (my post on how to make a complaint), here (my official complaint) and here (an update on the issue). And here is ALAC's reply:

Subject: FW: Official Complaint "Lisa" advert response I am intending sending. Cheers Lynne

Message:
Kia ora Julie

Thank you for your email outlining your concern. I understand you see one of our recently launched advertisements as blaming women who are victims of crimes that occur when they have been binge drinking.

The message in all three of our advertisements is that binge drinking increases the risks of harm to yourself or harm to others. The advertisements however are not about blame. We have conducted a lot of focus group testing (including with young women who drink) to ensure that the take out message from these adverts is about increased risks from binge drinking. At ALAC we are very clear that while binge drinking does increase your risk of harm, this does not mean that if you are a victim of a crime while drunk that you are to blame. This point did test positively with our target audiences, that the advertisement was about highlighting real risks from drinking and not about apportioning blame.

However given the strong messages in the advertisements we did expect a range of responses from the general public. The feedback that we have received has reflected this broad range of responses. As well as receiving a considerable amount of support for tackling the difficult issue of the real impacts and costs of our binge drinking culture, we have also received some complaints that we have gone too far in the use of "shock tactics" and in particular that the ad showing harm to a child should not be viewed during the day. We have also received two complaints (as well as your phone call) about the ad showing a young women binge drinking. One of the complaints raised the same issue you did, while the other objected to the advertisement portraying men as predators. The Advertising Standards Authority has also received some complaints on our advertising, and we are expecting them to consider these complaints and make their decision at their meeting in May.

We have thought long and hard about our decision to develop such strong messages as seen in all three of our latest advertisements. There is a very real urgency to do something about changing New Zealand's binge drinking culture as it is creating an enormous amount of preventable harm. Research statistics from Police, Ministry of
Transport and hospital emergency services show that harms for women are
increasing and that if the trend continues they will start to outstrip males in terms of harms from alcohol use. These statistics are also supported by anecdotal information on trends from many of our partner organisations in health and social services who we shared the advertisements with prior to going to air.

Kind Regards

Gerard Vaughan
CEO ALAC

Their main arguments appear to be:

• The intended message of the advert is not to blame but to minimize harm.
• In focus groups, which included young women,** this main message was clearly absorbed.
• They have had very few complaints about the Lisa advert, both in absolute terms and in comparison to the Mark advert (which includes a child being thrown against a wall).
• The shock ad campaign is necessary due to the large amount of serious harm being done by binge drinking.

Sigh. More to come later on the guts of this disappointing response, in particular how they completely ignore my points about rape myths.

In regard to the number of complaints, the statement in their response is just plain wrong, as you can see in the comment thread to my last update on this issue. It’s a petty thing to focus on, and it isn’t my main point, but I do feel like they could put sufficient effort into their response to a) not so obviously cut and paste; b) respond to the arguments actually raised in the complaint (and that would also deal with point a); and c) not seek to incorrectly minimize the negative correspondence they’ve received on the issue. Is a little bit of savvy too much to ask for?

Anyway, I’m going to write back with a number of questions and additional points, but I need to take a few days to consider my response. In the meantime I’ve written a post on this concept of “the risk of harm” that ALAC seem so keen on (and it also covers the dilemma Anjum raised), and I’ll put it up once I finish proof-reading. I hope any feedback from readers on that post (and this one!) will help me to further crystallize my arguments before I write to ALAC again.

Please feel free to add your thoughts in comments, I will be very interested to read them. Have any of the others who wrote complaints had responses? Are they any different from the form response I’ve had?

Oh, and I haven’t heard anything from the ASA yet.


* Thank goodness for Blogger’s new scheduling tool, foiling burglars and garden arsonists since 2008.
** I’m not sure why “young women” are specifically mentioned. After all it isn’t only young women who get raped, in fact it isn’t even only women who get raped. And not everyone who has expressed their concern about the Lisa advert fits into the “young woman” demographic. I’m not sure I do myself these days.